Camouflage

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Dalmatians, snow, vines

I’ve written before about how difficult it can be to see Dalmatians in light snow.  They stand out brilliantly against vegetation and buildings, they were used in WWII to guard the entry posts at US army bases precisely because the combination of being so distinctive and also being enthusiastic barkers made them highly visible and effective deterrent.  They stand out against heavy snow too, it isn’t at all flattering as it makes them look yellow but at least it isn’t difficult for their owners to spy a yellow blob with spots heading at high-speed for the horizon.

Snow where tufts of grass and lumps of earth from a recently ploughed field poke through the white is a different matter.  Like army camouflage the spotted dog seems to meld into the background and takes full advantage of it.  There was a bad attack of selective deafness going on this morning.

Flynn is particularly good at disappearing, he’s so fast that even when there’s no snow he can be half way to the hills before you’ve drawn the breath to call him back, but luckily he’s so big that he can’t help appearing above the horizon occasionally

Desi is slightly easier to spot (sorry!) which is a good thing as she likes to chase deer.  She’s got more spots and black ears too which can stand out nicely, especially when seen like this;

And if anyone still thinks that owning vines is romantic, (it’s not, believe me) I met Monsieur Arnaud who has the vines behind the house this morning, morosely pruning.  He had snow on his hat.

Too much, too soon?

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Cynthis Harrod-Eagles, Eowyn Ivey, Erin Morgenstern, Harriet Lane, Jonathan Coe, not doing housework, Patrick Gale, the ironing mountan

Can you ever read too many good books?  It’s not even the end of February and this year’s reading list so far has already got enough brilliant reads for a Best Of 2013.  It’s making me nervous, fate doesn’t allow you to continue having such good fortune and I dread to think what dross is in store for me in the coming months.

This is so true…

I’m an impatient reader and because I’ve got a serious book buying habit there’s always more to read on my overflowing shelves so I freely abandon books if I find them boring.  So far this year there hasn’t been a single book I’ve felt like giving up (now that’s tempting fate, big time).  The least enjoyable book of this year was a book club read, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe, which was superbly written but somehow didn’t engage me, though it was still interesting.  I kicked off January with the wonderful The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, dazzlingly imaginative and so good that I immediately sent it on to my daughter in Le Mans because I knew she’d adore it too.  Then there was one of Elaine Simpson-Long of Random Jottings ‘s recommendations, the Bill Slider books by Cynthia Harrod Eagles, sly, witty detective stories.  Even better there are twelve of them.  That was followed by Harriet Lane’s Alys Always, which is called a thriller on the cover, I wouldn’t necessarily agree but it’s a superbly assured book, concise, utterly readable, don’t want to put it down book.

I finally got my hands on Magnificent Obsession, another of Elaine’s favourite books and she’s right, it’s first class biography; that was followed by Waiting for Sunrise which isn’t William’s Boyd’s best book in my opinion, but considering that his bar is set at Any Human Heart that’s hardly a damning criticism.  WFS is far, far better than most of the books that I read In 2012.  There was also Eowyn Ivey’s magical and enchanting The Snow Child and just when I was convinced my run of superb books must come to an end I picked up one of my charity shop finds, When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman.   Quite a few reviewers didn’t like this book, found it too whimsical and thought she’d included too many elements – which is true in a way but I still absolutely loved it.  It’s laugh out loud funny in places (and I rarely find books that amusing) and the sheer energy of her writing is fantastic.  Definitely one to watch.

 

This reading habit is infectious

The list goes on; I always love Susan Hill’s Simon Serraillier books and The Betrayal Of Trust didn’t disappoint, Curtis Sittenfield’s American Wife, another charity shop find, loosely based on Laura Bush was a great read even if I didn’t enjoy the last section much, and I was only only a few pages into our February book club read, Rough Music by Patrick Gale, before I was thinking, Why the hell haven’t I read this author before?  As soon as I’d finished I started looking up his backlist.

See why I’m worried this can’t go on?  It’s a good thing that I’ve got Dalmatians who need walking for an hour a day otherwise the combination of all this lolling around reading and putting in heavy duty writing time too means I’d shortly not be able to fit on the sofa.  Of course, something’s had to give – the housework.  I’ve been conducting an interesting experiment to see how long I can leave things before the other members of the household crack.  As far as the dusting is concerned, it looks like never; however the daughter couldn’t take regularly passing an ironing pile that was rapidly approaching Everest like proportions and did the lot.  Twice.

Since then it’s grown again, and I suppose I shouldn’t really expect her to do it all again.  The only thing is I’ve just started another of Elaine’s recommendations, The Coroner by MR Hall and it’s an absolute cracker…

There’s Something About Grues

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Cranes, Grues, Rain, sun, weather

I’m usually pretty calm about the vagaries of the weather; like being stuck in a traffic jam there’s nothing you can do about it and getting hot and bothered and thumping the steering wheel only gets you a sore hand and no further on (I freely admit to swearing at other motorists but that’s different).

