I had an enjoyable bike ride with one of my cycling friends yesterday, and as so often learned something that I didn’t want to learn.

The south-west of France has a long tradition of good food and wine and healthy hearty living, and the area is positively overflowing with tasty mushrooms, fine cheese and great wine. Game birds and animals happily hop and run from under the hedgerows so that they can be turned into a delicious roast dinner. And if you’ve never had chocolate coated pruneaux d’agen you’ve never lived.

Think it sounds unhealthy? Check out the average age of death around here – it’s positively unusual for someone to pass on before they are 85 years old, unless they have been less than scrupulous about the mushrooms they eat, or have been run over by an out of control piece of farm machinery.

But there are other aspects of the farming process that it is better not knowing about, especially if you are of a squeamish disposition. Foie gras production and veal farming are two that spring to mind. Since living in the area we have abandoned most of our moral objections, and happily eat most things that come our way.

Mre B and I did pass through a happy hippy stage many years ago (before children, and many years before we moved to France) which included going vegetarian. What were we thinking of. I certainly wouldn’t admit that to most people around here, for fear of being the first person to be stoned to death in the market square since the Black Prince ambled through the town 600 years ago.

Anyway, yesterday out cycling my cycling buddy pointed at a row of grey recycling bins in a farm, and asked if i knew what they were for. Well it was pretty clear that one farm didn’t need so many recycling bins, so I kept that idea to myself and admitted that no, I had no idea.

Well, apparently some, but not all, veal farms put the young veal cows into these containers – I imagine they had doors that I couldn’t see, I’m not suggesting they squeezed cows through a small hole more suited to an empty wine bottle – with the goal of allowing the mother cow milk to be sold, rather than given to the young cow, and to ‘help’ the mother and child cows get over the whole parent/sibling thing as quickly as possible.

Best I can understand, if they remain in the same barn together they grow attached to each other and get all grumpy when they can’t be together, which causes all kinds of problems. Hence the containers outside the main barn.

Now in truth I may have partly misunderstood this explanation because (a) we were hurtling along the road and (b) my understanding of heavily accented local patois French is not all it could be. Please correct me if I’m wrong or confirm if I am right, but I have bad vibes about the whole thing.

Apart from that, you’ll be pleased to know it was a lovely day for a bike ride, and we both looked quite the part in our spanking-new sale-price lycra.