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Saw Point
Now please don’t get me wrong. I love my Froggie chums to bits. The kindest, gentlest, most sociable and cultured people on the planet. No doubt about it. Well there isn’t any doubt until peut etre un peu creeps in when one considers the gentle art of French chatting.
Froggies do. Chat that is. Unceasingly, relentlessly and generally spend 95% of their chatting about what people of all nationalities chat about best. Yup, you've got it. Other people's business. Slagging off one's voisin (neighbour). If it ever becomes an Olympic sport then the French will take Bronze, Silver, Gold and, especially for them, Platinum!
Woe betide you if, in your usual mad haste at daybreak, you dash down to your boite aux lettres (personal letter box) always located conveniently near to your house (in the next province!) you run into a voisin along the way. Expect to be there, at what ever point you were apprehended, middle of the road or not, chatting away until dusk. Wise advice therefore being never to venture outside your front door unless suitably encumbered with flask of tea, sandwiches, umbrella, warm coat, folding chair and if between the darker months of October and March, a torch and sleeping bag. You are almost certainly going to need them.
You're not even safe in your own front garden. Last Autumn I decided that my old apple tree had suffered enough from the bumpers of Citroen Deux Chevaux and Renault 4 inexpertly aimed (subject of another and separately documented rant) around my rond pointe (roundabout) and therefore the time had arrived for it to be felled. It had stood serenely and proudly on the spot probably since before cars became a popular means of wiping out half the population in car manic France. However, with scarcely a five and a half metre wide gap between my tree and the kerb on the opposite side of my driveway then being hit by every entering French driven car was only to be expected. So down it had to come.
I am proud owner of the village chain saw. It's called the 'village chain saw' because everyone from the age of six years old upwards asks to borrow it. Naturally though with at least some element of social responsibility still left in me I never lend it to any child under the age of nine. Not unless they're wielding a shotgun at the time of asking to borrow it, then of course it's a different matter. Thus it was on this balmy August day I leapt upon my trusty velocipede to cycle into the village and retrieve my chain saw. I had lent it only the previous February to Madame Bonbonnière's little twelve year old niece, Chloé Bonnepied, who asked to borrow it at as she urgently needed to despatch a flock of hens that had unilaterally made a serious and fatal error of judgement by refusing to lay. Or at least that's what I think she said.
It took me quite a while removing all the feathers, sharpening and re-oiling the chain (and re-oil its operator! I always get nervous when operating a chain saw so a couple of stiff Scotches helps to calm the old nerves. It also sharpens up the reflexes a treat.) and re-filling the fuel tank (and re-filling its operator! Like I said, I always get nervous when operating a chain saw so a couple more stiff Scotches helps to calm the old nerves even better and sharpens up the reflexes even more!).
Did it want to start? Did it hell! All the feathers in the air filter didn't help and then I
discovered young Chloé must have broken the starter cord and had lovingly replaced it with
what looked like a length of her skipping rope. The rope was a bit of a tight fit and
after half a bottle of Scotch my cord pulling energy was beginning to wane a tad.
After twenty minutes of yanking the cord it eventually fired up though and I quickly
felled the old apple tree across my driveway. Next job was to 'limb' all the branches
lest un voisin careered into my driveway in pursuit of a last minute chat before
heading down to the bar for another chat and failed to see and negotiate it; for one
last time. As the French generally hurtle around the countryside with gazes fixed
firmly anywhere except through the windscreen this is always a very real possibility.
I knew I had to work fast. I was low on fuel and I knew that starting it when hot was
always even more difficult than when cold, such was the poor condition of both the
worn cylinder and the leaky old carburettor. Along the road comes un voisin. Safely
ensconced in trusty, rusty Deux Chevaux. So rusty in fact you could see his trouser
legs flapping in the slipstream as it neared its maximum velocity of sixty three kilometres
per hour (never driven at anything less. Not even in his garage!).
For once he saw there was an obstruction in my driveway and so stopped in the middle of the road
opposite where I stood. As did the school bus that fortunately had managed to arrest
its progress despite up until that moment being driven at the obligatory safe distance
in France of thirty centimetres behind. I was surprised that the bus driver didn't protest
at the enforced emergency stop however with thirty five school children now
accompanying her on the front seat or on the dashboard she probably had other things
on her mind.
"Bonjour Pierre! Ca va?" (hello Pierre. You well?) I yelled, at the top of my voice above the roar of my chainsaw (I really must see if I can find where I left the silencer after I last stripped it down).
"Ca Va?" Replies Pierre. At least that's what I think he said from my attempts at lip reading as I couldn't hear a thing above the noise of the saw. Pierre continued to shout and yell at me from the hammock often optimistically described as a seat in such contraptions as the Deux Chevaux. 'Hen House on Wheels' my dear late Dad used to call them.
In the end I conceded and reluctantly flicked the stop switch.
"Are you cutting your apple tree down then?" Asks Pierre. Cheerfully.
"No Pierre, it's just ******* resting!" I replied. Cheerfully.
I forgot to mention. The French as I said, spend 95% of their time slagging off their voisins. The remaining 5% is chatting about absolutely nothing at all of any use or of any interest to anyone whatsoever!
I've finished moaning now.
For the day anyway.
