Sunday 12 July 2009

Destruction

Like many villages in southern France Gabian has avenues of plane trees lining the roads leading into the village.  They are beautiful and they provide much-needed shade in summer.  Some of the trees are also very old – many over a hundred years old.  Last week in Gabian we lost some of these plane trees to needless destruction.

Comme beaucoup de villages dans le Midi à Gabian il y a des platanes aux bords des routes qui mènent au village.  Cette semaine nous en avons perdu quelques uns à cause d'une destruction inutile.

At the public meeting when the plans for the new housing development were presented we were told that four or five trees would be felled to make room for a roundabout.  Last week workmen began to cut down healthy trees … and more trees … until a demonstration of inhabitants stopped them, for the moment.  Nineteen trees now lie at the side of the road as sad piles of logs.  The remaining trees now have posters stapled to them demanding a referendum and saying ‘Don’t touch my plane tree’ and ‘I am more than 100 years old – don’t cut me down’.  I hope that the protest will change the minds of the mayor and the municipal council, persuade them to keep their word and stop this massacre of our trees.

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In the garden / dans le jardin

We’re harvesting aubergines, peppers, courgettes, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and our neighbours’ plums which make wonderful jam.

On récolte les aubergines, les poivrons, les courgettes, les concombres, les tomates cerises et les tomates Roma.  Et on cueille les prunes de nos voisins qui sont très bon pour la confiture.

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6 comments:

Stefaneener said...

Alas!
We, also, lost about 25 very old oak trees when a city planned a sidewalk extension which took a few feet of our yard.

We asked for the wood, and got it, but still. Our land went from shady and private to bare.

No one walks on the sidewalk, either.

Jan said...

Your crops look fantastic! In Catalan cucumber is cogombre... very similar to concombre.

chaiselongue said...

Stefaneer: Very sad about your oak trees - and pointless too.

Jan: cucumber is cogombre in Occitan too - there are many similarities between Catalan and Occitan - we noticed a lot when we were in Catalunya last week.

Piece Unique said...

I remember an article a few years ago talking about the cull of the killer plane trees. They were blamed for many of the Saturday night drunken accidents. The author sarcastically conjured up the image of those old trees jumping out of their line in front of the poor cars...
Good luck with the battle. I'm with you on this one! If all fails, good luck with getting used to the eyesore of yet another pointless little roundabout...

chaiselongue said...

Hi Sheshanna: yes, it is said that plane trees cause accidents, but really it's drunken drivers who do that! If the trees weren't there they would crash into something else. Unfortunately, there are rumours that this is part of a plan to cut down all the plane trees in the Midi. I hope this isn't true. Thanks for your support.

Madison Perry said...

Beautiful vegetables! I have a question about your blog. Will you please contact me via e-mail at your convenience. Thank you in advance.