Wilf's Thursday morning PONder.

" Some folks grumble because roses have thorns , I'm thankful that thorns have roses " .

Austerity chic .

Grey, wet , and drizzly . Real Scottish weather - but warmer . Wilf , the master artisan , sensibly spends much of his morning in the kitchen . The Christmas Gravlax given a lip smacking score of 11 / 10 by our canine gourmet. The lunchtime Magret de canard caramelise also given a score of 11/10.

In fact Wilf seems to have an 11/10 level of enthusiasm for everything that's being prepared . A small sliver of short crust pastry from a mince pie scores 12/10 and elicits a 'Christmas must have come early ' sigh of contentment. He yawns and opts for a doze . By the time he wakes up the sun has broken through the clouds .

Outside the mayors secretary decorates the box hedge around the war memorial with Christmas baubles. Austerity chic . After the street lights and the bus stop there clearly wasn't much money left in the village budget .

Four metres !

Madame Bay calls . She has spoken to the greengrocer . He will cut down a four metre tree and deliver it to the house at eleven on Saturday morning . Madame Bay, Monsieur Bay , Sandrine , a gaggle of baby Bays and the good for nothing son-in-law Hugo are all waiting when it arrives . A wonderful , beautifully shaped , Christmas fir . The tree firmly strapped to the top of the greengrocers small white Citroen van . Madame Bay beams . The baby Bays gurgle. A most perfect tree .

One tiny problem . The height. It's at least five metres tall . While Sandrine and the children head to the warmth of the kitchen Madame Bay reprimands the greengrocer - '' Quatre metres Monsieur ! Quatre " . Amid much arm waving and huffing blame is firmly apportioned . The greengrocer shrugs his shoulders. Monsieur Bay is sent to retrieve a saw from the boot of the car . Then under the ever watchful eye of our saintly septaguenarian Hugo cuts half a metre from the top and half a metre from the bottom . Height problem solved .

Finally a rope is carefully knotted around the lower branches . The other end thrown up to a first floor window . Five minutes of tugging by Angus , pushing by Hugo , a few intemperate words from Madame Bay , a maelstrom of pine needles and swaying branches and voila the tree is safely ensconced in its stand . Christmas one step nearer.

Wilf sits by the fire listening . The second Christmas he can't see what's going on . He never complains . Old PON's instinctively know that " well done is better than well said ".

Love indeed.

A cold and blustery Sunday afternoon in London . Carols in Westminster Abbey . I get a seat next to David Livingstone or more precisely his tomb . The inscription : " His body carried home across land and sea by loving hands " makes me wonder what state it must have been in by the time it got here from the Limpopo. Love indeed .

Outside parliament two hundred ever so slightly tipsy American pharmaceutical salesmen . All of them dressed up as identical Father Christmases . The Police look on with studied indifference . Having taken photos of Big Ben the salesmen head off in a convoy of double decker buses. The slurred sound of ' Do you hear what I hear ? ' filling the evening air .

An early dinner with serious Manhattanites in dark suits . Thirty minutes trying to interpret the complicated and subtle before the coffee is served . The New Yorkers have brought their wives with them . The lady opposite me a dead ringer for the actress in that 1960's series about a wiggely nosed witch married to an advertising executive .

Wilf has been busy. A trip to the Sunday bread market, slivers of lip smackingly tasty trout for lunch followed by a long slow walk down by the river . He sleeps solidly through until he's loaded into the back of the car and is brought to the airport to meet me. Today we shall go to choose the Christmas tree. For Wilf a once a year chance to christen tree trunks at the garden centre .

Doctor or tax man ?

Back on the first flight . At four thirty the airport eerily quiet . That strange , tiring, harsh neon light that you only find in large public spaces before dawn . For once I don't set off the security systems .

Home in time to pick up Wilf and take him down to town for his morning constitutional. I'm still in a suit and tie .This seems to slightly alarm the track suit wearing beer and absinthe set who look at me in much the same way as they might look at a doctor or a tax inspector . Wilf still gets his half croissant.

Swedish cuisine time .

