Welcome to May MEMOIR!
Day 18
For the entire month of May, I'll be sharing part of each chapter from my memoir, Ca va? Stories from Rural Life in Southern France.
Every place has its pros and cons, and here is ours. The best way to take the bad with the good is with humor, and Monsieur and Madame Gousse have plenty of that to go around.
Chapter 17: For the Good and the Bad
One evening, Christophe and I head up the Monsieur and Madame Gousse’s house to settle a debate. I’ve seen some large birds which I’m convinced are hawks, but Christophe keeps telling me they’re not.
“All you need to do is ask Madame Gousse,” he says. “She knows everything. If ever in doubt, ask her.”
We arrive and are greeted by Monsieur Gousse.
“She’ll be right back,” he says. “She’s putting out food for the foxes.”
“For the foxes?” I ask a bit confused.
“The foxes; she puts out food for the foxes so they don’t bother our chickens,” he repeats. “She’ll be right back.”
“Not only does she know everything,” Christophe says. “But she also feeds every animal that comes her way.”
We wait a few minutes and she emerges from behind the chicken coop. I explain what I have seen and wait confidently for her reaffirming response, which does not come.
“Those are buzzards,” she says. “I’ve never seen a hawk around here, but what you’re explaining to me sounds like buzzards.”
“But they don’t have those big long wobbly necks,” I say in my defense.
“They’re buzzards,” she repeats. “Wait here, I’ll get a book and show you.”
She disappears in the house for a moment and emerges with a large book. She thumbs through it and finds a page with a dozen of photos.
“Is this the bird you saw?” She asks me while pointing to a photo.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Then without a doubt, that’s a buzzard,” she exclaims.
We sit down at the picnic table to take a closer look at book, then, we hear a truck roar up the hill followed by a single voice shouting angrily.
“Oh, not him again,” Madame Gousse says while rolling her eyes. She’s referring to Arnaud, the local sheep farmer. I have only had negative run-ins with him. We often see him touring the village in his truck under the guise of looking for something, but the truth is, he’s spying on everyone.
“Apparently, he saw you arrive and wants to make his presence known,” says Madame Gousse.
Monsieur Gousse quietly walks out the door to see what the shouting is about. A few minutes later he comes back shaking his head.
“I didn’t see any sheep with him,” he laughs. “But he was shouting up a storm at his dogs.”
“Why does he that?” I ask. “I mean, he doesn’t have his sheep with him, so why does come here? He hangs out in the square and harasses me whenever I step outside,” I ask.
“That’s a question we’ve never been able to answer,” says Madame Gousse. “He’s been known to spy on the whole village at times.”
“Remember the time you caught him spying on Chantal and me in the garden?” Asks
Madame Gousse. “We tried to moon him but he ran off too fast.”
Monsieur Gousse starts to laugh. “Yes, then he came to me and started to say something bad about you. Imagine! He was trying to bad mouth my wife to me and he thought I was going to let him!”
“Monsieur Gousse has butted heads with him several times,” Christophe explains. “And he always wins.”
Then he continues, “Like the time he found Arnaud staring in the window like a peeping Tom. Arnaud was trapped with no good excuse. He blurted out he was looking for his dogs, which were standing right next to him.”
Monsieur Gousse is now in a full roar. “Yeah, that was fun. I’ve never seen him leave so quickly with his tail in between his legs.”
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