Yet again ...

 ... the months have slipped by and I have not posted. And yet I miss putting down these words.

Too much to write, too busy to write it. Important not to forget it (unfortunately an all too real situation these days).  So to summarise:

We have bought the little house in Chichester.

I've been back and forwards furnishing it - finding stuff I like in the John Lewis which is only 10 minutes (going on 30 minutes) drive away, along the A27, and then buying the nearest equivalent in B&Q, or Dunelm, or Argos, or Ikea.  I'm somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of places to shop, much of it (except for JL and Ikea) looking like a run-down Woolworths from the 60s, but at the same time worth exploring for the occasional treasure. Every trip I have finished exhausted and all shopped out.

One return trip, I flew into Bordeaux late evening and drove the A62 to find I could not get home - the Garonne had flooded and I was cut off. I spent the night in a hotel, initially refused by a grumpy, tired manager who said they were shut and "how did I get in?". She relented. The next morning I headed back towards Bordeaux and at La Reole joined the old Bordeaux Road (built on an embankment above the floodplain - they knew what they were doing in those days).  The journey was surreal, as I drove alongside a "sea" that lapped only feet from my tyre wheels and stretched as far as the eye could see. At one point a train passed me, heading towards Bordeaux, seemingly in the middle of the water, but like me, on an embankment.

We (Tod, Rona and I) made the last trip together, Saint Malo to Portsmouth overnight on a boat called the Saint-Malo, which allowed us to have Rona with us in a miniscule cabin, where we all tripped over each other but coped - helped in my and Rona's case with travel sickness pills and (for me) a good night after taking a sleeping pill - if Rona and Tod snored I didn't hear them.

That trip had its "moments". I forgot the plastic folder with the boat tickets and all the paperwork for the hotels where we planning to stay driving up and back through France. We couldn't risk not having it, so headed back home and added two unnecessary hours to the journey. We then at the hotel the first night found we'd forgotten Tod's luggage. By this stage, tired and emotional and firmly convinced we were senile, we talked of going home. A night's sleep restored us and we pressed on and it was good we did.

We learn about Chichester and how well it suits us, especially that the canal is only five minutes walk away and the tow path is ideal for morning and evening strolls with Rona.  She is much admired on our trips into the city centre and she, in turn, is revelling in being surrounded by other dogs, many small and very well behaved (she's learning).

Our trips to Marks and Spencer food hall and Waitrose delight - we cannot believe how much choice there is and how inventive the selections are - sadly our local Leclerc here in France pales in comparison - Spanish, slightly tired broccoli heads are no match for the delights of fresh purple sprouting!

Then, we come back here and revel in the tranquillity, the lush greenness of our valley and the endless views of fields and woodlands and find that the nightingales, Golden Orioles, hoopoes, cuckoos and redstarts have arrived for the summer and the choices we are having to make feel tough.

Enough procrastinating!  There's a garage to be cleared, lawns to be mowed, a study to be made back into a bedroom, as we get ready to put our life here on the market.  We are lucky to have found a lovely life in Chichester, but leaving this will not be easy.

 

The aforementioned folder ...

 ... (see previous post) is too small.

Have I mentioned already? Probably not.  We are attempting to buy a small terraced house in Chichester.  

We've spent much of the last eighteen months pondering our future (nothing like a couple of major ops to force one to face one's mortality).

Much as we love France and especially the bit where we live, we have come to recognise whoever of us is left will up sticks and return to the UK.  We have no family to take on the role of executor and it would be cruel to ask anyone else to sort out our affairs in France.  So, we are planning for it now and hopefully making things easier for the last of us. Part of the plan is to have a property in the UK already that either of us would be happy to move into whilst things are tidied up in France.

We've found somewhere and are going through the agony of trying to purchase it.  We realised the last time we bought a property in the UK was 28 years ago. It is now another world, not helped by the fact that we are treated as money launderers, everything is now done on smart phones and the paperwork arriving from the solicitors by email is so voluminous that, this morning, I have had to buy a larger folder (see above), an additional ream of paper and a new set of inks. 

We grit our teeth and hang on in there because we love the house we've found and are enchanted by Chichester.

We talk about it becoming our "maison secondaire" for a time and popping across to stay for a week or two, while our base continues (for the time being) to be France.  We are too embedded in the French system and all its healthcare benefits to want to lose that quite yet.

The house is bright, modern, feels spacious within its smallness, with a small garden. Chichester has a John Lewis and I look forward to shopping for modern, Scandi-style furniture. It could not be more different from where we live in France.

