Frog Wars or frogwarts . . .

My home village of Fa lies somewhere none too precise in the right armpit of the upper Aude valley, possibly at the extreme end of a figurative hair. This small but surprisingly cosmopolitan community goes about its business under the monosyllabic frown of the famous hill-top Visigoth tower; a 9th century monolith, built like a brick shithouse. Well, it might be 9th century, I'm usually hazy about these things and too lazy to check them. But it's definitely very old and very solid.

A dissolute assortment of of old stone houses comes to inaccurate conclusions around the church, the bridge over the river Faby and the true nerve centre of village affairs, the accurately if obviously-named Café de Fa. River is maybe an exaggeration; the Faby is often a brook, in winter a fairly convincing torrent and in summer usually a pathetic trickle. But this spring it never stopped raining and that's why we've got Frog Wars in the Faby . . . in fact we've got loads more frogs, toads, snakes, mossies, and anything else anti-social which is likely to bite you, than usual.

The big question at the café tables is whether it's sex or war, or if there is, in fact, much of a difference. The one thing that's certain is the deafening racket. Whether it's a case of 'take me, baby' or 'stitch that, Jimmy', it clearly involves a lot of mouth. Dave the barman feels that it's a turf war. Me, I reckon it's the Legendary Orgy of the Pyrenean Bonking Frog. After all, two bits of manky reed, a few pebbles and a mugful of tepid water don't seem much like a country worth fighting for, but maybe it's different for an ambitious frog.

Mind you, Dave always takes a more philosophical view than me; sitting under the bamboo awning, luxuriously thick roll-up in one hand and nursing his orphan baby swift in the other. It fell out of its nest and landed in the pub, not yet quite able to fly home; rather like some of the other regulars. Still it could have done worse . . .