The security staff at Toulouse airport stop Angus for enhanced screening. They always stop Angus for enhanced screening. A 100% hit rate . Perhaps if he wore a ' Death to America ' t-shirt instead of a suit and tie things might proceed more smoothly. He sensibly keeps this thought to himself as the doughnut shaped wand of shame is brought out and waved over him . Age has taught Angus that humour and airport security staff are best kept well separated . The gentleman with the peroxide perm , the diamond nose stud and the doughnut wand seems particularly humourless . " It's for your own protection and that of other passengers " he informs me with a curtness honed by extreme boredom. Was life always ruled by people with authority but no responsibility?

Wilf has none of these worries. In my absence it's Swedish cuisine time . Fish, fish and more fish . Some of it air dried . Riz au homard for lunch , filet de bar roti au parme et aux figues for dinner . A little mackerel with his kibbles. A late morning walk round the Friday market with ' the font '. A sliver of goats cheese from the lady at the fromagerie . Afterwards ample opportunity to christen a few car tyres . Tired out and full , he sleeps uninterruptedly through the night . As old PON's instinctively know : " Arrange whatever pieces come your way " .

Success .

Huge improvements . Only up twice in the night. At one and again at four. This morning Wilf joins me on the bakery run . The first time since Saturday. The routine at the cafe, complete with illicit croissant and hair tousling , enjoyed by dog, waitress, and the beer and absinthe crowd . Despite the driving rain he's keen to stop on our journey home and go for a slow mud spattered walk down by the river .

There is something episodic and repetitive about these bad days . We enjoy six or seven trouble free, fun filled weeks. Then eight or nine days where his routine subtly changes ( dog owners will understand the sub-plot in that statement ) and then two, this time three , nights where he simply can't settle. Manic drinking, hourly pit stops , panicked ' Where are you ? ' type barks when he gets lost on his confused midnight wanderings through the house . The cycles are so far apart that it's difficult to recognize them but this was the third, possibly fourth, of these ' moments ' . Rather than be triggered by stress or diet they seem to have some mechanical cause.

Normal service is now resumed and Wilf will be spending his day in the kitchen helping 'the font ' make Mince Pies and the Christmas Pudding . He's already taken up his spot in front of the range . For dogs and for humans alike " Success is largely a matter of hanging on after others let go ".

Wilfs Tuesday morning PONder .

Another very difficult night but this morning he's sitting at the foot of the stairs wanting his breakfast.

As old PONs instinctively understand : He who knows he has enough is rich .

Molten or Molton ?

A smart oceanside hotel In Santa Barbara sends an e-mail suggesting we come and stay with them for Christmas. The gushing marketing missive ends with the words " and you can't grumble at Molten Brown smellies ! " . ' Oh yes you can ' thinks Angus . ' The font ' tells me they probably mean Molton Brown toiletries .

The night of the Black Sabbath meets Dire Straits concert in the village hall . The band made up of four , thirty something , head banging , Goths . Two Dutch, two French .The lead singer alarmingly hyperactive in yellow velvetine trousers and black morning coat. In between songs they revive themselves with chili con carne eaten off plastic plates . Dire indeed. We return home after ten minutes. Wilf greets us as if we've been away for a month.

The art of being wise .

The gardeners arrive bright and early to carry on with the landscaping . This time they bring a new toy - a pneumatic drill .The plumber and electrician arrive shortly after to put right what the gardeners had destroyed the day before . Wilf gives the gathered multitude a quick ' don't forget I'm here ' bark and then settles down for a long sleep in the orchard .

By lunchtime the new cypress trees along the drive have been planted . Even better - the impromptu lake on the lawn has largely drained away and the electrical system is once again safe . The family fellow treads warily across the waterlogged turf en route to christening the excavator .

'' The font '' has sensibly headed off to the UK on the first flight of the morning for ' granny fonts ' ninety third birthday . Upstairs , Aude, the bi-polar decaratrice , has started to put the lime render on the bedroom walls . She chats happily away to herselves .

Angus spends his day in fearful anticipation of what disaster might come next. Whatever comes next certainly isn't the third DHL parcel which remains elusive . The French tracking centre completely uninterested in its whereabouts . ' Maybe tomorrow ' the default reponse .

