As mad as a bag of frogs.

Over dinner last night a guest came out with the line : 'as mad as a bag of frogs'. I'd never heard the expression before, nor had 'the font'. I wonder if it was a personal whimsy or a phrase that is more widely used ? Has anyone else ever heard it?

The scarecrows by the bus stop are still there a week after the rained off mid-summer bonfire. Sometime in the last couple of days a local wit has decked them out with strands of fresh garlic - a reminder to any passing tourists that we are in the garlic growing centre of the universe. Long time readers of the blog will remember that Madame Bay is brought up in the local tradition of adding a little food to her garlic. Perhaps that is why she has never had an ailment or a days sickness in her life, that is until the young locum came along. Garlic as aphrodisiac ?

After a long walk through the sunflower fields , a trip to the newsagent and a hair tousling and bowl of water at the cafe , Wilf is now happily settled in the shade of the courtyard. Two nights ago with the temperatures still hovering close to 30 at midnight we brought a fan into the dressing room. He now lies there all night in front of it , basking contentedly, hair disheveled, in the breeze. When I get up in the morning he can be found in exactly the same position he was six hours earlier. He literally doesn't move an inch overnight.

To friends and blog friends in the US a very happy July 4th holiday. I hope it's the sort of day when you can all ' Let music swell the breeze and ring from all the trees'.

Fifth time lucky.

The blogger gremlin has popped out of its box this morning. This is the fifth attempt at posting. While fortune is smiling on us herewith some photos of Wilf concentrating on devouring his morning yoghurt.

At the local garden centre a strange sign saying that they will diagnose the health of your garden plants. All you have to do is spend €50 in the store and they will run an analysis on your favourite perennial. Strange.

Supermarket was deserted. Germany are playing in the semi-finals.

Hopefully, normal service will resume tomorrow - gremlin willing.

Disastrous timing.

While 'the font' was away I arranged for the maintenance man to come to fit the new solar powered pool cover. French law requires that all swimming pools either have a security alarm or a childproof cover. Surprisingly, in a land where rules and regulations are treated with a certain gallic reticence and a shrug of the shoulders this is one piece of legislation that is rigidly enforced. The pool security alarm that we inherited when we bought the house had a klaxon the size of Delaware and a tamper proof system that meant it couldn't be turned off once the ten minute cycle of flashing lights,hoots and blasts started . It had also developed a rather unhappy, and completely random habit of going off whenever the fancy took it. Of course it never went off during the day only after midnight. Naturally, the service engineer could never find anything wrong.

In the recent storms it started to play up again. Yours truly was out of bed every half an hour in his dressing gown to find out what might have fallen into the pool - a hedgehog or some insomniac toddler . At two thirty one stormy morning two weeks ago , as it hooted away for the fourth time, our fraught relationship came to an abrupt end as I put paid to the devlish fog horn with a sledge hammer. Since then, no matter what Pyrennean gales may blow up in the depths of the night, we've enjoyed calm, klaxon free, uninterrupted sleep. Very Bret Easton Ellis. Hence the urgent need for a pool cover. Little did I know that 'the font' had arranged for Madame Bay to come at the same time to tidy up the beer bottles after the 'bachelor party'. Some hasty reworking of schedules is now underway to avoid the poolman and his chiffoned nemesis from coming into contact.

In addition to rug surfing and swing biffing Wilf has rediscovered that other summer favourite , the 'splosh' game. He carefully collects any stray balls he finds in the garden and carries them over to the pool where he drops them one by one into the water. The look of delight on his face as they land with a 'splosh' in the water is priceless. They then have to be fished out by yours truly, thrown onto the lawn where the whole process begins all over again. Wilf could, if allowed to, keep this up for hours at a time.

Beer and pretzels.

High summer is on the way - the sunflowers are coming out. They used to grow wheat around here but the climate changed four years ago and they've started to switch over to sunflowers in a big way. Give it another couple of weeks and we'll be doing our morning walk amid a fixedly cheerful Van Gogh landscape of yellow, yellow and more yellow.

'The font' is away in London. This enables Wilf and yours truly to drop any pretence of sophistication and revert to a beer and pretzels life style. Apart from grazing on beer and pretzels (water and Ryvita for Wilf) this involves watching late night rugby from down under on the television and then spending quality time rug surfing along the corridors of the rickety old farmhouse until the small hours. Rug surfing is usually frowned upon, something to do with damaging the rugs and getting overexcited , but hey who'll ever know ? Along with swing biffing, rug surfing is one of Wilfs absolute favourite leisure activities. After a day filled with the serious business of eating, sleeping, guarding, barking at the post lady and squirrel chasing there's nothing he loves more than to let his hair down and engage in an hour of repetitive activity. Hurtle down the corridor at high speed, leap on a rug, and then the adrenalin rush as the rug goes skidding across the tiles.If we're lucky there will be the added excitement of noisily bumping into a piece of furniture in the process. Turn around and repeat the process until exhausted. We partied until well gone midnight at which point one of us let the side down and fell asleep , on his back, in the middle of the floor.

