French Letter: A brush with a grim reaper, of sorts

One of the first words British residents in rural France have to learn is “fauchage” meaning reaping. Le fauchageur comes, typically twice a year, to mow the verges on country roads and to cut down any branches of trees that pose a danger to high vehicles. 

There is no warning that he is about to make an appearance, which I suppose is also the case with la Grande Faucheuse – the Grim Reaper ­– an aged crone I am in no hurry to meet. 

Anyway, there I was last week, gathering the leaves on what passes for our front lawn, when I heard the roar of a large machine that I assumed was a tractor pulling another load of maise (we get a lot of these at this time of year). 

In fact, it was the fauchageur at the wheel of one of the biggest tractors I have ever seen – a gleaming monster that, to judge from its appearance, had only recently been taken out of its box. 

For the next half hour, the reaper went up and down the stretch of road that links our property to those of our neighbours utilising his extendable mechanical scythe with a ruthless precision that would have endeared him to Robespierre and his colleagues on the Committee of Public Safety. 

He could see me standing there, but refused to acknowledge me even when I attempted to warn him that his blades were swishing within a metre of our electricity supply line.         

Up and down he went while I stood next to my wheelbarrow, helplessly observing the carnage. At one point, he disappeared, only to return two minutes later to make a final sweep. 

By the time he left, there was so much “stuff” lying next to our drainage ditch and hedgerow that I had to spend the next hour gathering it up into a pile, not unlike a funeral pyre, that, shortly I hope, a friend of mine with a trailer will deliver to the local dump. 

I’m not sure what the law is about hedgerows in France. It used to be the case that all natural growth was frowned upon so that banks were not so much mown as shaved. But then there was talk of the need to encourage wildflowers and whatever else it is that grows when nature is left to its own devices. Biodiversity was the new buzzword. 

Verges became shaggy, encroaching over time onto the road surfaces, obscuring warning signs but providing homes for all sorts of small creatures as well – or so I am told – as wild orchids. 

Anyone who has visited a city park in France will be familiar with their pristine appearance. The trees are pollarded, and no blade of grass is permitted to stray from its allotted space. It is as if they trim their lawns with manicure scissors. 

However, since 2008, local authorities in the countryside have been experimenting with different roadside regimes, resulting in a less tidy rural landscape, but one that, during the summer months at least is alive with colour. 

As a bonus, if the reaper only cuts the verges once, in late autumn (fauchage tardif), they save on man-hours, diesel and machine maintenance. 

This, I suspect, is what determined what happened to me and my verges this month. The irony is that the road outside our house was only starting to recover from the disruption caused by the arrival last year of 5G cabling – a procedure that has been repeated in every department across the country so that the Government can make good on its boast to turn France into an internet powerhouse. 

What had been an excellent road – resurfaced for the 2012 Tour de France, won by Bradley Wiggins – was ripped up, then restored piecemeal, leaving the verges like World War One trenches. 

But one gets used to this sort of thing in France (just as one gets used to saying “one”) where the rhythms of the countryside are often decided by fonctionnaires in Paris following what passes for the latest National Plan. 

Heavy roadwork is supposed to take into account the network of delicate plants that exist in the verges. In practice, the big machines are allowed to do their worst, with the need for ecological balance recognised only post-facto by a profusion of small yellow signs warning motorists and walkers that the verges in question have been “restored”. 

Does any of this disturb my neighbours? 

Frankly, I doubt it, for November is here, and the cares of the world have been left to those who bother about such things. The shutters are down; smoke is rising from the chimney-pots; there are no lights anywhere. Overhead, the night sky is black and brilliant. Mighty Orion shows up through my bedroom window before turning to the West. 

I hear owls hooting and foxes barking. If there is disquiet in the verges, nobody is saying.