The morning walk.

Digby cautiously ventured out with me on his morning walk while his elder brother went off on a hike with 'the font'. The little ones sore paw meant that such progress as was made was extremely leisurely and interspersed with long contemplatative stops to observe nature and sit on the grass. We paused by the village pond for ten minutes looking at the resident heron and the ever active scarlet breasted woodpeckers. Anyone observing our gentle stroll must have thought we were two eighty year olds out for our daily constitutional.

Wilf's ear allergy was troubling him last night. I was up from three thirty until four calming him down and trying to stop the manic scratching through a combination of cuddles and soothing talk. The violence of the scratching makes rest impossible - thankfully, he eventually fell fast asleep in my arms and then slumbered uninterruptedly for three hours. Looking back at the old 'Life in Italy' blog I see that we had exactly the same problem last year and found that the application of an American ear cleaning product, 'Zymox' , was the only thing that worked to soothe the irritation. Digby doesn't have the ear problem so I don't know whether this wild scratching is breed specific or stress or allergy related. Last year I'd asked the kennel where we got them for some advice but didn't get a reply. The vets tests are inconclusive. His diet, post-Pancreatitis is pretty well controlled but it could be that he has developed a reaction to something in his low-protein kibbles - certainly, his once every ten day stomach upsets have started to occur more frequently in the last couple of months. A large Zymox order has been placed this morning with the manufacturer in the US together with a request to send it to Europe by courier asap. Wilf's the perfect companion but sadly,the combination of pancreatitis, poisoning by the Italian hunters, and then the run in with the killer caterpillars, all in the space of 18 months seems to have taken its toll on him.

Cut paw and Manhattan chic.

Somehow, somewhere Digby has managed to cut one of his paw pads. A rapid drive into the local town to see the gentle vet who cleaned the wound , gave him an injection, and wrote a prescription for a nightly antiseptic foot wash. Digby trembled on the vets table but was surprisingly well behaved. This morning while 'the font' and Wilf headed off on a long, girth shrinking walk, Digby and I went in the opposite direction and drifted slowly across the soft, paw friendly, village green. Overnight, there had been a hard hoar frost. Digby soon discovered that the fallen plane tree leaves had frozen rock solid so that they made an interesting crunching noise when he walked over them. Backwards and forwards he went revelling in the noise, oblivious to his sore paw, the cold, and me. Little boyz , whether of the two or four footed variety, will always be mischevious. We were home just in time for Digby to bark at the arrival of the much delayed DHL delivery driver.

Walked into the kitchen to be met by a stern look from 'the font'. Madame Bay had returned from her Christmas trip to New York. The reason for the frosty ' be on your best behaviour' look soon became apparent. Madame Bay has had her hair done in Manhattan. I must admit that I never really noticed our cleaning lady's hair before, the eye being naturally drawn to the cascading chiffon or the primary colours of her ensemble. However, even to an unobservant individual like myself it was immediately apparent that a great change had taken place. As she came towards me ,chiffon flying, arms akimbo in greeting, " Bonne Annee M'Ongoose, Bonne Annee", I could see that she had spent time in the Sinead O'Connor hairdressing salon. Gone was the perm to be replaced by a somewhat severe haircut modelled on that of a marine corps rookie. However, a marine corps rookie would not be advised to wear their hair in the interesting purpley-red colour ( did a detect a hint of blue) that Madame Bay's 'stylist' had liberally applied. To complement the new look Madame Bay was also sporting a large pair of brass circular earrings, fully three inches in diameter which could have been a prop in an National Geographic documentary on African tribal villages .What they did to the x-ray machines at Kennedy is anyones guess. Being a great diplomat I blurted out " My! You look twenty years younger and so chic!" 'The font' relaxed ( I hadn't stared fixatedly with my mouth open), Madame Bay beamed with delight, and I have been left alone to recover my composure. Wilf has spent the last hour looking quizically at Madame Bay's swinging earrings as she shuttles backwards and forwards with the hoover listening to Bob Marley on the radio, while Digby has retired under a table with what appears to be an arched eyebrow as he observes this new, and shocking scene. I shall not give up the wine drinking today - the effect of Manhattan meets deepest France Profonde is too harrowing . 'The font' being ever positive has described the cut as 'severely practical'.

The diet.

Wilf and Digby are settling into their post Christmas diet and neither of them is exactly happy about it. Each time one of us goes to the kitchen there is a brief pause followed by the sound of scampering, and then one nose appears at the door followed in short order by a second. Expectation runs rampant and the boyz well honed 'I'm just a sad, poor wee doggie that's never had anything to eat' routine is much in use - learnt behaviour after a house full of surreptitious treat feeding guests. Why does that scene from Oliver with the little boy asking for more keep on coming to mind?

The new French vet has said that each of the troubadors has to lose at least a kilo so they are on half rations and rice cakes until their waistlines are under control. I'm thinking of joining them in their girth diminishing misery by giving up wine and chocolate for a month - I'll probably start tomorrow or maybe the day after. 'The font' thinks that rice cakes are fattening and should be cut out- I don't think they are. Comments supporting my hypothesis welcome.

The beds.

Just as we sat down to Sunday lunch the phone went. It was the owner of the bed shop. The van with our long awaited furniture was making slower progress than he'd thought and he was only just south of Paris : - 'Thanks for being so patient I should be with you around six'. With that he rang off. So much for being here first thing in the morning and so much for my chance to explain how patient I was feeling. At six thirty, as I was wondering whether to open a bottle of claret for dinner, the phone went again. ' Oh Hi. I'm just passing Cahors , I'll be at the house in about an hour'. At eighty thirty he phoned again (yes, Oh Hi!) to say he was off the motorway and would be with us in twenty or so minutes.