Got so hot yesterday I suggested to Wilf that he join me in the pool. From the look of horror / disdain on his face I could almost believe he understood me. " Water ? Me ? "

Hot.

Wilf's look this morning as we came back from the morning walk said it all - 'it's hot'. Even the French weather forecast is now calling it a heatwave. It's going to be in the high 30's again today . What a change from just a week or so ago when we were seeing the coldest temperatures in more than two centuries. With the thermometer already touching 25 degrees by eight o'clock Wilfs trip to the light industrial zone, cafe and bakers is having to take place earlier and earlier in the day.

Got to the airport in a thunderstorm to discover the flight had been delayed. Worse was to follow. When we did finally board , the bus taking us onto the tarmac drew up alongside an aircraft with propellors. The jet in the schedule had gone to be replaced by what appeared to be a toy plane with engines from a Ford Pinto. What the airlines politely term 'equipment change'. I've said this before and I'll say it again. If you're going to fly over the Alps in thundery weather then you want to fly in a plane with jet engines. Getting up close and personal with a mountain range is the last thing any sane passenger wants. Full marks to the Swiss pilot who weaved through the menacing storms, lightning flashes, hail and mountain peaks and still managed to get his shaken and stirred passengers down on the ground barely an hour late. You always know when a flight is really rough - the cabin crew strap themselves in, tightly, and a strange sepulchral silence fills the cabin. No cabin service so not even a chance of a purely medicinal glass of Gods amber nectar.

Wilf was at the airport to meet me last night. A 747 full of holiday makers from Corsica landed ten minutes before our scheduled arrival so 'the font' wisely kept him away from the milling throng in the terminal. He was delighted. The airport car park was full of tyres to be christened and exotic scents to be sniffed. We came home with all the windows down in the car, an old Bruce Springsteen CD on the stereo,and a shaggy PON basking in the gale force wind behind the dog guard. After twenty minutes of late night rug surfing he finally fell asleep , on his back, in the hallway. Thank heavens for cool, tiled floors.

Action photos.

Wilf is not enjoying the heat. Activity has to be squeezed into a cool three hour period between six and nine in the morning and again from nine thirty to eleven thirty at night. He will deign to venture out to bark at the post lady or the plumber at other, more humid, times but his heart really isn't in it. You wouldn't know it from the photos but he's now sporting the PON worlds version of a Marine Corps buzz top - this aggressive trim has done something at least to help him deal with the soaring temperatures.

On our early morning, post coffee, walk we came across these fresh new carrots at the greengrocers - perfect for Bolognaise. We also saw the World Cup toys in the local supermarket being discounted from €10.50 to just €0.50. What a difference a week makes!

Rushing off to the airport to take a flight to speak to another group of men in dark suits. Will post tomorrow. Did you know that worldwide, life expectancy is increasing by five hours a day?

Summer storms.

It started off hot and it got hotter. This didn't seem to deter the crowds who were soon flocking into the village, scouring the bric a brac stalls in search of hidden treasures and marvelling at the festive scarecrows at the bus stop and outside the pharmacy. By ten the village was full and visitors cars were parked, higgeldy piggeldy, all the way along the lane and under whatever shade was at hand. The mayor gave a brief, largely inaudible formal opening speech, in which he thanked all the antique dealers for coming . Looking at the motley array of limbless dolls and three wheeled prams on offer one couldn't help but feel that the word 'antique' has a uniquely broad range of interpretations.

By five in the afternoon the heat of the plain and the cool air from the Pyrenees were colliding, sending huge columns of white cloud tumbling and jostling high into the sky. The antique dealers eyed the developing anvil heads, folded their umbrellas, filled their vans, and before you knew it were off. By seven it had become overcast and humid - not just humid but that thick cloying, lethargy inducing humidity that you find in Savannah and Charleston in high summer - even the frogs in the village pond fell silent in the heat. Then at ten to eight just as the church doors had been pinned open in preparation for the saints day procession the skies opened, the lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled. The remaining onlookers scattered, the organising committee raced to carry the tables and chairs for the 'feast' inside, and within five minutes all signs of the festivities had disappeared. Everyone bravely said the storm would last ten minutes but by nine, as we stood in the church porch watching the water coursing and eddying down the hill, it was clear that the bonfire, the fecund dancing and the procession would have to wait.

After a glass or two of reviving wine in the salle de fetes ( no storm was going to stand in the way of the villagers real business of the day) we made our excuses, said farewell to Madame Bay who was hard at work in the kitchen and dashed the twenty yards across the green to our gate. We tumbled into the hall laughing and soaked to the skin to be met by a look from Wilf that said ' where do you think you've been ? Don't you know it's wet out'. We fell asleep to the sound of accordian music wafting across from the village hall - the storm had not dampened all the villagers spirits.