A year in picardy

A year in Picardy

Jimmy Lyons
jimmylyons@mayonews.ie

A COUPLE of days into our annual break, the guilt feelings are beginning to subside.
Perhaps this is because the weather is not unlike that which we left behind in Ireland (even if temperatures were unseasonally high on our departure), or maybe it’s because long-held core beliefs about the sheer awful sinfulness of leaving one’s farm to its own or a helpful brother’s/neighbour’s devices, have finally been cast aside.
Whatever the reason, Picardy in the northeast of France is beginning to feel a bit like home. Sightings of fieldfuls of Charolais (all as white as snow, no breed contamination here) have certainly helped in no small way in this regard.
Not that a couple of hundred cows and calves in a 50-acre field is a scene I have come across that much in travels around our own fair isle. But having done a bit of maths in my time, I do know a bit about ratios so they are just the same as ourselves. Really.
The journey from Paris (well, Paris-Beauvais, as Michael O’Leary refers to it, in the way we might refer to Galway-Knock) to our home from home for the next 10 days or so took us through about 150km of Cereal-land. Barley, wheat, more barley, yet more wheat …
There was an odd oasis of spuds, believe it or not, here and there. For some reason, it always seem slightly incongruous to me to see potatoes being grown anywhere outside Ireland. It’s like as if these people have purloined our clothing, stolen our birthright.
This is a crazy notion, I know, but I have a feeling it is not uncommon – the Famine still treads a path through our psyches. My first real holiday abroad was in Jersey, which could easily be called Oileán na bPrátaí as Gaeilge, and I recall thinking, ‘this is wrong, this is so, so wrong’. (I wonder what did I think French fries were made from?)
The only breaks in the vast oceans of various shades of crop-green which almost gave us the pastoral equivalent of snow blindness were the odd clusters of brilliantly orange-red poppies, a poignant reminder of what this little patch of France went through in the battle for humanity’s soul.
We are staying in an eco-village. While this sounds very worthy, what is involved is a rather low-key promotion of ecological/environmental values. Our sanitary arrangements, for instance, are of the modern kind, not the earthen pits much favoured in back-to-nature communes (or those of our schooldays; well, mine anyway). There was much relief amongst some of the younger family-members, especially teenage Martha, who is quite fond of the comforts of modern life, when this was confirmed. Wildlife is encouraged in the green areas of the village, many of which are refreshingly non-manicured. Various breeds of wild duck populate man-made lakes dotted around the enclave.
These are quite friendly and sometimes wander around for tea, much to the delight of Rachel, who is going to be a vet and a farmer when she grows up. She can also further her campaign to create better relations between man (or at least child) and beast down at the animal enclosure; a token effort it must be said, inhabited at the moment by two wizened ewes and a couple of rabbits with a seen-it-all air about them.
Fortunately, there are also facilities for kicking a ball around amidst all this advocacy of natural habitats. Thus, James, who claimed to feel un-fully clothed prior to us procuring him a football in a local magasin, has transformed the back garden into the habitat he feels most at home in, a football pitch. They’re happy. We’re happy.
Everything is very French around here. Quel surprise, I hear you mumble. Okay, what I mean is that there are no concessions made to the anglicised world. They don’t parlez much English;, neither do they go out of their way to be overly of assistance. They’re more polite, civil in a keeping-their-distance sort of way.
Even the elegant lady in the local office de tourisme was cautious about imparting too much information. Teeth-pulling formed an image in my better three-quarter’s mind. Still, you couldn’t say she was totally uncooperative.
This all means that we truly feel we are in France, not in a very sunny Blackpool or Brighton. We are all getting an opportunity to try out our varying competencies at the language, which efforts almost always help to lighten the mood.
In fact, my aim over the next few days is make a connection with a true son of French soil. I have in mind a couple of farms I have noted in the locality, where I might just ramble in and ask for directions. It could be the trigger for a major development in Franco-Hibernian agri-relations. A positive one, one would hope.

Jimmy Lyons studied philosophy but is not really a philosopher. He owns a farm, but is not really a farmer. His voyage of self-discovery continues.  
Email: jimmylyons@mayonews.ie