Next year we will eat less.
The period between Christmas and New Year is a strange time, sort of limbo, a calm before the storm. I need to DO something. When I get home I’ll tackle the garden shed. A perfect task for a frosty morning.
As I walk I enjoy the coldness, the frosty fields and the stillness.
In the distance I see a man dressed in green walking towards me. As he gets closer I notice he has a gun broken in two ( I know there is a technical name for this, but it escapes me), over his elbow.
A hunter.
Hunting in France is completely legal. Some men hunt alone, others in groups with or without dogs. To my left, in a stubbly corn field I see three lovely big pheasants. Fly Fly, I will them. But they don’t. The hunter has also see them, but he doesn’t move his gun. We pass, say bonjour and continue. The pheasants continue to scratch around in the once full cornfield. I look round, the gun is still crooked over the hunters elbow. Why didn’t the hunter shoot the pheasants ?..
I reach the end of the field and there I see a notice… ‘hunting prohibited’. The pheasants are safe… for now.
