August French style

Here we are in our Pas de Calais corner of France and the army is marching. Not a khaki-clad one but yellow, sometimes covered in dark blue, white or grey plastic overcoats.

I am talking corn and hay bales. Look in any direction, and the fields around us have regiments of Swiss roll look alikes laid out in rows.  The  normally silent nights have been broken by the  steady hum of combine harvesters, bright headlights ablaze, wending their way up and down the wheat, all through the night, or so it would seem.

Having just acquired a marvellous book of 150 years of photo journalism at a braderie - boot sale -it is interesting to see harvest times of the past, with the whole family, armed with pitch forks, high sided hay wagons hitched to horses, picnics waiting and a good, if itchy, time had by all.

Ça change!

This also the month when there are festivals in every otherwise sleepy town and village. So it was that we saw a one man show about the history of the theatre which included a passable version of To Be or Not to Be, both in English and in French! Très curieux!