It’s hailing today. A couple of weeks ago we had warmth,
sunshine, and spring leaping out at us from all directions. We were all cutting
the grass, getting the overwintering plants out, and chasing cobwebs that we
hadn’t seen in the gloom and which suddenly seemed to have draped themselves like
dusty swags from every corner. Cattle which had been kept indoors all winter were allowed into
the fields, and the calves were kicking up their heels for the sheer joy of
space and air and hope.
People were a close second.
The beaches were heaving, the summer clothes were being
shaken out, and all that bare flesh that usually lurks up sleeves and trouser
legs was being waved frantically in the direction of the sun in a kind of dire thirst.
In England, of course, the older generation looked on, and
frowned and tutted. “Ne’er cast a clout till May’s out,” they said, wagging a
knowing finger. Few listened.
In France, there is one group of people who never cast a
clout. At all. Ever. They are the farmers.
In the height of summer, when the sun is so hot it’s trying
to squash you into the ground, there will be the farmer on his tractor, in his
vest, and tee shirt, and shirt buttoned up to the neck, and a cardigan (albeit
with impromptu air holes), and possibly a jacket, and most definitely a cap of
some sort. His tractor may not possess a cab (his tractor may not possess a
seat, but just a makeshift affair involving sacks and the cardigans whose holes
have made actually dressing in them too much of a puzzle) so he has to keep the sun
off any way he can.
He doesn’t look up at the sky and think, "I’ve got to have some of that!" and rip off
his layers. He may have done that once, in his madcap youth, and learned the
hard way. A sunburned farmer with a crashing headache is still a farmer, and
the stock still have to be dealt with; so, as with age comes wisdom, so it
brings with it the many-layered approach to skin conservation.
We knew a very elderly man down south whose wife knitted his vests for
him, and had done since they got married. He had only ever been away from home
for the time it took to do his National Service in North Africa in the 60s, and
one assumes that she knitted enough for him to take with him.
For social affairs he would dress up rather finely in his
smart trousers and one of those soft, supple leather jackets that only Frenchmen
can wear. He was a tiny chap who always conversed with a lady’s bosom and
rarely anything further north; but that was only fair, as it was impossible to
enter into conversation with him without your eye being inexorably drawn to the
triangle of yellow knitted cotton peeping from the top of his shirt (the neck being
unbuttoned indoors – no risk of any sunshine getting at him there, though
obviously just the one or two buttons could be allowed off duty).
It was unknown whether the vests started out yellow, or just
naturally took on a jaundiced look over time, but every single day of his life
there it would be, under all the layers, protecting him from the elements.
The
oldest man in France is about 117, and has a son of 81. He’s a farmer. (There are
26 women older than him. The relationship with their undergarments is not known
at this date). He’s not a banker or a magnate or a millionaire - the sort who might
get their undies from specialist suppliers in the silk trade: no, he’s of the
string vest wearing fraternity.
If asked, these venerable people always claim that their
longevity is down to a simple life, a tot of whiskey a day (or no alcohol at
all), and going at the pace nature intended. This is of course nonsense. It’s a national secret, but I can reveal it to you here: it's all
in the vest.
So if you want to live a long and healthy life, the answer
does not lie in stretching yourself out on a lounger with a bottle of lotion
and not much else on, frying gently. It involves keeping your clout about you
at all times, whether May’s out or not.
© lms2012
But according to my follower in England, May's been out for weeks. He took photographs to prove it. May being hawthorn blossom, of course. Vests now - my dad wore long johns as well, kept up by loops that his braces went through.
ReplyDeleteAh, but is it the May blossom or the month? The debate is endless on that one. Either way, the French farmer won't be clout-casting.
ReplyDelete