This year’s been different though, for the first time since we’ve been in France I’ve been getting depressed over the sheer unrelenting greyness of it all.  One of the things we’ve always been able to rely on is that though the weather can be pretty extreme here, torrential rain, extreme cold or heat, sudden fierce gales, after a day or two or a week the skies clear, everything is a brilliant blue and even when the actual temperature is zero you can feel warmth on your face from the sun.

Not for the last three months.  It’s rained and rained and rained, sometimes torrentially, sometimes lightly, sometimes as smirr – that mist which isn’t quite wet enough to be called rain but still leaves your hair soaking, and even when it hasn’t rained the skies have usually been lowering and overcast.  The ground is completely sodden, it quakes like a bog when you walk on it and we can’t go on most of the usual dog walks because going up hills is a no no as the ground is too slippery.  The compost bucket under the sink remains unemptied for days as I’m not prepared to wreck my shoes by letting them sink half way into the ground as I cross the lawn to the composter and my boots are always at the other end of the house when I think of it. Worrying about mud on the floors or mud smears on the long windows where dogs and cats scratch with filthy feet to indicate they want to come is the path to a nervous breakdown – though to be honest as I don’t eat off the floor a bit of mud has never worried me.

Three days ago the sun came out, and yes it rained a bit the next day but the sun came back.  The ground still squeaks when you walk on it but I don’t have to wear a coat or a scarf or rainwear when I take the dogs out, they say that the smells have suddenly got really interesting now they aren’t been rained away continuously.And the grues – cranes – have started flying back to northern Europe from their winter grounds in Spain.  We’re on one of the main flight paths here and no matter how many flights have gone over the sound of the distant honking as they communicate with each other always pulls us out into the garden to squint up at the sky to see where there’s a V shaped line of birds flying steadily towards Germany.  There’s something about their cries which lifts the spirits immediately, in the autumn it’s a sign that the seasons are rightly changing, now, especially after the last two dismal months, it’s a harbinger of better things to come.  We hope.

I was at the market yesterday when a huge flight, hundred of birds, went right over Cadillac.  All around the market, Frenchmen and women, of the type who normally only look at a bird to work out how to cook it, were looking upwards with huge smiles on their faces.Yup, there’s something about grues.

Dem bones, dem dog bones…

Tags

animal osteopath, Dalmatians

Desi has had a bad back ever since Flynn jumped on her from a height during a rough game when she was six months old. She was all right for most of the time, then she’d get acute attacks of cramp or her back would start to hurt so much that she couldn’t bear you to touch it even lightly.  We did all we could, gave her arnica or half an aspirin if it wasn’t too bad or took her to the vet for one of his magic injections when that didn’t work.

When Desi started going hippity-hop again last week we decided it was time to see if the dog osteopath could nail this problem once and for all.  Catherine, the osteopath treats dogs, horses and cats – I’d be interested to know if she has to put on full body armour before starting to manipulate her feline patients.  Probably not as she’s one of those people whom animals seem to trust instinctively which is a good thing since at one point she was holding Desi in the air by her back leg and tail, stretching her spine.  Desi looked surprised but didn’t protest at all.  Catherine said Desi had two impacted vertebrae, prodded and pulled them out, administered little electric shocks along her spine with a sort of hand held mini-taser, did a bit of massage and said she was now fine.  The one session would probably be enough too which was good news, Catherine doesn’t come cheap.

Desi is now rocketing about, the bad back seemingly a distant memory.  What is really remarkable though is the way she’s moving.  As well as their spots Dalmatians as renowned for the grace of their trot.  Seemingly effortless, they appear to glide with straight backs, tail and head up, paws apparently barely touching the ground, for mile on mile – a heritage from when they were used as carriage dogs.  Flynn, despite his galumphing size, moves absolutely beautifully, the dainty Princess Desi scuttled, for want of a better word, head down, feet splayed out, bum rocking from side to side.

Since Catherine did her magic Desi is running with her head up, a bum that doesn’t waggle and feet that stay in the right place.  She won’t ever be as elegant as Flynn, she’s had nearly five years to get into bad habits but she’s moving like a proper Dalmatian for the first time in her life.

A Long Way From Home

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Airbus, swans

My daughter snapped this glamorous couple on the Garonne while dog walking:

That’s Chateau du Cros on the top of the hill in the background.  The white swan is a regular, we see it often, but the last time I saw a black swan was in Australia.

And here it is again with another visitor to the Garonne – the Airbus on its way to Toulouse.  It goes down river to Langon and then goes by road.