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			THOUGHTS FROM JAMES BARBER James Barber's Duncan Diary Duncan Diary Installment #6 – A Donkey’s Life "There are things you ought to know about donkeys" said my friends. And they all told me different things. Most of them contradictory. The only common strand in all of their stories ( and the only indisputably true one ) is that they live for a very long time. 30 or 40 years seems quite normal, but there are lots of 60 year olds, most of which seem to live in France, where there are a number of very unhappy people who claim to have been victimized by them. How does a 60 year old donkey victimize you? French property laws are weird and designed to give ( even encourage ) aged grandparents to make their children’s lives difficult and complicated. The law says that all real estate must be left to the family, to be shared out. Families, French or not, find it hard to agree about the disposition of anything left in a will, so all over rural France there are thousands of empty and decaying houses jointly owned by the descendants of spiteful grandfathers, who slipped nasty little clauses into their wills requiring complete agreement ( by every member of the family (their children, their children’s children and all future generations ) before the house can be sold. And it seems that a popular clause has to do with donkeys. and their maintenance , present and future . In other words, whoever does take over the house also has to take over and offer lifetime security to the resident donkey ( or donkeys). Until they die. Which can be 50 or 60 years down the road. BUT ( there is always a 'but' in real estate) donkeys are very enthusiastic reproducers. The females come into heat about every fourteen days, seem to have no difficulty at all in conceiving , and after a year long pregnancy deliver baby donkeys. Which, a year later, are ready to have more baby donkeys . And on and on and on . .French lawyers are no less contentious or opportunist than any others, and there seem to be an increasing number of cases relating to the descendants of the original donkey (or donkeys) named in the will, holding that they are entitled to the same support as the originals, until the will is finally settled. Cousin Marie-Jeanne, aged 90, won’t agree to anything because she never did like the woman her sister’s son married, her sister’s son doesn’t like the woman he married either and so it goes on... Admittedly donkeys aren’t very high maintenance, they just need feeding twice a day, a rudimentary shelter from the rain, a lot of patting and stroking so long as you don’t touch their ears, and they love carrots and apples, but since they have a habit of eating everything green in the garden ( and the neighbour’s gardens –things like roses , grape vines, daisies, spring onions and expensive shrubs ) they also need fencing and babysitters if you have any intention of traveling further from home than the corner store. I’ve yet to see a real estate agent in North America advertising "House for sale, needs extensive repairs, lovely property, must be prepared to care for 7 lovely donkeys". But my donkey is only 11 months old and I am not taking him to France. James Barber - more diaries
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