The driver eventually arrived at the front door at nine fifteen last night as bright and breezy as though he'd only been on the road for an hour. It seems he had left the showroom on Saturday afternoon after loading the van but in his ' haste' had forgotten to wear a watch. As a result he was using the clock in the delivery van unaware that it was six hours slow. This only came to light when he turned up for the nine o'clock ferry from Dover to Calais on Saturday night only to discover it was by now two am on Sunday!

I sat in amazement listening to this dysfunctional tale of woe while 'the font' decided that the poor boy must be starving and promptly insisted he sit down to eat something hot. Never again shall I spend a Sunday evening helping to unload beds in the pouring rain. He eventually left at one fifteen this morning, brim full of energy and keen to get on the road to Rheims to load up his by now empty van with cheap champagne . It was only as I lay my head on the pillow that it struck me that the beds arrived on the very day the house emptied. Wilf and Digby sat in the hallway following the unloading of the van with close interest and thoroughly enjoying the entertainment. Digby had that look on his face that seemed to say ' why don't we do this every night?'.

Wilf has an infection.

Wilf has somehow managed to get a skin infection on the spot where his tail would be . Yesterday lunchtime he suddenly became quite agitated and started to charge around aimlessly at high speed - probably as a way of dealing with the irritation. Faced with his uncharacteristic hyper-activity and grumpiness 'the font' immediately drove him into the vet in the local market town for a diagnosis and treatment. Going to a new vet is like going to a new school for the first time - quite simply nerve wracking. Will they be kind, do they know their stuff, will the boyz like them? It's even more of a right of passage in a foreign country - will we be able to explain exactly what the symptoms are? Thankfully, the vet was charm itself and after a few minutes probing discovered that the folds of skin where the tail should be have become infected - extremely uncomfortable but no more serious than that. A quick anti-inflammatory injection and a spray on treatment that has to be re-applied this afternoon and Wilf and 'the font' were out of the surgery. Wilf has also been ordered to lose weight - he has put on a kilo over the three weeks of Christmas and is now on a regimen of long,long walks. Digby is in fine form.

The long awaited beds are supposed to arrive from the UK today - just as the house empties out. Neither the landline nor the mobile number of the shop owner are being answered so we have no idea if they are on their way or are still sitting in storage . By tomorrow morning we shall either be bed rich or remain bed poor. Finally, just a quick word of seasonal thanks to the individual who set the ring tone on my mobile phone to 'Let me be the one' by Kerima.

The beds are on the move! (?)

The old boiler, or what remains of it, is sitting, propped up on a fork lift truck, on the downstairs garden terrace where the ever whistling plumber left it on New Years Eve. He left with a cheery wave, a cheque (hence the cheery wave), and a vague promise to come again on Monday to pick it up. Naturally, because the old heating systems innards are covered in oil and grease ( and heaven alone knows what else) this graveyard of pipes and valves has become the sole source of interest for the two boyz. Forget long walks in the country or a saunter through the fields chasing squirrels they want to be down below exploring the redundant plumbing and its muzzle matting viscous coatings. Why is it that the more you say 'no', the more attractive something becomes? In some respects dogs are more like humans than we care to recognize.

Life is quickly returning to normal after the holidays. The Christmas tree was taken down yesterday. We were going to leave it up until the 6th but the ever thickening carpet of fallen pine needles was getting to the stage where remedial action was required. In the end we opened the windows at the end of the hall and threw it out onto the lane below - that way the pine needles were confined to one area of the house. What's the betting we'll still be finding them in all sorts of weird and wonderful places in August?

The saga of the beds continues. They are being loaded onto a van (again?) for their long journey from Hertfordshire south. We have gone beyond speaking to the manager of the store and have now had the owners cast iron guarantee that they will be with us hell or high water tomorrow lunchtime. For those of you who live in the south of England you can take it for granted that the movement of our beds will entail the snow storm of the decade, the gridlock of the century, and the interruption of all channel ferry crossings for at least a week.

The sounds of the New Year.

A breezy start to the New Year with 60 mph winds sweeping in from the Atlantic. The old house spent the first night of 2010 reverberating to the banging of shutters and creaking of beams. Adding to the noise the dreaded swimming pool alarm decided to go off no less than eight times between two thirty and dawn - tree branches were falling on the pool cover and setting off the motion detector. How not to make friends with your neighbours! I got up the first four times but eventually stayed in bed and pulled the covers over my head. Hopefully, most of the village folk were in an armagnac induced sleep and failed to notice our unseasonal siren. It is my job today to find a way of turning down the volume on the devilish inherited contraption. We have an instruction manual but the previous owners labrador has chewed the relevant pages so that they are totally illegible.

We had been invited to a number of parties (the locals in the village are proving to be most congenial neighbours) but finally opted for a quiet Hogmanay dinner alone with the family. Wilf and Digby did their best to stay awake for the arrival of the New Year but by eleven o'clock both of them were sprawled out on the carpets in the hallway, the excitement simply too much.Wilf sleeps completely silently but Digby snores away like an old trooper with an eighty a day habit. 'The font' would say that the likeness between a dog and its owner can be uncanny. Hmppph.