Low life | 2 November 2017

The French countryside around here is teeming with wild boar. They visit the shack at night to eat the pansies and nose up the flower-beds, and their violent flare-ups over a disputed morsel wake us up. Standing about in the lane the other night, blocking it, was a 25-strong gathering of them. They ranged from cheerful little tackers to daft adolescents to suspicious old bruisers. And when we take the old dog on her daily walk, we hear them thrashing about in the tinder-dry undergrowth on either side of the track. Our neighbours advise taking a stick with us at this time of year, to fend off an attack, but as the boars seem more afraid of us than we are of them we don’t bother. All summer long they’ve been left in peace to procreate and raise litters and enjoy what must be an idyllic existence among the native scrub oaks.