As two new donkey arrivals are on their way as I write, you may even see them walking to here from Verfeil sur Seye, we have been cloturing even more field. Whilst Malc and I were out on Wednesday the young couple with the donkeys were cloturing / fencing our neighbours adjoining field.
We have a lot of land but we also use a field next to one of ours which just gives more grazing for the girls. What we had not realised is the couple had moved one wood further on and started cloturing yet another field of another neighbour. They had just about finished when a retired French farmer told them that field belonged to a lady who would not be best pleased.
They came to tell me and this morning I went off in search of the distant neighbour to seek permission rather than have to take down all the fencing.
Land is sacred to the French, even if they do not use it, it belongs to them and most are not even happy if you go seeking mushrooms without permission.
Anyway off I went and when I arrived the old lady was still in her dressing gown but she welcomed me in and we had a lovely chat around the fire. There is no problem with us using the field and it was fortunate that I had asked as she had been told by the other neighbour what had been going on.
In fact the lady is saddened that she does not know our new young neighbours and their friends so I have arranged a coffee morning or afternoon tea "chez nous"for everyone to meet.
It seems funny that the organiser between two or three French neighbours is English, but it will be a good opportunity for me to continue practising my French and it is nice to be a good neighbour.
Where does the skullduggery come in... well it was a bit mean to go rushing to spill the beans before we had chance to sort it out and ask permission but perhaps skullduggery is a bit excessive, trouble is I like the ring to the word, so it is staying.
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