Alexandra Giroux

What did you get up to last weekend? You were at the Circus? Oh dear, how passé! Do you want to know what is really fashionable just now? Just look at the new pop stars on TV. They all have Peruvian hats. Listen to Jeannie Longo on Saturday morning on France Inter: she advises you to get close to nature. So, what are you waiting for?
Personally, I am very lucky because I have two friends who are helping me to become fashionable. Matthias and Sigisbert are two cute boys who also happen to be hunters. As I did not know anything about the hunting world, I decided to follow them into the forest. They taught me that hunting is not a very cruel thing done by people who enjoy being nasty to nice animals. Hunting is necessary to keep well-balanced ecosystem since there are no big predators anymore.
“Don’t forget to wear two pairs of trousers” Matthias had advised me. Two pairs of trousers? “And a big coat.” Ok, it is not very sexy but , I don’t  suppose the roe deer mind much. It turned out Matthias was quite right because it was very cold. But it was not a problem because the other hunters were very warm. One of them even gave me a “Mon chéri”. So I find myself obliged to confirm the rumour that hunters consume alcohol while seeking their prey. A bit like the rest of us, really.
Then we left. Some of the people went on battue, others were positioned. As I was very cold, I chose the first option. We walked in line in the forest and we had to yell. I am a little bit shy and I did not dare shout “Oh!” and “Ah!” I am sure that hunting is a good way of helping people who have difficulties expressing themselves! It was all was very beautiful. Have you ever seen a frozen cobweb? The sun among the trees? A mushroom exploding into a cloud of spores? The beauty of nature does us town-dwellers a lot of good.
Suddenly, “Bang!” Is a roe deer dead? It’s easy to know since hunters use horns to communicate. Two blasts means that the animal is dead. There they are, the two blasts, so it seems that Bambi came in second best this time. We went on the place where the roe deer was. The men opened its body. I thought that it would be disgusting but in fact, it wasn’t that bad.
Afterwards, it was time to eat. We were all happy because hunting and running is exhausting: we were also obliged to eat a lot of bread and cake in order to take energy. When you go to bed in the evening, I can assure you that you know you were not just playing at being the hunter.
It was great going in the forest with my two friends in order to discover things I did not know. I learnt a lot, and if you want to go out to the plateau of Malzéville with me, I will try to tell you the names of the all the trees.