Hotel welcomes.

A less than auspicious start to our stay in the fancy hotel. The svelte young lady receptionist in the black cocktail dress eyed me up and down disinterestedly all the while carrying on a telephone conversation with her friend Monique in Paris. Having caught up on all the latest gossip and fashion tips she finally replaced the receiver, slowly reshuffled the papers in front of her, theatrically stapled two invoices together and then turned to me with that most charming of welcomes : "Yes?". You'd think that if you were going to charge an arm and a leg to stay in a hotel the management might at least teach their staff to smile rather than greet guests as if they're carriers of the plague bacillus. Cheap and cheerful, fancy and frosty.

Thankfully, things improved after that. We were rather alarmed that they had given us a room with white chairs, white sofa, and low slung white bed. Not the most practical of lodgings for a wet, shaggy sheepdog - in short a disaster waiting to happen. However, the same young lady who had shown such polished froideur a few moments before was all smiles when Wilf introduced himself. Cynics might feel that it's rather difficult to maintain an air of studied aloofness when you have a sheepdog sitting on your right foot. She reassured us that we shouldn't worry about a thing - ' just treat it like your own home and let him do what he wants'. It's good to know that behind that charm free exterior lurked a flamboyant sense of humour. Of one thing you could be certain - Wilf would not be allowed to do whatever he wanted inside that room !

There was no doubting that Wilf was pleased to be back at the rickety old farmhouse. He bounded out of the back of the car oblivious to the torrential rain and hurtled around the garden at high speed. His victory lap of the lawn was only interrupted by the occasional comfort stop to reacquaint himself with a favoured tree or shrub. His attitude shouted out 'forget duck and rice feasts in fancy hotels there is nowhere, but nowhere better than home'.

Rain,rain, and more rain.

Climate fact of the week : It's the wettest and coldest summer in the south of France in more than 200 years. It was raining when we set off in the car, it rained all the way there and when we finally got to the hotel it carried on raining . For what it's worth it also rained all the way back and is still raining now. Solid, unyielding sheets of water. Undaunted by the weather 'the font' went off to the spa while Wilf and I settled in the bar to study the winelist. On the short walk with me from the room to the bar Wilf determinedly ploughed through, and christened, every wet bush and shrub in the garden - I must get his eyesight checked. By the time we got to the bar his fringe was plastered down with water and he looked like Paul McCartney in the early days of the Beatles. A towel was brought for him by a smiling barman and he lay down contentedly in front of the fire to dry off. While I savoured a glass of reviving Batard Montrachet he had a bowl of water.

The hotel charged €26 for Wilf to stay with us in the room. At the time of booking I thought this was daylight robbery but for this princely sum he got his own white ceramic water bowl and a wicker basket with a matress with the hotels logo embroidered on it. A large pile of old sheets was also usefully left in the room to help soak up the water from post walk muddy paws - how sensible ! Although dogs weren't allowed in the rstaurant the 3 Michelin star chef made him a bowl of lean roast duck with lemongrass flavoured rice and green beans. This was delivered to the room half an hour before our dinner reservation. This gave him time to eat and settle down and relax before we left. 'The font' helpfully pointed out that his evening meal was the sort of thing that was served at British weddings in the late 80's. What it will do to his digestion, or his expectations, is anyones guess.

More tomorrow.

What is the world coming to?

'The font' has spent the early part of the morning on the phone to the pool man. After yesterdays altercation with the saintly Madame Bay he is still far from happy but has agreed to come back to clean the pool , remove the frogs and return the pool cover. 10/10 for Swedish diplomatic skills.

On Radio nostalgie this morning 'the font' caught snippets of a Jimmy Dean obituary. From somewhere deep, deep in the psyche came the memory of a song I must last have heard when I was five or six - Bid Bad John or was it Big Bad Tom ? Some saccharine ballad about a coalminer holding up the collapsing roof of a mine to let his colleagues escape. Over the breakfast croissant 'the font' looked bemused as I attempted to sing it. Does anyone else remember the song ? The final tear jerking basso profundo line went something along the lines of 'at the bottom of the mine lies a big man - Big Bad John / Tom'.

What is the world coming to? The supermarket shelves are suddenly weighed down with new flavour Jaffa Cakes or Genoise as they're known in France. Alongside Wilf's illicit favourite, the classic orange flavour are lemon, raspberry and horror of horrors, white chocolate coated cherry. This last manifestation surely marks the decline of civilisation into outright decadence. Gibbon would have had something to say about this.

It's 'the fonts' birthday so we're off into the mountains for a celebratory dinner.I'm told the place has a wonderful wine list. Tomorrows post may therefore be a little later than usual. The chef will be preparing chicken and rice for Wilf.

World War III.

What started as a disagreement between Madame Bay and the pool man over muddy feet and her freshly washed tile floors soon escalated into all out war. I missed the opening salvoes but by the time I came downstairs to find out what all the fuss was about Madame Bay and the pool guy were animatedly waving their arms about and shouting at each other - the words psychotherapeute and salope bouncing off the rafters. At this point a delighted Wilf decided to come down and join in the fun, his barking drowned out by this marvellous, unconstrained, pyrotechnic display of gallican insanity. No intervention on my part was going to stop them - indeed despite my best efforts at peacekeeping my presence went largely unnoticed. . With a final burst of decidedly ungentlemanly barrack room French the pool engineer , accompanied by the morose frog netting lad in blue bib overalls, stormed off taking the pool cover with them. Ah, the joys of French country life.

