Bertie watches me from the corner ...

 ... of the building we call "the abri" - the semi-derelict long shed that once was the milking parlour for Serge's cows and now, one day, maybe a proper, tidy storage area for summer furniture and gardening tools as opposed to the mess it is at the moment.

He is looking at me with a mix of anxiety and grumpiness. He thinks it's long past suppertime.  The clocks going back an hour a few weeks ago still cause him problems when he sees no evidence of his food being prepared.

I'm trying to cut the overlong damp grass that in summer is the neat green sward where our gite guests park their cars. The battery Stihl just about manages, provided I keep it on its highest cut and stop at the end of every row to pull out the wet clumps that are clinging to the blades.

By the time I've had enough (I find a hose half hidden in the grass and can't be bothered to clear it out the way and go on mowing. I'll do it tomorrow) Bertie has grown bored with trying to will me into feeding him and has headed back up towards the house to see if Tod is a softer target.

More in hope than expectation, we mow late, as the evenings draw in, giving the cold autumn sun and brisk wind a chance to take off the worst of the damp and make our task easier.  I hear Tod in the field trying to rev up the sit-on motor to encourage it forwards and stop it sliding back down the bank.

Afternoons have become a routine, before we mow.  We stroll along the canal towpath making the most of the weak sunlight, Bertie happily dawdling behind us, investigating new smells, until he suddenly realises we are too far ahead, and races to catch up, ears and tail flapping.  

These days we tend to wait for him. We are not sure how much he can see or hear and suspect it is not a lot.  He has been known to attach himself to a family walking in the other direction, much to their bemusement, and calling him has no effect. The situation requires a quick dash along the side of the canal in the hope that the newly adopted family with our dog at their feet has the sense to stop and wait for me.

His world has probably become vague shadows that he recognises. Familiar walks are the safest, food at the right time and beds and blankets in every corner.  Tissues and socks left within reach are chewed and swallowed (much to my horror) and I try to "Bertie-proof" the house - bins out of reach, and bathroom doors shut - toilet tissue is irresistible. I do not always succeed. I hear the sound of a piece of cutlery falling in the kitchen and find him with an egg box and three eggs smashed on the floor which he is licking up with gusto. Somehow over the last few years he has morphed into Vita - he who had little or no interest in food if it wasn't small, furry and still alive. These days he is constantly hungry and I wonder if all the tablets we are giving him are making him that way: tablets for wonky heart, declining kidneys, doubtful liver and achy joints.

Our vet reassures: "it is not the end, but it is the beginning of the end."  For now, he snores gently behind me as I type this, content in the knowledge that we have all had an excellent day and that supper did finally arrive, even if (for him) it was an hour later than it should have been.

"So much of the world ...

 ... is not made by people."

A quote by author Barbara Kingsolver in this morning's Guardian resonates.

Friday I suggest we head for the Chinese buffet rather than cook supper.  It seemed like a good idea - the buffet is generous, varied and you can go back as often as you want. It's too easy to overeat! 

The restaurant is large, low ceilinged and crowded with families celebrating the start of the weekend. I'd forgotten it was Friday evening when I suggested we went.  On the table next to us a girl is coughing - badly.  Covid is still with us and I try to face the other way, avoiding her late teenage germs. 

The background noise of French people enjoying a meal is thunderous.  We are no longer used to urban living. 

We eat too much, regret it and escape, heading back to our world where "so much is not made by people". Our woods, valleys and fields may be shaped by man, but the green that soothes the soul is not of man. 

For much of the time the loudest sound we hear is birdsong.

Midsummer and I am wearing my dressing gown ...

 ... over my jeans and sweater and drinking hot chocolate to try to keep warm.  

I've just taken an electric radiator down to our guests in the cottage. The underfloor heating is off (after all it is summer) and it takes too long to warm up when it's switched back on.  They need the warmth right now. The cold and the persistent drizzle means that there is no incentive to go out and so they are huddled on the sofa in the lounge (reluctantly so far as the wife is concerned) watching football on the TV.

Difficult to believe it's supposed to be thirty degrees by Tuesday.

We've been here before. In 2010 we lit the wood fire in the lounge.  It's tempting to do so again this evening.

