CHARLES ROBERTS Now this is getting beyond a joke. In three days, two events out of three cancelled. Cause? Two screaming storms. I had two old friends staying with me - the EDP's Dick Watts and his wife, and my partner Guy.

CHARLES ROBERTS

Now this is getting beyond a joke. In three days, two events out of three cancelled.

Cause? Two screaming storms.

I had two old friends staying with me - the EDP's Dick Watts and his wife, and my partner Guy. “There is some-theeng very wrong,” grumbled G, his normally bright and optimistic timbres reduced to a growl.

Dick and spouse beamed their pleasure, and happily waited for a spectacle which was about to begin. We were at a highly unusual open-air show, staged in medieval ruins which clung to a cliff side in the picturesque town of Chauvigny, in Vienne.

The ruins were once combined in the Châteaux of the Bishops. Today, during the spring to September season, a group of highly trained young men and women recreate there the high medieval art of falconry.

They bring birds from all around the globe, among them a symphony of multi-coloured parrots, African marabou, white storks, magnificent eagles, and hawks of many descriptions. Not least, vultures, whose striking appearance and gory reputations go before them.

Our little party had downed a good lunch, and were now strolling across the road towards the castle. It was clear that a very lively wind was getting up. But it boded no ill. Neither did the sunlit sky and ridge, a few miles away on the opposite side of the valley.

We settled down into our seats, and put our time to work usefully on keeping our anoraks in one piece. For nobody had seemed to note the obvious. The far horizon, which was a soft water colourist's image when we walked into the building, was now a dark, seething, violent potage, a Turner canvas come to life.

It hit the castle like a tank smashing through glass, a mix now of rain, enormous wind and punishing hale. But a split second after the storm had burst, the falconers, quite innocently, had released their charges.

The birds scattered across our field of vision, hurled helter-skelter. The handlers kept their nerve and in just a few minutes had successfully called home every bird - except one. A vulture. The last that had been seen of her, she was being dashed against the outer castle wall, then disappeared.

Her handler reappeared, grey with shock. But, miraculously, falconer and bird were together again - and without a wound between them. But the happy end of the drama only a few of us saw.

The handler up to this point had her charge tucked protectively under one arm. Then she put the bird on the ground beside her, called her (by name) and led the way to her car. She opened the door, and called to the vulture to hop aboard. Which she did, as blithe and trusting as a bird can be.

Whenever, in the future, I see the image of a vulture, I shall look at it in a wholly different light. Just as sincerely, I look forward to seeing the whole show again . . .on a pleasing afternoon, without interruption from tempests.

And the second washout? A visit to a magnificent château, near Gencay, which is home to a museum of a once great mystic cult whose story began in Jerusalem in 1200. Amazing what intriguing things there are to be discovered in rural Vienne.

Meanwhile, in Paris, important political matters were in hand, where a victory for the President's party was being celebrated “in the blue”. Alas for Madame Royal and her husband, Francois Hollande, there was little to celebrate.

First she bade goodbye to her presidential hopes. Unwise speeches followed within her role as boss of the Socialist Party - and now, as we know, things were going from bad to worse, between husband and wife. Just before the presidential race, they had married, to give credence to their family life (Madame Royal bore Monsieur Hollande four sons during their long relationship).

Come the weekend's regional election, and Madame Royal was ready to release a domestic and political bombshell. At 10 o'clock on Friday evening, she announced publicly that she wished to divorce M. Hollande, and had already asked him to leave the family home promptly.

“I have asked François . . . to live his own 'sentimental journey' on his own side”, she declared. “I wish him all happiness.”

Reaction was prompt throughout the land - that her personal life was her own, but the timing of her announcement could not have been more badly chosen.

One thing is certain. That the Hollande/Royal Affaire will enter the political history books.

cvr_in_france@hotmail.com