After that being in the house with Madame Bay was like being locked up with a grizzly bear with a sore head. Doors slammed, radios were turned up to full volume, the hoover was used to punish rather than clean the carpets , and vaguely discernible mutterings emanated from our chiffoned leviathan as she bustled about. Time for Wilf to join me in the car and go and buy some wine. Lesson #1 for a long and happy life : If you can cut the atmosphere with a knife then its time to make yourself scarce.

In a shop next to the wine merchants saw a doormat with a Scottie on it. Thought of picking it up for the Rocky Creek Scotties folk but as Wilf was about to christen the postcard rack we hurried off before embarrassment struck us. Thankfully, 'the font' will be back home this afternoon. Time enough for tempers to have cooled and for 'the fonts' diplomatic skills to be brought into play.

A modern day Sisyphus.

While the rest of Europe enjoys balmy, sunny weather the south of France remains shrouded in rain and drizzle. Today the maintenance man has come to open up the swimming pool. What cruel irony of timing. The maintenance mans sidekick - morose lad in blue bib overalls #2 - is currently fishing frogs out of the pool with a net. No sooner does he fish them out than they hop back in again. A sisyphean task if ever there was one. No wonder he's morose.

'The font' has gone back to London to see 'granny font' leaving Wilf and yours truly to fend for ourselves. With no pressure of time we were able to have a second cup of coffee with the bibulous pre-breakfast crowd at the cafe before starting our shopping for the day. Wilf was hopeful that he might get some boudin blanc from the butcher but with me in charge of the kitchen we both thought better of it . Had better luck with the macaroons in the cake shop - no preparation needed there. Onto the fancy garden shop for some box for a new hedge - €60 each! - scandalous.

Home to find the insurance on the flat in London has gone up 20% in a year. Phoned to ask what possible reason they could have for raising the premiums so much. The young lady at the other end of the phone answered my question with the disarming response " Oh, we're using a new underwriter. They'll let you rent out your flat to asylum seekers". Well that's ok then.

A quiet Tuesday morning.

It rained all day yesterday, grey and continuously. Not just rained but plummeted down like a power shower at full pelt. More like the west coast of Scotland in October than the south of France in June. Wilf would not be coaxed out. He stood with his nose poking out of the front door, resolutely refusing to move . As I put on a hat and coat and profered the lead he just looked at me as if to say ' you might be mad but I'm not'. Forty minutes of late night rug surfing stopped him from going completely stir crazy. The routine is simple - hurtle down the hall at top speed, leap on a rug, and whoosh dog and rug go surfing over the polished floor tiles. Eventually he fell asleep, tired and content, rug surfed out, beside the bedroom door.

This morning he was charged and ready for action . We raced through the light industrial park, visited the fire hydrants by the railway line,made a high speed circuit of the town square and were at the beer and absinthe cafe by six thirty. A bowl of water and a 'Bonjour Veelfie' and it was time to buy the croissants and get the morning paper. As we were about to leave a batch of freshly cut asparagus was being delivered to the greengrocer. He beckoned me over to tell me that the sweet sugars in asparagus turn to starch within hours and that these had been harvested barely an hour ago. We will be having asparagus for lunch.

Thank you all for your comments yesterday. We roared with laughter reading them . Yes, it is quite illogical to assume that flies wouldn't land on an upturned spoon.

Table settings.

Strange weather. Boiling hot one minute and cold and bucketing down with rain the next. It doesn't look as if the 2010 vintage is going to be one of the all time greats - with the water dripping off them the poor vines look decidedly weather beaten and forlorn.

What to do on a wet Sunday afternoon in deepest France profonde ? Last week we went to the museum of secateurs . This was quite honestly a bit of a disappointment. As we traipsed past display case after display case of pruning implements it became apparent that there is only so much that can be written about secateurs without lapsing into repetition or mind numbing tedium. To make matters worse there are only so many pairs of rose cutters that you can look at before they all look the same - and boy do they all soon start to look the same. Perhaps my memory of the visit would have been more positive had it not been for the guide who had devoted his life to the study of secateurs and felt the need to explain at length the benefits of welded as opposed to cast handles. Trapped in a room full of secateurs and no means of escape.

This week 'the font' suggested ( well to be more precise insisted ) that we went to the museum of table settings. My how the heart raced with anticipation at the prospect of spending the afternoon looking at table settings! However,having arrived with very low expectations I was pleasantly surprised. Did you know that in the middle ages plates were oblong rather than round? To prove the point the museum had set out a medieval table with oblong plates while above it (if additional proof was needed) was a medieval painting showing a table set with oblong plates. How's that for fact of the week?

There was even more table setting arcana to come.It seems that until relatively recently the French used to lay their tables with the cutlery turned upside down. Look closely at the bottom photo and you'll see that not only do the fork and spoon face you but they are inverted. This was apparently to keep the flies off - an early healthy home hint. In parts of France this style of laying the table lasted until well into the 20th century.

Wilf found the most interesting part of the visit to be the cafe down by the river. He hoped for a croissant but got a bowl of water. You can't win them all.