Yesterday, in Leclerc's their musak was blasting out Winter Wonderland.  Strange to be wandering around in June to the sound of "In the meadow we will build a snowman".  I try to explain this to the girl on the till.  From her expression I'm guessing she thought I was struggling with my French vocabulary.  I'll save this for a discussion point at our next Zoom French lesson.

Maybe the musak company knows something about climate change that the rest of us don't.

I wake at five am ...

 ... to the sound of an animal crying.  

I seize my dressing gown ready to do battle with (I assume) an amorous feral ginger tom on the terrace, switch on the lights and fling open the French windows and hiss loudly.  No cat, but the sound continues and I realise it's Bertie. Afraid he's been badly hurt in a fight, I grab a torch and in the light see a desperate face with wide frightened eyes in the far corner of the swimming pool.  He's scrabbling unsuccessfully to get a purchase with his front paws on the tile surround, his back legs flailing in the water to try and keep afloat. 

I grab him under his armpits, hoik him out and cuddle him in my arms as I race back to the house. He's soaked to the skin, freezing cold and trembling violently. Swimming pool water pours off him over the kitchen floor and he runs to the lounge to try and dry himself against the sofa covers.  I fling on heaters, hunt for large bath towels - mine, clean - throw them over him and rub him and rub him to try and get some heat back into his body.  He has the wisdom not to resist.  I fear for a seizure or heart attack.  

He sits upright in front of the gas fire in the kitchen as I continue to towel him. He's so close I swear I can smell singed fur. Gradually, gradually his fur dries and the trembling abates.  He tucks himself down in "his" corner and sleeps, while I make a hot chocolate drink and read a Lidl's catalogue cover to cover. I don't want to leave him and it's the only reading matter to hand at this hour of the morning.  

He recovers enough to accept breakfast, which I take as a good sign but still feel I need to keep an eye on him - no working in the cottage today.  So I do something I've been meaning to do for years - make the cover for the foam seat for the Lloyd loom chair in one of the bedrooms.  It's always on the list below more important stuff and I always finish up just plumping up a square pink cushion, which looks less than ideal wedged in a half-moon seat.  I get my sewing machine and the material I'd already planned to use and plonk them on the kitchen table and, while he snores gently in the corner, I work and reflect on the fact that it takes me all morning.  In that time the contestants make a full-length evening dress on the Great British Sewing Bee!  

He awakes, drinks, goes back to sleep, wakes again, goes out for a widdle, but nowhere near the lawn that leads to the pool. After lunch I decide to take him into town for a gentle stroll round the park behind the Town Hall. It's where we walked all those evenings when he was convalescing with his knee and I know that we will move at a snail's pace as every clump of grass and tree trunk has to be investigated and marked. He does well, so I decide a detour in the merc to the artisanal patisserie for comfort food is called for. By the time I return he has squeezed himself past the netting that is supposed to keep him in the back and is waiting, front paws up on the glove box, grin on his face, ready for "a treat".

He tells me he thinks he will live.

Leclerc's first aisle is full ...

 ... of flimsy little skimpy things for high summer.

Most people walking past are wearing puffer jackets and scarves and (if they are anything like me) have still got their thermals on underneath.

Bertie comes with me to town.  I hoped to walk him in the park but it starts to rain so we head straight for the new solar panel shelters and I lift out the empty gas bottles that are behind his cage and shove them in the well of the passenger seat.  At least I manage to do that in the dry. 

We wander up to the MacDonald's on the far side of the carpark. Bertie thinks it would be a good idea to go inside, which is tempting, but I steer him away and we explore the garden area they've created for any dropped chips and then head back to the car.

He is good in the new Renault - much more so than he was in the Skoda.  Maybe it's because his cage is hard up against the front seats, so he is really close to us when we are travelling.  Little or no whimpering, except if he needs a comfort break.  I leave him to "guard the car", which he does happily.

I'd resigned myself to not renewing the gas bottles since the full ones are in pens up on the road, a schlep away from the back of the store where the Drive trolleys are wheeled out to waiting customers and where one pays for the gas.  It's cruel to ask the assistants to come out in the pouring rain. They are all young and totally inappropriately dressed for a soaking.

