They don’t bark at family (France)

One of the things I noticed during an early stay on the French farm was:  the farm mistress didn’t look up at the sound of every approaching car.

    The farm is on a ridge parallel to, and north of, the Pyrénées, with a stunning view of the mountain range when the atmospheric pressure is right.  They are hidden from sight most of the time, so that you can’t even tell they are there.  If they are fully visible in their snow-topped glory, then it’ll rain the next day (or so).

    The nearest neighbours are:  a couple 1km away down by the A21, the main road leading to the Pyrénées; and also 1km away but in the other direction, the village idiot [as he’s called by the locals] and his brother and sister-in-law further inland.  Only the postman would drive up to the house.  Or the neighbours, or friends and relatives, maybe a customer to buy wood from the little sawmill on the farm.

    For a farm that is out on a limb, they get quite a few visitors, being so popular and hospitable.  This means more cars driving up to the house than its secluded location would otherwise attract.

    The dogs only bark at outsiders.  So, if one can hear a car driving up to the house and the dogs (there were nine of them at one point) don’t bark, it is someone known to the family.  It's absolutely amazing how they manage to remember which car sound is a new one (to them).

    Even though I only went once a year, during the long summer school holidays, staying only three weeks each time, the dogs remembered me every subsequent visit.

    On my very first visit during the Easter break in 1996, I’d arrived at midnight, having taken the Eurostar to Paris, then the TGV all the way to Agen, and then an hour-long bus journey to Auch, 6 kms from the farm, being met there by the farm mistress (my student's mother).

    As I stepped out of the car, I found myself surrounded by six dogs who emerged suddenly out of the dark, even at that late hour.

 

    One of them, Pastou* (pronounced “pa-tu”), stood up on his hind legs and put his front paws on my shoulders.  I stepped back to try and make him drop his paws, but he simply walked forwards with me as I stepped back.  That was my first reception.

    After that day, I got to know the rest of the canine members of the family:  Patoche (meaning “paw”), Fleurie….  All hunting dogs.  All brown and short-haired.  And short-legged.

    On my visit in 2012, I was invited out by a British girl who’d married a local man down the road.  We went into town: to the market, to the little museum, then for a coffee.  After that, we went back to her place for dinner and a chat, before she drove me back to the farm around 11 pm.

    The farm owners go to bed around 9 pm, so I asked her to drop me off at the bottom of the last stretch of the drive up, so that the dogs’ barking wouldn’t disturb the sleeping human occupants.  I had a wind-up torch on me, but I didn’t need it as there was a full moon.

    It wasn’t until I reached the front door of the farm house that I realised the dogs had not barked at all throughout the 100-metre walk up the drive.  

    It was dark, they only saw me once a year, yet they somehow knew it was me.  They presumably had a mental record of my footsteps (from the daytime) over the three weeks of my stay, rather than the sound of a car engine.  Amazing.

    I felt so honoured — to have been accepted by the dogs as family!

(Gers, S.W. France, 1990s)

* Pastou, ironical name for a hunting dog!  From googling: The term “pastou” [pronounced pa-tu] is derived from the word “pastre”, meaning shepherd in old French and designates a shepherd’s dog as it was understood in times past.  Unlike a herd dog, the role of the guard dog is not to drive the sheep but rather to protect them from wild animals or feral dogs.

**This blog supplements the blog "Chinese sayings:  35 (吠非其主)" 

https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2025/01/chinese-sayings-35_27.html 

The village idiot:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2012/05/village-idiot-france.html 

Why the postman never calls twice:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-postman-never-calls-twice.html 

Speed reading on a speedy train (France)

Colette’s always trying to make sure I’m well looked after.  On one of my trips to the farm, she suggested I go via Toulouse (instead of Agen), stay the night with her mother’s godma so that I could see a bit of the city, then she’d fly in the following evening after work, and we could go to the farm together the next day.

I was going by train, and precise meeting arrangements were made and very clear instructions given:  there were two different exits, and I was to walk across to the farther one where Jeanette’s godma and her husband would be waiting for me, dressed in British colours (dark blue and red), holding a British magazine in their hand.

I’d had a quick glance at my ticket when checking the train number and time of departure, so only had a fleeting glimpse of the name of the train station in Toulouse, which I saw started with M.  (For those who don't already know and are curious, it is Matabiau.)

