‘Twas Assomption day and kick off of the new hunting season. Lesley and I were on a mission. The mission? To fill our redundant jam jars full of blackberries from the nearby Fôret de la Double in order to fulfil our website claim of “providing homemade jams” for the Bed and Breakfast table. A simple enough task one would think, despite the potential threat of men in orange gilets with twitchy trigger fingers going off on one after a long winter lay off. After an hour’s heavy picking we were ready for the drive home, with our bowls overflowing with ripe fruit. As we descended from the forest we noticed a large number of hunters standing by the roadside looking nervously about but other than ducking instinctively we did not pay them too much attention. We turned for home once we had left the forest behind and were chatting about the finer points of copper pans over aluminium pans as the best medium for producing the best “fait maison” jams. Suddenly to my left I noticed on the verge a very large hairy and gnarly animal. It paused for a moment glancing behind itself, our eyes met for a millisecond and I realised the inevitable. The sanglier charged across the road and I struck it broadside before the thing disappeared into the forest on the opposite verge. The sound of the impact was what I imagine it’s like to drive into a brick wall. The old Peugeot 307, bless her, kept going in a straight line and reassuringly all the airbags smoothly activated themselves. It was only after finally grinding to a halt with coolant gushing out of the front that I noticed the airbags in their resplendent glory dangling yellow and misshapen like a washing line full of grubby Y-fronts – complétement sans air.
A bruised and battered 307
After recomposing ourselves we phoned the insurers who arranged a breakdown vehicle to come out and pick us up. We were given a lift back home as this was en route to the garage where the car will rest until the insurers get back to us.
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