This will be a new adventure.

 

A One Hedgehog Evening

 Rona has been "done". And to my surprise she is returned to me with no cone or bandage round her belly to stop her licking herself. And to our even greater surprise, she takes little or no notice of her operation scar. I do dig out the fancy Elizabethan collar she wore after her elbows were operated on, just in case. The vet today checked her over and proclaimed her "nickel" but did warn she might lick more as the scar scabs over - so for the moment the cone remains on the side.

We have instructions to keep her exercising subdued and controlled, until next week.  So she remains on the lead. Tod does the early morning walk - down to the stream, along, up and round, usually across Monsieur F's clover field which is still planted and flowering and makes for an easy route back home (not too wet or muddy).

Armed with a head torch, I do evenings after supper, before the latest Netflix series. She and I head off round our field and garden, saying good evening to the hedgehogs as we go. She is good with them - just a sniff and a nuzzle - and then off.  They barely react and certainly don't feel the need to roll into a ball. Unlike the days of Clara, who used to run round the garden with a rolled up hedgehog in her mouth and then drip blood on the kitchen floor as I extracted the spines from her lips.

I think we have at least four, though we've never seen more than three in any given evening - they seem to keep to their own patch: the cottage lawn, the field, the house lawn and the bank alongside the track.

We only saw one tonight, as I "encouraged" Rona into the house. We're staying in the cottage while work is done on our utility room in the house.  I got tired of the mouse-ridden, colombage-dusty open shelves. What seemed enchanting when we moved in, these days is just grubby.  So the walls are now white, plasterboarded and rendered, the ceiling insulated, and the floor about to be tiled. (The "terre cuite" squares we bought for the kitchen18 years ago are totally passé - everything now is grey and beige giant rectangles.)  I find a series of multi-coloured tiles with an echo of the russet in the kitchen and hope that they blend in.  Tomorrow a trip to Bordeaux for a final check up of Tod's second cataract op (all progressing well) affords an opportunity to head to Ikea for suitable (narrow) kitchen shelving, and a Swedish meatballs lunch.

Rona and I thread our way through the kitchen, filled to the gunnels with the contents of the utility room, including a fridge, washing machine and tumble dryer. Not sure how our builders managed to squeeze the appliances through the utility room doorway and past the kitchen dresser.

My objective is to find a folder and a hole punch in my study and take them back down to the cottage. I need to do some filing before the accumulated paperwork disappears into the Bermuda triangle between the cottage and the house.  How do people who split their time between the UK and France manage?  We can't even keep things in order across two lawns!

The lights in the cottage throw out a warm, welcoming glow. As we head back down, I briefly turn out the torch and look up at the myriad stars in the clear black sky - it's going to be a cold night - two degrees by eight tomorrow morning. I hope our hedgehogs find shelter.

I hear a sound ...

 ... of crackling plastic from the kitchen that needs investigating.  As I arrive, I see a tail disappearing out the door into the garden.

I grab a bag of treats and follow.  Sure enough, as I feared, Rona has snatched an open packet of cheese slices. I thought I had pushed them to the back of the worktop but she is getting to the size where, on her hind legs, most things are in reach.

I worry what a whole pack of cheese will do to her digestion.  I needn't have. The cheese slices, still in a single block, have slid out of their pack and are lying on the lawn. I pick them up and dust them down - only a few bits of earth and grass. They'll be fine.

Rona in the meantime, is lying on the far side of the garden contentedly chewing the hard plastic packet and threatens to run off with it as I approach.

I use the magic phrase "Rona, treat".  All thought of cheesy plastic immediately forgotten, she is at my side in a flash, sitting dutifully. 

Treat given, pack retrieved (just about usable), cheese and pack returned to the fridge and order restored.

At Last!

 After two and a half months the weather has finally broken and we have had rain.  Not for long, but anything is better than nothing. "Aquitaine" it is not!

A small storm is rumbling around. It can't make up its mind whether to move up into Dordogne or along the Lot.  Rain ran before it, enough to give us, briefly, the rich, peaty smell of damp earth through the open kitchen door.

For weeks we have fretted that this will be the new norm - temperatures in the thirties, guests who do little except lie by the pool, even the ones who in previous years planned their days out.  We hide in the house, grateful for its thick stone walls and high ceilings and close everything down - curtains and shutters - as the unforgiving sun moves round.  

The garden is already autumnal - trees rapidly shedding their brown brittle leaves. The fallen figs are dried out on the ground and the lawns have become bare earth covered in dying weeds. What grass there is has not grown in weeks and is the colour of straw.

