Muddy La Feet

Last week I introduced Madame Muddy laying into the cattle, this week it's his turn. He's short and stocky,with a ruddy weather-beaten face under a black beret. Everybodies idea of a typical French peasant (not an insulting or derogatory word here; a badge they wear with pride!). Although in his 80s he's only semi retired and seems to spend most of his time standing on the footplate of a tractor driven by Son of Muddy, that's when he's not working on his kitchen garden.

Work on this has been halted by a sudden burst of snow over Easter. There is a local saying which roughly translates as " Xmas on the terrace means Easter round the fire". Proof this year that we've had to pay a price for all the "aperos" we've taken under the winter sun on the back terrace!

I used to think that Muddy with his years of outdoor experience would be very knowledgeable about local weather conditions and used to consult him whenever I saw him. I bought a TV as an aid to learning more French and over a period I began to realise that Muddy was merely repeating the local forecast from the night befores TV.

The first time it snowed here, I asked him did we always get snow in the winter and he said "No! only every 10 years". It snowed again the following year and I spoke with him again and again he said "only every 10 years". I said "You said that last year when it snowed" He said "Ah! but this is the next 10 years"

There haven't been any weekly bulletins for a while but I'm still making slow progress with the weight loss. Monday I was 88.4 kilos up from 88.0 the previous week, no surprise as I ate and drank well over the Easter period. Helped in no little way by the fact the hypermarket had a wine sale that week !! Still no real progress on cutting down on the wine consumption.