Caught in the middle?

Ste Fleur
Yesterday's weather: warm, dull, dry.

Our neighbour Monsieur C seems to be a dour creature. I say seems to be because he has never stopped to speak to us. He lives way over the hill and is rarely home. His family are sheep farmers and the majority of the farmland is in neighbouring villages. He goes off to work with his brothers and returns home briefly a couple of times a day and late at night. He never smiles but does wave a curt 'Bonjour' if we happen to be walking along the lane.

He rarely has the same vehicle twice in one day. There are two of the obligatory white vans, a blue van of the same type, and extremely old Citroen BX with a duff exhaust which splutters up and down the hill, a 2CV occasionally and, oddly, an elderly red Porsche. We can't see which vehicle is driving up the lane until it is adjacent with our house and we have come to recognise the different engine sounds but the way we always know it is him is because he always coughs.

This cough must be pretty bad, or it is triggered by a bump in the road or something, because he always seems to cough at the same place. Because he has never stopped and is so rarely home we have only ever seen him either from a distance or through the car windscreen. The other day we were at the village service station filling up the car and he was there. He totally ignored us but we did get a good look at his face for the first time. So, that puts about 10 years on the age I thought he was but the tell tale packet of cigarettes and 5 litre flagon of wine he had just bought from the garage may well account for that. Actually, all he needed was the beret and a string of onions round his neck and you would be able to picture him as he is, a real French country chap.

We think that the reason Monsieur C doesn't talk to us is because we are friendly with Monsieur D the cattle farmer. Some years ago Monsieur C and Monsieur D fell out over some land and they haven't spoken since.

'C’est totalement gaché’ Mr D told us with some finality making cutting movements with his hands in case we hadn't understood. 'And in addition, I won a place on the village council and he was voted out'.

The local elections take place again next spring. I would imagine the campaigning will be fairly colourful but luckily for us we won't be eligible to vote so we won't get caught up in the local feud. We hope.