We went up into the attic of the Chateau today and, once Hermine had managed to change the light bulb, we were treated to a treasure trove of delights: old political posters, huge ornate frames, endless vases and jars, and a LOT of cobwebs. Hermine found the wild boar’s head and kindly thrust it into our hands. Initially we thought he was a bit revolting. Now you have to bear in mind that we are both rather squeamish, so removing his half hanging out tongue with some tweezers and turning him upside down and shaking god knows what out of his gob was rather traumatic. But after that, we began to warm to him. We excitedly traipsed around the chateau looking for a place to hang him for some photos. But then thought, lets have a cuppa first, and managed to fuse the electrics for the whole chateau making a coffee. Whoops-a-daisy. We were not top of the pops. So after a quick trip to the hypermarket to buy a camping stove to replace the defunct cooker, we got back to photographing the wild boar, who we had now christened Sebastian. This turned into a full on photo shoot with studio lighting and portrait lenses for the close ups. Good fun.
Sebastian seemed to look best hung on the wall of the bedroom designated for the new woofer. In fact he looked magnificent there. Unfortunately we forgot to take him down, so there was a bit of panicked rushing around to get him off the wall and under covers when we heard her arriving (from Casablanca no less!). We are considering if we can make Sebastian’s ears wiggle at all using some electronics, bring some life back into the old fella. He has a happy face.
We also got shown the space where the exhibition will be held, a large loft room in one of the outbuildings. It’s a truly amazing space. There is a white screen nicely set up if we want to show a film. It’s all beginning to feel real. Better make some work soon!!!!!
This evening we went for a stroll around the village in the drizzle, looking for the ruins of the old chateau, which Hermine had said, with a vague wave of the arm, was ‘Just over there.’ Equipped with a hand-drawn map from the 1700s (which it turns out is not so useful nowadays), we searched in vain for an hour before giving up. Hopefully, we will find the elusive ruins tomorrow.
Today we went to Paris to check out a taxidermy emporium called Deyrolle. Taxidermy is de-rigueur in these parts and we wanted to investigate it. When we eventually managed to exit Les Halles station (no lie, we were walking round in circles for at least half an hour), we found the Rue du Bac and a rather unassuming shop front. This belies the huge upstairs floor of stuffed animals of every description. The buffalo, zebra, bear and rhino were particularly impressive. There was a strict no photos rule so we snuck around surreptitiously snapping on our phones, not looking at all suspicious.
Hermine has told us she has a stuffed wild boar head in the attic that we can have, and that somewhere she has some clawed animals paws that her father used to hang his gun on the wall. Exciting!
Back at the Chateau, we are gradually getting to grips with the schedule. Here is what we have picked up about local village life so far:
Charcuterie in Sacy le Petit 9 am Tuesdays.
Farm shop for vegetables 11.30am to 2pm from Wed to Sat
Farm shop for milk and eggs, 7pm daily, and very early in the morning too we think.
Watercress sold next to the bakers in St Martin on Tuesdays at 4pm
Bar in Grandfresnoy (the next village) does food on a Sat night.
Put out recycling on Wed nights.
Clothes washing is on Mondays.
Aidez-nous!
We did manage to make the 7pm milk pick up (just) which is useful as they don’t actually sell milk in the shops. And we can confirm it came directly from the cow into our reused 2 litre water bottle. Fucking fresh.
The cows who had just been milked were out in the field and looked very chilled. We might go back there to film them later in the week.
We are off to bed shortly. To bed but not necessarily to sleep. We both lie in our beds with our eyes wide staring at the ceiling, concerned the place may be haunted. Julie is consulting her ghost-buster brother in case we need to do any DIY exorcism. Or indeed try to capture any of the blighters on film. The bells are still haunting us too as they ring on every hour and half hour, all night. I expect we’ll miss them when we’re gone.
Night night, sleep tight.
In order to further ingratiate ourselves with the locals, we signed up for a short forestry course today. If anyone can tell us what our guide Alain was on about, do let us know, cheers. It might have been prudent to sign up for a short French course first.
