My friend wrote me an email... I enjoyed it so much I had to reproduce it in whole here. I swear, some of these letters I get from Auggie make me think of the letters I read in Romantic Poetry between all of the poets and their brothers and friends. I imagine people calling my house in future years requesting her letters to bind into a book about her, because people won't be content with just her published work.

---

As the French have realized that old chateaux, manor houses, and barns
are cold and draughty, with ceilings so high and doors so low that
their residents can never get them clean and suffer from escalating
brain damage, and walls that only crumble away into more dirt at the
slightest touch of a dust rag, the British have arrived in droves to
buy them up, generally turning them into BnBs and gites. This also
allows other British people to vacation in France without having to
interact with the French.

The resulting "holiday" networks warrant further study and a series of
obscurely weighted charts. Throughout the year, foolish British 11th
century building owners who would never normally associate, regularly
socialize, rejoicing in their ability to brew a proper cup of tea and
trim a climbing rose. Holiday goers frequent the same chateau summer
after summer, for two of three weeks at a go, and their children
remain loyal as they mature. As that dirty old man in The Quiet
American said, I am British and therefore I have habits.

Which brings me to the main subject of this report, which is my theory
that the British suffer from an overabundance of meals, such that
they've forgotten which ones are supposed to be the important ones and
intead select which ones to hang their days on according to personal
preference.

I meant to go on from here with a long report on tea time, breakfast,
coffee time, elevenses, lunch which may be called dinner and begun at
four in the afternoon, tea time, and dinner which may be called
supper, and wind down by bemoaning the result that the people I'm
staying with generally eat nothing after 2:30 lunch, filling the
evening instead with an extended cocktail hour (it generally being
acceptable to begin drinking once David has begun cooking lunch), but
I've been handed an overfull glass of red and shan't be writing much
longer.

So here's the quick report: I'm wwoofing at a chateau in Normandy
with a British couple, but will within a week be moving down to the
Pyrenees, where I shan't have internet or phone access, to chase goats
in the mountains. In May I'll be making sheep's milk cheese in a
French commune, but should be communicado once more.

For now, these people wish their names were Fletch and Muffy. I was
greatly relieved when it occurred to me my first week here that they
love to hate each other, and the French, and probably me. Perhaps, as
with our sheep, it is simply in their nature not to outwardly manifest
fondness for those humans to whom they are closest.

Your adoring,
Auggie

first off....I wanna make goat cheese from goats milk!
secondly....why is he in France? And...how does one apply to such a program as this?
Thirdly....Nothing to eat after 2:30?! How does the man survive?!!
» Helena on 2007-04-03 07:52:08

Oh, that Augusta! Of course EVERYONE wishes they were us, dear Muffy!

- Fletcher
» ranor on 2007-04-03 08:51:54

Name.

URL.

[to enter your email, use "mailto:youremail@domain.com"]
Subject.

Comment.

Word verification.

Copy the first 4 characters only.

If you are a member, try logging in again or accessing this page here.