Season of Mists and Malodourousness

Courier Countryside Column 20 September

Less than sweet smell 

that sours autumn enjoyment

Ahh … the smells of autumn. Loamy aromas rising with the morning mist. Damp leaves rotting on the ground. Sweet-scented apples on the trees. Woodsmoke curling from chimneys on chilly evenings.  And, above all, the pungent stink of muck spreading!         

A neighbour who’s lived in the depths of the country for many years was sounding off on the subject the other evening. The gist of his argument was that farmers who create such smells should be dunked in their own slurry pits.

I was surprised by his vehemence. After all, spreading manure on fields is a well-established farming practice.  It’s good for the land, gets rid of quantities of waste, and is wholly organic.  But, yes, it does smell a tad unpleasant for a day or so.

Then, while in the Parish Council office, it became clear my neighbour was not alone. Others too were complaining about the smell and demanding action.  I had assumed that the problem was chicken manure which is widely used hereabouts. But no. A farmer friend told me the current smell was from spreading human waste – more usually knows as sewage sludge or biosolids.

A quick check on-line shows that this is not only perfectly permissible,  but common throughout the country - though there are recommendations about ploughing it in to reduce the pong.

And thinking about it, biosolids might be preferable to chicken manure. This autumn marks the tenth anniversary of the Great Benenden Fly Plague. So extensive were the swarms that both village pubs and the shop had to shut for days. Elderly residents of a care home were shipped off to a hotel in Eastbourne, and local children evacuated to distant relatives.  The source was traced to a local farm and mountain of chicken waste waiting to be spread – though the farmer denied responsibility.

So again farming, the very industry that sustains the countryside, comes into conflict with those who live here. One sometimes wonders if a dose of public relations might not go some way towards healing the image of agriculture.  Certainly the current suggestion from some farmers that stubble burning should be reinstituted (it was banned exactly 20 years ago) does little to reassure their detractors.

But I see the NFU president recently praised an alternative use of sewage sludge – as fuel for engines.  Sounds good - though I do worry a bit about possible emission smells.

Mellow Fruitfulness for your Diary

Courier Countryside Column  13 September

Enjoying the Fruits of a really fun autumn

I hope you didn’t think I was being disparaging about village events in Britain while extolling the delights of those in the south of France.

Back home, and the diary is already filling with excellent autumn activities.  First up is the joyful jazz and blues evening my little hamlet hosts, with people picnicking on the grass, supping real ales and Pimms and enjoying the music.

Meanwhile nearby Cranbrook is preparing for a rather more ambitious music festival this weekend taking over churches, halls, pubs and clubs and turning streets into pedestrian only areas from mid-day on Saturday. 

It will be followed next month by the town’s annual Apple and History Fayre which always brings out the more eccentric townsfolk who provide street entertainment in zany costumes.  But be warned, it’s hard to get away without having samples of strong cider thrust into your hand.

Which reminds me, I must get onto the people who make the cider from our community orchard apples and find out how much juice they want this year.  We’ve been delighted to find a market for a few of our apples – for years they all just rotted on the ground - but the actual logistics involved are daunting.

Because they are all on old-fashioned full standard trees, picking is difficult, often requiring ladders which makes it uneconomic to employ professionals.  But even if we can find enough volunteers, we then have to transport tons of apples in large bins several miles to the people who press them for us. And then we have to bring the juice back to the local cider maker.  It would be fine if we had a fork-lift and capacious flatbed truck – but instead my little overloaded car trailer has to suffice.

Another problem is that we’ve never been able to identify all the old apple varieties we have, which makes selling direct to shops or supermarkets difficult. And there’s no one on the management committee who has the time needed to market them.  Anyone fancy a commission-based opportunity?

What we certainly do need is help with picking.  We have a big push on our Apple Day, 6^th October. It’s a great afternoon out in the countryside with a BBQ, a chance to try last year’s cider and the opportunity to take home a large bag or two of excellent organic produce.  Another date for your increasingly busy autumn diary perhaps?

Stop Signs Run Riot in Village Confusion

Courier Column Friday 6 September under headline

Vive la difference ...except on the roads

            Driving into small towns or villages in this part of the French countryside can be something of a challenge.  Traffic calming measures have been taken to such extremes that you can face half a dozen stop signs, a few mini-roundabouts, a couple of chicanes and a brace of traffic lights before you even reach the village square. If you ever do.  Because chances are cars will have been diverted away from the centre entirely.

            I’m all for slowing down traffic in populated places, and in my home village of Benenden we have just acquired a portable speed monitoring system that will inform drivers if they are exceeding the limit.  But only inform them. Our parish council has no powers to institute other measures.

            French communes, by contrast, can do almost whatever they like as they own all but the main roads. Thus stop sign are positioned on junctions with tiny alleys from which no vehicle could possibly emerge, and mini-roundabouts and speed bumps spring up seemingly overnight to confuse and irritate drivers.

