Well the good news is I have
lasted a whole year and still have a lovely wife, mostly by my side. Yes,
believe it or not, it is now twelve months since Wendy and I got 'hitched'. To commemorate
such a monumental achievement, we decided to take a week's holiday for some
downtime in North Africa, where we could relax by the pool, sample local food
and sup a few celebratory shandies. Hmmm. What we hadn't banked on was a drought.
No, not through lack of rain, just the total absence of anything remotely alcoholic.
In hindsight, on the day of our arrival in Marrakech, when we were met by
hundreds of sheep riding around on motorcycles, we perhaps should have twigged
that something was afoot? Was the circus in town? Had the Welsh taken a victory
lap of the Mediterranean after beating England? Were they taking the Mickey out
of my open admissions that 'I prefer the company of sheep to most humans?' No! It
transpired that this was the eve of Eid, a national Muslim festival which is celebrated
by firstly executing your favourite ram in public, and then taking a few weeks
on 'the waggon.' To prove your worth to your neighbours, said ram gets to be
paraded around the town the night before in a swanky fashion and what better
way to display such booty than strap him on to the back of your Honda 50 and tear
through the streets! The bigger horns he has, the better, as well as the more dangerous.
I know this now but, had I gained this information a few hours earlier, we
would have taken headlong into the nearest supermarket to load up our trolley
with local wine and beer and thus quenched our raging thirsts before the
alcohol section was barricaded up, for 3 bloody days! We did eventually manage
to secure a couple of bottles of local plonk at twenty quid a pop by back-handing
the hotel barman for some of his under the counter contraband stash. Apart from
that we quite enjoyed the place with its crazy street traders all purveying
knock-off designer clothes and sunglasses, as well as urns, potions, sandals, authentic
jewellery, spices, wood-carvings and, for some strange reason, Nazi memorabilia,
all at grossly over-inflated prices and mostly manufactured in China. I wasn't
quite so enamoured with the hoards of tuneless musicians all blending in to one
hullabaloo of white noise, nor the acrobats and snake charmers who collectively
earn more per day from aggressively scrounging from tourists than the rest of
Africa earns in a month. A trip into the
Atlas mountains was maybe worth it for the scenery as long as you were prepared
to pay a small fortune to a licensed bandit to escort you up a perilously steep
life-threatening rocky path to photograph a feeble waterfall full of litter, and
then risk your wallet as you weaved through yet more traders peddling authentic
tat on your way back down. Couple that with a 2 hour ride home in a taxi driven
by Morocco's equivalent of Tommi Mäkinen along roads only suited for surefooted
camels while trying to hold down a meal of rabbit tagine, complete with
carrots, and we were quite glad to reach the sanctuary of a dry hotel!
Anyway, our stint back home in
France was short and busy, as we were met by guests arriving for our annual
chutney festival. The event was once
again a roaring success only marred by the fact that Adele, my talented niece, rather
than pay Ryanair's extortionate baggage
charges, had put her entries for the competition in the hands of the French
postal system. Needless to say they never showed up on time, in fact, to date,
they haven't showed up at all and are currently possibly festering in the
corner of a warehouse near Brussels while the posties all sit around on strike.
Oh well, at least it gave the other competitors a chance and I got two first
prizes!
As soon as the guests departed
again, so did we, back to the land of the loch and the glen once more, as I try
to cram in some work around our otherwise disturbed schedule. I will, of course
be taking in some World Cup rugby, albeit without a red rose emblazoned on my
chest. In fact I am a loss on who to support since that fateful day of demise
of Les Anglais at the hands of the Wallabies. History would endorse the chances
of the French in this contest and I may have to dust off my beret once more,
but not before wearing a saltire flag and a flower of Scotland while their chances are still alive.
Along with autumn, this month
also sees the beginning of 'tupping' season, as we try and time our lambing to
begin in early March next year. This week I am proud to announce the
introduction of a new member to the fold, 'Roger the ram'. Except that we seem
to have a minor problem in that Roger isn't, erhem, rogering at all. You see I visited our neighbouring farmer and
sheep-breeder in August and selected a new ram for our purpose, assumedly purchasing
it on a handshake on the understanding I wouldn't require it until October.
However, when I returned this week to collect the thing, he had chivalrously sold
it to a higher bidder. Of course, as I took him to task on the issue, us being
gentlemen and all that, he just offered me an indignant shrug and a undersized ram-lamb
as a replacement. When I say lamb, poor Roger is barely out of short trousers
as he bewilderedly wonders towards the ewes to say hello, totally sexually
unaware, and they run away laughing. Even
the Daisy-the-harlot isn't interested in what he has to offer and she isn't usually
backwards in coming forwards on such matters. So all we can do now is play a
waiting game and hope that Roger-the-younger grows up into Roger-the Rogerer
sometime soon or it will 'rien à manger' for us on the bbq
next spring. Maybe I should take him to a rugby match, as a mascot, to witness
some real testosterone being flaunted? On the back of my motorbike, obviously!
