Last week, as I was running along a bike path through a park not far from my house, I was distracted from my hyperventilating by the sound of two sharp reports. “Gunshots?” I asked myself, immediately launching into an oxygen-deprived half-dream about interrupting a drug deal gone bad or a violent domestic dispute. A few minutes later a happy springer spaniel with a cow bell on his collar bounded up to me, tail a waggin’. “This clearly isn’t the sort of dog a drug lord would have”, I thought to myself just as an older gentlemen, sporting camouflage gear and a shotgun appeared out of the trees. We swapped ‘bon jours’ and I continued on my way wondering if the shotgun could have possibly been the source of the sounds I had heard earlier. I only had to wonder for about thirty seconds as two more shots were fired from the general vicinity of the nice man and his dog. I decided wind sprints were in order and briskly trotted back to the main road and then home. Later that day, my neighbor, Luc, was out washing his Audi for the 12th time in six days and I thought he might be able to tell me whether or not joggers were in season. Luc has no English – absolutely none. However, he does have a lot of French, which he generously shares with me at every opportunity, knowing full well I have almost no French comprehension. After an extended mime session on both our parts, he was able to tell me that hunting season had started the week before, and I wasn’t likely to be shot while jogging, provided I stayed upright to avoid any resemblance to a boar or a rabbit. He didn’t seem the least surprised that someone was blasting away in the park. He also probably mentioned he was a hunter himself, and would be out hunting pheasants with his dog Vulcan (pronounced Vool-Khan), and would I be interested in one or two should he manage to be successful, I think. Apparently, his wife doesn’t like to eat dead things unless they’re killed and cleaned by strangers. I nodded in my best mime that I would be happy to take any dead things should he happen to bag one or two. For the uninitiated, most Saskatchewan boys know how to turn a dead thing into supper as long as a sharp knife or two is available. I forgot how disgusting the experience could be, as my last dead thing cleaning experience pre-dates MTV, compact disks and personal computers. The mission was accomplished on the back deck, much to the joy and amusement of the neighbours's cats. I give you a pheasant (female) before and after:
Baked (stuffed with sliced apple and onion) and served with baby potatoes and carrots, a pheasant provides just enough for three not terribly hungry people. Fortunately we had dessert.
Normally that would be enough excitement for one weekend, but not for Ann. She had signed all three of us up for a team running relay Sunday morning. My initial thoughts on this matter were neutral but I knew I had French bureaucracy working for me. As it turns out, a person can’t enter a checkers tournament without a medical certificate, and we weren’t able to find a doctor who could see us on short notice. Darn! Now I would have to spend Sunday morning watching France destroy Canada at the rugby world cup. Too much to hope for as the nice man running the relay race was able to provide us with a doctor who would happily see all three of us on Friday at 6:45 p.m.. How is that possible? Does this doctor person have no social life? No family?
Certificates in hand, we arrived bright and early Sunday morning for three-leg relay (not a three-legged relay) where each leg starts and finishes at the same place (Eikeden). Ann would start with a 6 km leg, I would take the second position with a 10 km stretch, and Perri would anchor with a 5 km leg. Our goal was simple: don’t finish last.
After a quick perusal of the other competitors I began to wonder whether we had set the bar too high and, as Ann chugged out of the starting gates, I began to unconsciously change the goal to “finish”. To my surprise, Ann returned much, much, later in a respectable 28th position (2nd or 3rd last). I then loped away just as some of the better teams were lapping us (a 5 km loop). Eventually, I found the finish, having reeled in a few of the runners on recreational teams with names like “beerhounds” and “couch potatoes”.
I then handed off to Perri, who was fairly excited about the whole event, who then took off like a rocket, in spite of my repeated advice to start slow. She survived, but the bitter harvest of a summer resisting physical exercise was almost too much to stomach as she oozed across the finish line.
To be fair, she had just recovered from a cold, so she wasn’t at her best, and we exceeded expectations by finishing 27th in a field of 31. Yippee!!
Normally 27th place doesn’t get you much. However, when you are the only team in the ‘family’ division, good things happen:
The girls got roses with the cup. We were also treated to a box of fresh oysters (enjoyed with the pheasant), cookies from a local patisserie, and some passes to the local fitness club. Not a bad payoff for a bunch of foreigners.
Seriously now, next week: Milan.
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