            The Town Hall here in Abeilhan recently tried to impose a one-way system through the narrow streets of the village. It was widely ignored, and the Mayor and councillors roundly abused wherever they went until they reversed their decision.  Other towns have not objected so vehemently and are stuck with equally absurd schemes. It’s now impossible to get to the café, restaurants and shops in centre of the nearby hilltop town of Magalas without taking a circuitous route via the lower roads and entering from the opposite side.  And even this supposed ‘by-pass’ contains three stop signs and two mini-roundabouts to dismay drivers.

            One area where the French seem to have got their transport right is with buses – or at least bus fares.  You can travel anywhere within the Hérault Départment – roughly twice the size of Kent – for a maximum of 1.60 euros (about £1.35). In another Départment we took a fabulous bus trip along the coast road near the Spanish border, stopped for lunch and then continued our journey for just one euro each.  An increasing number of local train lines also offer a flat one-euro fare almost regardless of distance.

            Sadly, though, even if the price is right, the frequency of rural bus services doesn’t seem much better than around the villages of Kent and Sussex.

Wild River, Cool Dog

Countryside Column for 30 August

Wild River, Cool Dog

            After a long tiring day sleeping in the shade, Myrtle likes nothing better than an evening swim.

            Mostly we walk down from our village to the river that gives the local wines, Cotes de Thongue, their name.

            In summer it’s not much more than a trickle, but there’s a large hollow next to a popular barbecue spot that is full of water all year round. Here human bathers are banned but canine ones tolerated if no one is fishing. Myrtle rushes into the water, paddling vigorously in chase of sticks, and then delights in shaking herself over everyone nearby.

      Often we have the place to ourselves, but at weekends there are parties enjoying the shade of the dense trees that line the river as it flows slowly south to join the Hérault and enter the Mediterranean at Agde.

            A larger and more exciting local river, also much favoured by Myrtle, is the Orb which rises in the hills above Bédarieux and flows 145 kilometres past Béziers. The Orb is still largely sauvage or wild, which means there are rapids to provide thrills and spills for canoeists around Roquebrun and Cessenon.  One moment you are floating lazily downstream admiring the majestic countryside, the next you are fighting to keep your craft upright as it’s rushed over rocks in the white water sections. A photographer at the most hazardous points later offers overpriced prints of you and your companion coming a cropper.  I have several from over the years!

            A little further downstream is the wonderful river beach at Réals, reached by clambering down a long steep path. There, for perhaps a kilometre, the river widens and deepens so you (and the dog) can swim peacefully in the cool water - as long as you avoid youths flinging themselves off surrounding rocks. At one point, huge boulders restrict the flow and the brave or foolhardy can body-surf through the torrent.           

            The water level in the Orb is partly controlled from a reservoir in the hills. And so many French rivers have been altered by dams that there is now an entusiastic movment to protect wild rivers. A long protest actually persuaded the authorities to remove a damn on the Allier, a major tributary of the Loire, enabling salmon to spawn in its upper reaches after a gap of more than a century. It can all make the Medway seem a bit tame somehow.

 

 

 

French village, better or just different?

Countryside Colum for 23 August

Localism in Action

Golly. I wish someone would give our Parish Council a budget of €1.5 million to play with!  Instead we have to make do with £35,000.  But here in the Languedoc they really understand the concept of ‘localism’.

The village of Abeilhan where I’m staying is just a bit smaller than Benenden with a population of about 1,300. But its local council - Conseil Municipal - is of an altogether different scale. Apart from a mayor and four deputies, there are 10 other councilors elected every six years.  Our Parish Council has nine members headed by a chairman elected every four years. We employ a staff of two, the parish clerk and a cleaner, both part time.  Abeilhan has a full time town clerk plus a secretary, a direct works department of seven, and a further half dozen administrative or domestic staff.  Benenden Parish Council has responsibility for the village green, the bus shelter, the war memorial and the public toilets. Abeilhan’s council owns and maintains – among other things – the Mairie (Town Hall), the primary school, indoor sports centre, football pitch, tennis courts, village hall, sewage treatment works and most of the local roads.  It has a social fund and a budget to support village associations and clubs.  It’s also the planning authority, so if you want an extension, swimming pool or sun terrace you apply to the Mairie having first popped in for an informal chat about what is permitted or possible.  In Benenden the parish planning committee only has power to comment on an application submitted to the Borough Council.

France has chosen to miss out on the ‘borough’ level of administration altogether, going straight from town councils to regional and national layers.

The key question, of course, is does this devolution work?  On the whole the village seems well maintained. Roads are repaired, flower beds provided and watered, signs erected and, recently, a new walk has been created around the nearby River Tongue.  But dog mess remains a problem, and it’s taken me three years of lobbying the Maire and my local councilor to get new nets for the tennis courts. 

            The main advantage is that you have a direct line to your service provider and you can lobby the mayor or his deputies when you see them around the village. Does it cost more? Surprisingly not.  The respective council taxes are almost identical.

The River Thongue near Abeilhan

Watching the Jazz at St Thibery