Life in France in September

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As the leaves on the trees turn to gold and orange glowing in the autumn sun, thoughts here in the countryside of northern France turn to food even more than usual. Life in France in September is all about the harvest which means long hours for farmers keen to get produce picked and into storage. Sometimes, us “civilians” join in.

You say potatoes, I say pommes de terres

My friend Jean-Claude, a retired farmer, has a field in nearby historic Agincourt (the French call it Azincourt) where he grows things. This is in addition to his large garden and that of his mother-in-law, our next door neighbour. He recently arrived at our front door in his work gear, traditional blue overalls and a flat cap and asked if we’d help him. He was off to pick ‘a couple of rows of pommes de terre for personal use of my mother-in-law’. She is our favourite neighbour, born in 1931, and she’s one of the wisest and nicest people I’ve ever met.

‘How hard can it be to pick a couple of rows?’ I asked my husband Mark. Helping each out is normal here and though we’re not skilled in farming, our relative youth in this village which has lots of old folk, can be in demand. Especially when it comes to heavy lifting (Mark) and chasing escaped animals (me).

The good life

We followed Jean-Claude’s little white van in our city-style saloon car. Through the winding hills and dales of the Seven Valleys we went, until we reached a very large field with an ocean of potato plants. Jean-Claude drove his van across the tough ruts and farrows.

“I’m not driving my car across that” said Mark stroking the steering wheel of his beloved car. Jean-Claude returned and told us to hop in the back of his van, the front seat being stacked high with baskets and sacks. We clambered in and were tossed about like sacks of potatoes ourselves as our driver was utterly oblivious to holes and hills.

“See these rows here with the yellow markers” said Jean-Claude, “they’re what need picking”. Four very long rows were before us. Jean-Claude, who everyone knows (because he mentions it at every opportunity) cannot do much physical work on account of an unidentified medical condition (which requires him to take it easy), directed us. We dug, plucked, shook the plants and popped the potatoes into sacks all day long. It was back breaking work, but at the end of it, the van was absolutely full and Jean-Claude said he would return with a tractor and trailer for the rest.

Hard work has its rewards

Then we drove to Jean-Claude’s mother in law’s house to store the potatoes in the cellar. Mark hoisted the heavy sacks onto his shoulders and descended the stairs through a hobbit-sized door. Not easy for a 6’2” ex-boxer with a barrel-sized chest.

We were rewarded with several sacks of potatoes, enough to see us through most of the winter. Jean-Claude poured everyone a glass of home-made wine. It tasted like cough mixture and the bottle I was given to take home proved effective as a weed killer. He offered us home-made crème de menthe but as it is the talk of the village since Pierre the postman told everyone he had one glass and woke up two days later, we politely declined though I did wonder if it might be good for my backache to go into suspended animation for a couple of days!

There’s never a dull moment in a village where nothing ever happens.

Janine Marsh is the author of several internationally No. 1 best-selling books about France. Find all her books on her website janinemarsh.com