Living in Brittany

We had quite a shock last Saturday in the bar someone mentioned Francois Rolland had died of an aneurysm, he's our neighbour just lives a few fields away. Regular visitors will have seen him working the fields or he would often drop in for a chat  leaving the engine of his  John Deere  tractor running  as he had a quick beer and gossip with me and Paulien. We have known him 17 years and he lived at Coat Aillis before we bought the place  and he had a large hanger in place where he ( or his wife ) milked his 25 cows, in fact we co-habited  on site as he didn't move the hanger till 95 so we always got on well. He was a fiery proud Breton but an unreconstructed chemical farmer who was was an anachronism as he was farming on such a small scale. The funeral was at Ploulec'h a small village near Lannion it was completely packed so we had to stand for the service  where they sang songs in French and Breton and afterwards everyone passes the coffin and sprinkles some drops of water on it. I got out early but Paulien left half an hour after me as there were at least 400 in the church and another 100 outside. He was only 53 and had 3 girls one of whom was going to be married the following week so it was bad timing.

All the dairy farmers locally are on strike  that is they are throwing their milk away ( they will give it away also )  since 10 days it looks like financial suicide  but I guess they aren't making much money anyway.