After something like five hours on the TGV, comfortable though the journey had been and much as I love train journeys, I was ready for Toulouse, so when the train pulled into a station with a name that started with M, I grabbed my bag and leapt off, even though a quick check of my watch told me that it was about 20 minutes earlier than the scheduled arrival time.  Something at the back of my mind told me that the TGV might be fast but they’re not supposed to be that fast and arrive that early.  I should’ve listened to that warning bell.

Within five seconds of stepping off the train, I realised my mistake because the train station did not look anything like the description given by Monsieur Bernard, the godma’s husband.  I turned round to jump back on, but it was already pulling out of the station.

OK, first thing to do: ring Monsieur Bernard to let them know I won’t be on that train.  Wrong coins.  I have the old French franc ones, but a very kind bloke at the station (eastern European, I felt he was) gives me some of his own.  I get Monsieur Bernard’s answering machine.  Ah, they’ll have left for the train station.  Oh dear.  Oh well, can’t do anything about it now. 

Left the message, then thought, “Maybe I could try and make my own way there by another means, since the next train isn’t for another hour.”

At the entrance was a young couple, in their 20s.  When I asked them if I could get a taxi to Toulouse, their sharp intake of breath told me it wouldn’t be a wise move.  Then the pieces started to fall more into place:  a TGV distance of 20 minutes would be a very long way.  A taxi would cost the earth.  So I sat in the station bar and sampled some French bottled beer for an hour until the next train.

To this day, any mention of the name Montauban would bring back vivid memories of that careless hasty move.

Follow that bus! (France)

Farm mistress Jeanette (my student Colette’s mother) and I had got up nice and early for me to catch the very first bus from Auch to Agen, where I was to board my TGV train to Paris, and from there my Eurostar train for London.  Again, another stack of domino-effect arrangements (see blog entry Cuzco chico). 

It was still dark when we got there, at about 5.30am.  Sat there in silence (Jeanette can’t speak English, and I can’t speak French), waiting in the car park in front of Auch train station from which the coaches normally left.  

Being half awake, we didn’t quite consciously register that the car park was unusually devoid of any coaches, parked or otherwise.  There was only one other car a few spaces away from us, with three people in it, obviously also waiting for a coach.

The next thing was, we saw my coach beetling off down the road.  

Now where did it appear from??!! 

It turned out that they’d moved the coach bays, which were now over to the other side.  Neither we nor the occupants of the other car knew that, so we'd been waiting all the while at the wrong place. 

The driver of the other car leapt out of his car at the same time as Jeanette and I, and dashed over to the one coach sitting there in the new coach bay area.  He challenged the poor driver of that coach, in French: “Why did no-one tell us that you’ve now moved over to this side!  We’ve been waiting over there for ages!  And we have to catch a train at Agen for Paris!!  Now what are we going to do!?” 

The coach driver just shrugged his shoulders.  After all, what was he to do about it?  He did try to help though, by saying, “Maybe you could catch up with it as it’s doing its round of village stops.”  The car driver said, “Right, that’s what we’ll do.”  

Jeanette, hovering just behind him, fully awake now, eagle-eyed and ears all flapping, looking like a vulture eagerly waiting for even the smallest crumbs, said, “Et la Chinoise??”  I’d never heard myself referred to as such before. 

The man said, in French, “She can come too.”  I hopped in with my bag, and we started chasing the bus, which by now had a good 10-minute head start on us. 

The route was a straight one to Agen on the main road, but the village stops involved turning off the main road, doing a loop, picking up passengers at the village stops, then re-joining the main road.  

For a few village stops, we would just miss the bus by a few minutes—arriving to find seers-off turning away to go back home—then quickly rush back to the main road. 

One more village stop and then the coach would be on the long and straight run to Agen, which meant that it'd go at the maximum speed allowed.  It was starting to get hairy.

Then, just before we got to the final village stop, we saw ahead the bus emerging onto the main road, so we sped forwards.  

Once abreast of the coach, we ran alongside it, wound down the windows, stuck all available arms out of the windows, waved madly and shouted out at the driver to let us get on.  

He pulled over, and we climbed aboard.  

Phew.

(Auch, France)

Cuzco chico:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/07/cuzco-chico_15.html 

Follow that train!:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/07/follow-that-train.html