Impersonal standoffishness

The weather forecast said that the day would dawn bright and fair. It didn't . It continued to pour down . Faced with an office and bedroom under water ' the font ' heads off early to buy dehumidifiers from the hardware store in Toulouse . While Wilf dozes in his bed , the sodden turkish rugs are carried through to dry on a table in the covered terrace. Who would have thought wet carpets could weigh so much ?

General de Gaulle arrives at seven thirty, holds out his hand, and helpfully observes " it's raining " . Angus bites his tongue . Madame Bay shows up shortly afterwards. She is wearing her disaster relief outfit . This comprises a blue one piece jump suit , as might be worn by a forensic team at a crime scene , her trademark lime green turban ( this one brightened up by what appears to be the cullinan diamond ) and black wellington boots . She surveys the devastation and exclaims in best French style " Oh la la - la -la " .

The pool man comes at eleven . The pump and filter seem to have given up working . He tinkers with them, they spring briefly into life, then as chlorinated water bubbles up through the lawn , they stop. The electricity in the rest of the house stops with them.

On our lunchtime walk Kelly , the hover dog , bounds out from the old widows porch . She rushes over to Wilf, tenderly smells each of his eyes, and then bounds off . She yelps happily . It's as if she's recognized that his standoffishness is nothing personal . Can her sense of smell really be so sensitive that it can detect blindness ?

Wilf ambles along , happy with all the fresh scents the storms thrown up . As any PON will tell you " Life is always lived in the eye of the storm " .