La Vache Qui Crie (or...)

(A pied au foret or...)

(Pas de sanglier, beaucoup d'Oiseaux)

Today we got grumped at by a cantankerous old Frenchman because, and here I'm trying to dissect what I think he said to us, we had made his dogs bark at us. We were clearly in the wrong, following a designated and waymarked walking route through the Morvan park (this particular route passing directly past the house we're staying in). Oh, and we were deliberately foreign.

Still, miffed Frenchmen apart the route was delightfully ramshackle, which helped getting that sense of being away from everything. And while only 8 miles long the up-and-down more than made up for it. And as well as the Charolais cattle that dominate the landscape around here, various birds I'd never seen before made themselves known, primarily Jays and Nuthatches. But no Wild Boar, which pepper the woods here. They're probably more easy-going than old Frenchmen sitting on their porches looking for tourists to abuse.

And then the rain arrived. And stayed. So the afternoon saw us take to the car for a tour around the south of the Morvan, which has given us plenty of ideas of other places to visit when the weather turns more favourable.

p.s. completely forgot the best comment I've heard yet in France by a British tourist who, on leaving the Basilica at Vezelay, told her equally vocal and aged friends, "... and then the woman on the counter started babbling away to me in her language, whatever it is...". Erm, I'm going to take a stab at French. This being France that we're in after all. But then she, the old Brit, did appear to come from the 'speak loudly in English and they'll understand' school of thought.

Maybe our grumpy Frenchman this morning has good reason...