GRAND PIERRE

Heading straight for the sky Farmer Marc was walking across the lower meadow of his farm, the bright sun warming his face. Rocky, his loyal dog, was walking by his side, also feeling hot under his black and dark brown fur. Looking back towards his house and the old farmhouse being renovated next door, Marc noticed how high the fir trees were growing, forming the boundary between the two gardens, a thick hedge heading straight for the sky. ‘I will have to find some way of stopping those fir trees growing taller,’ Marc said to Rocky, the dog looking up to his master, his tongue hanging from the corner of his mouth, his eyes glancing towards him in agreement. ‘I will ask around the village today and see if anyone has an incredibly long ladder, that’s what I’ll do,’ he continued, sensing that Rocky was no longer interested in the enormous hedge. A split second later he bounded away to see off a fat wood pigeon on a fencepost, who had been sitting there like an overweight king on a throne. PICTURE 1 Rocky barked hoarsely at the pigeon as it quickly took to the air, a stray feather fluttering back towards the ground, only to land on Rocky’s nose, immediately making him sneeze violently like a dropped watering can. Unaffected by his bark, but startled by the unusual noise of his huge sneeze, Marie-Claire, the grandmother of all the milking cows, jumped aside quickly until she realised it was only Rocky. ‘Heavens to mergatroid! Fancy being spooked by a dog!’ she whispered to herself, as she decided to kneel down and lay in the cool shade of the largest apple tree. An apple dropped from a low branch, hitting the ground with a thud into a small patch of mud. Surrounding trees all joined in and a number of apples dropped within seconds of each other. Marie- Claire ignored the chorus, while the bruising of each fruit produced a smell of cider around the orchard. The middle of the day became very hot and Marc decided that at two o’clock, when all the shops and businesses reopened, he would drop his tractor off as planned to have an oil leak fixed. This would give him time to wander around the village and speak to people in the hope of finding someone suitable to tackle his hedge. The drying mud flew off the heavy tractor tyres as Marc gained speed along the tarmac farm track, a rabbit jumping away as a big clod flew into the long grass. It only took a few minutes before he pulled into the yard of Marcel the mechanic, his dark moustache sitting under his nose like a pair of wings, his black beret slanted down onto his left ear. Marcel assured Marc that the oil leak would be fixed in a couple of hours, so Marc strolled into the village as the church clock produced two loud chimes.