As Wilf might say : " the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook " .

A typical Tuesday .

08.00 : The gardeners arrive .
09.27 : They start using the mechanical excavator .
11.05 : They sever the water main . A lake quickly forms in the garden .
11.16 : We find the stopcock . The lake stops growing .
Noon : The gardeners leave for lunch .
13.39 : They return .
14.42 : They sever the main electrical cable .
14.43 : 'The font ' comes into the garden to tell me the power is off.
14.44 : Aude the decaratrice does the same.
14.45 : Angus thanks everyone for informing him of the obvious .
14.47 : The gendarmes arrive to find out why the security alarm is ringing.
14.49 : One of the DHL parcels arrives .
14.56 : Satisfied I'm not a burglar the gendarmes depart .
15.51 : Electricity is restored to the house .
16.28 : The gardeners snag the wire leading to the barn . The fuses trip .
16.36 : Power once again restored
17.12 : A second DHL parcel arrives
18.00 : The gardeners go .
18.01 : Angus opens a bottle of wine .

Through it all Wilf sits outside the front door dozing . That old PON ethos of only worrying about the things he can change and not bothering about the rest . This is not an ethos ' the font ' seems to share .

It's your job !

Monday spent waiting patiently at home for three DHL packages to arrive from London. They don't show up . The young woman at DHL France particularly unhelpful : '' How should I know when they'll arrive ? ". Angus can think of many things to say in response to this but settles for a lame ' because it's your job to ! '. An altogether more helpful person at DHL UK thinks they might come today or tomorrow . At least someone in that organisation understands what the ' help' in ' helpline ' is for . Angus and the family fellow go off for a long sunset walk down by the stream . Wilf takes a nap mid-route.

Aude , the decaratrice , has returned . She's spent the last week learning how to operate her new hand loom. From the fact that she's wearing dungarees and a t-shirt it can be assumed that progress on the alpaca weaving front is slow .

Wilf is let out into the garden for an early morning, pre-croissant , pit stop. In the half darkness I can make out the outlines of a small white mechanical excavator . Wilf christens it's tracks . Over breakfast it is clearly established that neither ' the font ' nor yours truly know when it was delivered , who delivered it and what it's for . How it got in through the gates without us hearing is a mystery . Plumber, builder, gardener , septic tank engineer, dropped off by mistake ? Watch this space .

Sunday contentment .

Up at 2.23 am to let Wilf out for a pit stop. The smell poltergeist in the rickety old farmhouse is hard at work . The upstairs corridor like a pine forest after it's rained. An almost identical smell to that expensive dark green bath gel they used to make . I spend ten minutes trying to remember the name of the bath gel before falling asleep again .

Pumpkin soup and cheese for lunch . Some coconout ice cream for Wilf after his kibbles. Wilf licks his lips in delight . '' The font '' goes off to see the Spielberg ' Tintin ' movie at the new picture house . It starts fifteen minutes late because there is a queue for popcorn . Wilf and yours truly go to support the local rugby team . At half time we wander out into the car park . Wilf christens the tyres of the visiting teams coach . I'm sure there's a look of quiet satisfaction on his face when we go back to our seats for the second half. After the game is over we find a new lane to wander down .

No hot dog for the family fellow at the rugby ground but as soon as we're home he settles down in the kitchen to provide technical guidance . Langoustines , orange et tagliatelles de legumes followed by Daurade a la Phoceenne . The preparation of both dishes carefully monitored . A tiny amount of human food with his dinner and he's happy .

Canine theatre .

Wilf's in a sweet spot. A bit more confused this week but otherwise full of vim and vigour . The weather helps . Warm and bright . Nothing to trouble old arthritic joints or tumours . Yesterday as the sun sets he treads on a nettle . Paw held up in that overly theatrical " only a sausage can dull the pain " dog type way . With no sausage forthcoming he settles down on the tarmac and falls asleep. He's soon snoring . For the second time in as many days the chauffeur is called to come and collect us . While we wait for the car the sun brushes his coat and he glows brilliant white . Maybe when he's asleep he dreams of being swift and beautiful again .