3rd July 2010 – Into The Woods

The following day, feeding gratefully into my new-found walnut love, Anne-Marie sent me off to gather nuts from the trees. I was given instructions to go to the field where I had leaned so briefly against a hay bale, and to follow the lower boundary of it and scale the fence at whatever point seemed easiest. So far, so easy to follow. What I hadn’t reckoned with was not being able to recognise a walnut tree. Stupidly, I had assumed that walnuts fall off the tree looking as dry as they looked in the big paper bag of the previous night, so I spent a while wandering, looking for trees bearing desiccated brown capsules. Cherry trees I found aplenty, and what I took to be a variety of small apple. These small apples, of course, were the walnuts. On closer inspection they had an appearance not unlike that of an almond, and thankfully I knew what an almond looked like on a tree – round and sheathed in light-green velveteen – otherwise I would have been completely stuck! So once I had correctly identified my targets, the task was easy. 

Interestingly, Anne-Marie later taught me that if she rubbed a walnut in this furry green state she ended up with a brown-black dye because of the oxidation of chemicals in the nut’s skin, and that it was useful for staining colour onto the boys´ home-made wooden toys. But I neither knew that then, nor would the knowledge have been remotely useful. What I did know was that I had wandered so far into the woods that I didn’t know the way back. It took me a long time to find my way. I clambered over barbed wire fences, trampled down nettles and battled through thorns and brambles as high as my face. I tripped and heard my black cotton trousers rip, and cursed in French: merde! I was beginning to wonder if this exploration had been a good idea, and panic was making its first deep flutterings known.  To my relief, it wasn’t too long before I recognised the neighbouring farm. It was still quarter of an hour away from Fontchouette, but at least I knew where I was, and from there it was plain – if uphill – sailing. I arrived back to a concerned family, who were beginning to envisage worst case scenarios of me and a broken leg somewhere in the undergrowth. We were all relieved when the basket of nuts was safely on the kitchen table. 

Later in the afternoon, once the heat had subsided a little, I was sent out once again to hunt for fleurs de châtaigner. This time when I returned, it struck me that I no longer noticed the smell of cheese on the farm as much as I had done when I had arrived. Perhaps I was beginning to fit in to country life. Once again I was covered in pollen, but this time when I presented her with the baskets Anne-Marie proclaimed that we had enough blossom, and that the following day we could start. I wasn’t sure what she was referring to, but I smiled and nodded anyway.