In the two flowerbeds under the front windows of the old farm house, lily of the valley had taken over. I don't know who had planted them but they liked the sunny spot and flourished. The previous year had been particularly mean and money was lacking, or to put it more bluntly we were as broke as broke can be. His majesty had found nothing better to do than chuck in his job, at least that is what he told me, though I expect he was not being entirely truthful and had not had much success in finding another one.
Things just seemed to get worse as the months went by. Not only was money in short supply but we lacked rain. All the hard graft in the garden came to naught as our crops shriveled and died and the garden turned into a waste land of cracked earth and dust.
Our well, though seventeen meters deep, ran dry. There was no other water supply. Seeing our plight, our kind neighbour pumped water from his well into a cattle tank and emptied it into ours. But we could not use the washing machine or have a bath.
Spring was over very quickly as the temperature hit a constant 40C and the parched land could no longer provide for us. In desperation, farmers chopped branches off the ash trees in the hedges and fed them to their cattle but even that source of fodder soon dried up.
By July there was nothing for it, the goat and sheep got the chop and ended up in the freezer. The flies were a problem; they stuck to you drawn by your sweat, the only source of liquid in the searing heat.
By April the following year, the freezer was almost empty and we were living on pasta. His Majesty had got a new job, selling wine door-to-door on commission. He, however was only paid once his customers had settled their invoice and that took months. So in the meantime we were getting desperate.
One evening, His Majesty found nothing better to do one than bring his boss home for supper without any warning.
I had gathered young nettles from the waste ground behind the barn and had made nettle soup, thickened with flour as potatoes were an expensive commodity. The marble size tubers of our crop had been carefully scraped out of the dust, hardly worth the effort of digging them up. But they had long been eaten.
To keep the nettle soup company I had roasted some chestnuts that we had gleaned from another neighbour who had a huge old chestnut tree. We must have had thirty kilos in the freezer before Christmas but we were down to our last few bags.
The blokes quickly opened a bottle from their samples and sat down waiting for me to serve supper. I had no idea what His Majesty expected me to conjure up but he should have been aware of our plight. I poured the soup into a tureen and plonked it on the table and placed the roasted chestnuts next to it
'Nettle soup and chestnuts, bon appétit!' I proclaimed and removed myself to the kitchen, humiliated and mortified.
Dinner was over very quickly and I never saw our guest again. Maybe he just put it down to me being English and we all know what the French think of our cooking.
First of May was approaching, it fell on a Sunday that year, so we decided to bunch up the lily of the valley and try and sell them in the nearest town. Setting off early with two plastic basins full of the heady blooms, we soon realised we weren't the only ones trying to earn a bob or two. The woods in that part of France are full of wild lily of the valley and it seemed as if every Tom, Dick and Harry had had the same idea.
I stood on a street corner, very self-conscious which was hardly surprising considering the propositions I was getting from passing motorists who were more interested in my wares than my flowers. My little bunches looked rather insignifcant, so I undid them all and made them bigger and lowered the price. That did the trick and in no time I had emptied my bowl.
I rejoined His Majesty who had positioned himself by a baker's shop and proudly showed him my takings. He told me in no kind terms what he thought of my lack of commercial acumen.
He had sold his flowers and had taken five times more than me. He would have done Lord Sugar proud.
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