Strange things happen when you live in a village with an apostrophe in its name.  Here we are, in the French countryside after living the life of a towny for a million years.  Here we are, with an half an acre of field and orchard to maintain.  Here we are, trying to learn to speak and understand the native tongue in an area where the local accent is as thick as treacle. Well you get the picture.  In this area, the simple word oui becomes something like gwee – imagine coughing up flem and you get the idea.  Amazingly we have trees in our orchard.  Some of them are big – like big enough to touch the overhead power cable running alongside the edge.  Trees touching power cable equals possibility of bringing down electricity supply to the whole village.  Not good said Maddo our elderly neighbour.  You must do something about it. At least that was how I translated a series of gutteral grunts that were emitted my way.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like this lady.  A lot.  She and her husband recently marched me to the nearest chestnut tree across the fields, helped me to collect them and gave detailed instructions on how to roast them on our woodburner.  Fernard appeared one morning planting lettuces in our prototype veg. patch. They seem to appreciate our rudimentary efforts at getting to grips with the language.  But Maddo is formidable.  It was time to take her advice.