But I'm in luck. The rain eases off and a young man carries my full bottles for me and puts them in the car. They are the plastic, lighter weight version and they warn me of the passing years. Sixteen years ago I could carry the heavy metal ones and now, even the plastic ones feel an effort.  Tod has bought a set of dumbbells as we have read about the importance of retaining muscle strength. I note they are still in their box.  I must encourage the young assistants to let me carry the full gas bottles.  There's no sign that the weather is going to improve over the coming weeks, so it looks like I'll be buying more. 

Also, there'll be no "clout casting" in this household even although May is about to be out, and certainly no buying or wearing of little skimpy summery things for the foreseeable future.

A Blissfully Happy Bertie

 

Under normal circumstances he looks something like this ...

A sharp westerly wind ...

 ...  freezes my cheeks and my fingers protruding from my fingerless gloves as I walk Bertie along the green strip at the edge of Monsieur F's field. The ditch beside us is full of muddy gurgling water that is pouring into the stream at the bottom.  My wellington boots slosh through the shallow lake that has reappeared following last night's rain. I let Bertie off his lead. He has his nose firmly pressed into a grass tussock and I leave him there, reassured that he hasn't noticed or smelt the two deer that bounded away across Phillipe's field when they saw us emerge from the house.

The morning is peaceful - the end of February is the end of the hunt season and this is the last weekend the guns can be out. It's due to rain solidly tomorrow; perhaps the hunters will stay at home. I send up a silent prayer for the deer.

Despite the cold, the wind brings a promise of spring. Later in the day, high above me, I hear the cranes calling. They are heading east and north for the summer. 

Cold and dank - the only words for it ...

... and I'd planned to get so much done while Tod was in London.  And here I am, due to pick him up this evening at Bordeaux airport and wondering which of those many tasks I can fit in this afternoon.

The garden and pool (which already is suspiciously green) will have to wait until this coming week when it's due to warm up a bit.

The tulips for the pots and the large fritillaries for the damp patch in the field can also wait. Bought after the New Year, reduced by 30% in my favourite garden centre, they always manage to come up at the right time.

I will need to give plenty of time for the journey.  

Bertie, who is totally recovered from his op, will be coming with me, which means a couple of comfort breaks on the way. 

The farmers' manifestations have finished, but there are likely to be mounds of old tractor tyres and bales of straw still piled up at roundabouts and junctions onto the motorway, all designed to slow us down. On Tuesday when I took Tod to Toulouse the journey there and back took 7½ hours (as opposed to the normal time of under four). We were forced off the motorway at Agen and then weaved our way in a line of traffic (nose to tail like processionary caterpillars) through small towns and villages, each with their traffic calming measures.  By this stage, the last thing we were was calm!

At least going to the airport we were in our "almost-new" car - a Renault Kadjar, which I'd never heard of until I hired one at Christmas to collect K from up on the Massif Centrale beyond Rodez.  The Merc finally told us it had had enough, and refused to move out of first gear and even after repair felt untrustworthy - hence the hire car and then the decision to buy one.

So, the Renault will be Bertie's and my mode of transport to Bordeaux airport this evening. Coming to this from driving two cars over twenty years old, is something of a culture shock - no ignition key and no brake handle for a start. But it has a camera at the back, which is reassuring when reversing in Leclerc's carpark. And after downloading the computer manual which runs to some140 pages (the main car manual is a further 310) and sitting in the driver's seat for two hours while I pressed buttons and swiped screens, I have managed to programme the sat nav to get us home (more than I could do on the way back from Toulouse). At least to get us home-ish.  The computer informs me that we are not shown on the map, so I've put in the name of a neighbouring lieu-dit on the ridge up behind us.

A further hour in the driver's seat, with computer and mobile phone (what IS Bluetooth exactly?) and I have managed to load on my Spotify playlist - more than twenty-four hours of my kind of music. That will keep me going through any burnt tyre induced traffic jams. And for the journey home with Tod? I'm hoping my mobile and BBC Sounds will come up trumps, with soothing late night music on Radio 3.

Somewhere in the manual I came across something about setting the car seats to "massage".  I think I know what I'll be doing this afternoon before Bertie and I leave for the airport.