Train
Fiction, France, Normandy Notebook[multilanguage_switcher]The short story entitled Le Train which you can read on the…
Normandy Notebook
Isolation and Reciprocity
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy NotebookThere is much talk of desertification of the countryside in France, with people leaving for the big towns and cities; doctors are difficult to find in small communities, jobs are rare, and city lights…
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Mess, manure, and anaerobic digesters
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy NotebookA messy subject, but important for our environment and economics. Manure is still massively under-exploited. Alone, it is a fertilizer full of pathogens which get spread back onto the fields. But put through a methane digester under anaerobic c…
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France's environmental dilemma
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy NotebookGreat laws; too bad they’re not applied
Two expert reports on the state of the environment in France were published this July, one by the French National Agency for Health Security Anses (Agence nation…
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Glyphosate: the War on Weeds
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy Notebook[multilanguage_switcher]The five-acre field up our road stretched out like a yellow pall under the sky, desiccated. The local farmer had sprayed it before re-ploughing and sowing his next crop. He sprayed it with glyphosate – what dosage we’ll ne…
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I'm All Right Jack. What the French say about Brexit.
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy Notebook[caption id="attachment_1151" align="alignleft" width="200"]
“Union” Jack?[/captio…
I'm All Right Jack. What the French say about Brexit. Read Post »
To Bee or not to Bee
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy NotebookIf you went down to our woods eight years ago you’d have heard and seen ten beehives 
amongst the birches. …
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May Day, rickets, and the Forêt de Brotonne
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy NotebookOn May the 1st we took to the woods. If you go down a track in the Forêt de Brotonne – the Forest of Brotonne – you’ll come across a small chapel: the Chapelle Saint Maur. It is surrounded by beech trees and horn…
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Leprosy and La Chapelle Saint Thomas
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy NotebookThe small Leper colony in the woods down the hill with its Saint Thomas Chapel dates back to the 12th Century. We have been coming here on our walks for the last 15 years. It is surrounded by a high flint wall now taken over by the rampant vegetation.
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Alternative medecine: moles
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy NotebookOn the barbed wire fence by the farm up the road we counted 120 moles strung up in the sun like socks hung out to dry. A gruesome encounter. The local mole catcher had been by. He gets paid per mole, has to prove his catch and he’d clearly earned …
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Glow Worm
Normandy Notebook, PoetryCup in hand I take my tea at midnight
down a darkening track
lush chestnut oak and elm hang heavy
wheat field hushed, summer breeze between the husks halted.
Silence is a darkness too familiar.
Breath of cattle huddled by the fence
shadows si…