The Boar Hunting season opens tomorrow.

That was the headline in the local paper that caught my eye as I shared a croissant with Parsley this morning.

Now, I'm rather partial to wild boar, and although it is a symbol of this region I have never seen it on display locally or in the bigger supermarkets. It seems you have to know the right people to ask -  wink, wink, nudge nudge, and all that.

So, I was quite surprised to read that the 25,000 sangliers killed last year in the Ardennes, Marne, Aisne and Somme were not sufficient to prevent an overpopulation which is destroying the crops - especially the maize.

A friend of ours, who is a chasseur, told me that the adult of the species is a very mean beast and capable of doing you serious damage - if you don't get him first.

They have wild boar in a local animal park (surrounded by two rows of wire netting) and, despite warnings to the contrary, everyone takes bread to feed them - and the deer and goats. The big ones would willingly trample the smaller ones to get to the food and so they keep the young babies (marcassins) in a separate enclosure. They are so pretty when they're little and have completely different markings from their parents, with pale stripes down their backs.

From tomorrow, which is a jour de ferié (Bank holiday) we'll all have to be careful, if walking near fields, that there's no danger of being mistaken for a wild boar. Accidents have been known to happen.

Once the hunters have taken their share I hope there'll be some left over for the rest of us and that I'll find someone 'in the know'.