It ain't all courgettes and sunflowers!

If you read one of my earlier posts this summer, you will recall I was bemoaning the surfeit of courgettes with which my neighbours were keen to supplement my diet.

However, dear readers, I am here to tell you a few things about the fertile soils of Nowhere-in-France. I will tell you the tale of the Mystery of the Disappearing Marijuana..

Towards the end of my summer stay, I was (as in the courgette story) invited to dinner with my friend Karine. She, and indeed I and many others, have known for some time that her neighbours have a small area of their large back garden dedicated to the cultivation of recreational drugs which, I should add, are entirely for their own consumption and mainly for medicinal purposes. Nobody minds, except when the Gendarmes take their helicopter up for a spin. But then, the Gendarmes don't seem to mind, either. They (the Gendarmes) may make an appearance later in this tale, however, for another reason.

So, on the evening in question, I arrived at Karine's and let myself in, calling out a "Hello!" to which there came no reply. I wandered into the back garden and saw her far down the garden, deep in conversation with a man I didn't recognise. She introduced me to her neighbour, and together they explained that he had come over to tell her that, during the previous night, someone had come into her garden, and, using a stepladder that was already set up under a nearby tree, they had scaled the fence between their two properties and helped themselves to a couple of dozen cannabis plants.

Despite the indifference of the local Gendarmes to the existence of these plants, this is clearly not the sort of theft that is easy to report, but the neighbour, in a very pleasant way, had come to see if Karine might know of any visitors to her home who might have taken a shine to the plants and hatched a plan to steal them. We laughed together at the thought that a hotch-potch of mostly septuagenarians or under twelves would be able or willing to carry out such a dastardly plot, given that most of the former have had heart operations or hip replacements, and that any such scheme would probably make good material for an episode of "Last of the Summer Wine". And, talking of wine, we all had a glass of rosé whilst wondering aloud what the world was coming to when a person couldn't cultivate something a bit more interesting than courgettes without having it stolen. How anyone could have found them and carted them off in the dead of night seemed destined to remain a mystery, but Karine and her neighbour were both unsettled by this, although for different reasons. The neighbour was doubly miffed, because, as he explained, the plants weren't even ready for harvesting! That let me even further off the hook, as I wouldn't know a ripe-for-harvesting cannabis plant form a courgette.

Anyway, the neighbour left, we had dinner, and I took my leave of Karine at about 9.30. It's a short drive home, passing through the village, round the square and down the road to my house. As if the evening hadn't been eventful enough, I was just turning into the top end of the square when, suddenly, a man in uniform jumped out of a shrub opposite the boulangerie. A Gendarme, no less. No, wait, there were two of them!

We often joke that the centre of our village is so quiet after 9 in the evening that you could get arrested for having squeaky shoes. Well, I guess that the Gendarmes must feel the need every so often to make their own entertainment. What better way than to lurk in the bushes (on an evening when the local bar is closed, as well) and stop unsuspecting motorists and breathalyse them?

It came as a bit of a shock to both of us, I can tell you. Me, because I had recently consumed a glass of wine, them because despite my French licence plate, I exited the vehicle on what they assumed was the passenger side, so there ensued a brief moment of confusion while they checked that my car wasn't being propelled by a person of restricted growth who was hiding because they'd been drinking all evening. Once we'd all taken stock, I blew into their machine as requested, produced a negative result ("Nickel! " proclaimed the Gendarme) and was allowed to go about my business. If only I could have said "Look, instead of stopping innocent drivers and doing random breath tests, why not go and solve some real crimes, like the theft of a quantity of recreational drugs! " but discretion is, etc., etc..

There is a popular misconception among many Brits abroad that rural France is an idyllic place, where there are no drugs, no crime, and everyone can leave their doors open without fear. I am here to tell you that there's a lot more going on than meets the eye. It really isn't all courgettes and sunflowers, you know!