I cruelly leave the borders unwatered, asking the roses, geraniums, oleander and hibiscus to cope as best they can.  What survives will become the preferred new plantings for future years.

The guests help to keep the pots alive round the cottage - throwing on washing-up water and buckets from their showers.  I water the tomatoes, but not enough, or too erratically, and the large coeur de boeuf develop blossom end rot.

Until these last few days we have left the pool uncovered to try to keep its temperature below that of warm soup.

For ten days now, the forecasts have been promising the rain, but each day we've watched the small drawings of  grey clouds disappear from the charts. We gave up believing it would happen.  

So, finally, we send up a prayer of thanks to the rain gods and (apologising to those who are on still on holiday) hope that over the coming days we will have more - much more. 

What to Tell?

 An email pops into my inbox from someone who used to holiday here as a child in the seventies.  Her offer of photos from that time sets me off on a nostalgic trip through my blogs from the early days when we restored and renovated the cottage and the house.

Those blogs hold my memories. Things about our life here that I have forgotten and I am grateful for the reminders. And that brings me back to right now and how I have left these recent weeks unrecorded - but what to tell and how?

Early in the year a colonoscopy confirmed what I had suspected - I had colon cancer.  That set me off on a journey of discovery as to how best to deal with it.  The cancer itself has never held fears for me. It is merely part of myself, my cells, reacting to some stimulus: food? stress? anger? environment? who knows?  

My greater concern has been my treatment and what that might entail. As a friend said: "I went into hospital a well man and came out sick".

Not least, my journey led me to discover just how many of my friends and acquaintances have been through the same experience, some many years ago.  It's not one of the cancers we talk about - mild embarrassment about that part of our bodies maybe - yet it's one of the most treatable, if caught early and so merits being discussed.

I'm hoping mine has been caught early.  A scan, pre-op, showed nothing suspicious anywhere else.

So a discussion with my surgeon reassures. He will be doing keyhole surgery, using a robot (said with a touch of pride). The cancer and a portion of my colon will be removed (there is spare) and the remainder will be reattached.  And thus it proved to be.

The hardest part was awaking in the intensive care unit, to too much noise, wires everywhere so I could barely move and constant flashing lights. The four days and nights were interminable, made bearable by the kindest of staff (except when I wanted to stay in bed and burst into tears - "no she must get up, to get things moving again" - they were right of course).  

Two of the nurses asked how old I was - 78 - and I immediately turned into my mother (who used to ask people to guess her age in her 80s) as I lapped up the flattery - "no you can't be"  "how young you look" And (of course) I immediately felt better.

They finally took pity on me and sent me to general nursing where I found tranquillity, a good night's sleep, and a private bathroom where I managed to shower myself and feel half human again. And then I got cramp in my left calf.  And yes, as I feared, a deep vein thrombosis, and the prospect of being kept in. But it's small and I'm back on full dose blood thinners and wearing an elegant (not) compression stocking. So I came home.

But that is only half the story.  We should have said no and waited 'til the autumn, for Tod's sake, given all he was coping with. 

In the weeks before my op, Rona began to limp on her left leg. We took her to the excellent vet who did Bertie's cruciate ligament.  X-rays showed she has a puppy disease - elbow dysplasia - he kept her in, operated on both elbows there and then, removing damaged bone and we were given instructions she needed "repos strict" for 10 weeks. Short walks in the garden, on the lead, to do her business and then back indoors, restricted to one room (the kitchen).  

This, imposed on a teenage Airedale whose greatest joy is haring across our field playing hide and seek and standing on her hind legs to investigate what we are preparing for supper on the kitchen worktop. All this while I'm in hospital and Tod is wanting to visit, an hour's drive away.  His life not helped by Rona's reluctance to do anything whilst on the lead.

I came home to find the modus vivendi was an open kitchen door and Rona able to come and go at will in the garden (no lead) and she is now limping on her right leg.  I try and impose the strict regime on them both, but too late.

And I have sympathy with Rona's belief she is better. I too feel the same. But tiny keyhole scars are misleading as to the healing that needs to take place inside.

Both of us are going back to see our respective surgeons in a couple of weeks.  I hope they are not too cross with us.

And in the meantime, our latest gite guests have arrived, who think Rona is adorable. 

 

She's a "holy terror" ...

... as my mother would say.

"Viliane" has become "Rona" (short for Verona).  Pedigree dogs born in the same year all have the same initial for their name - being an indication of the year they were born.  So pedigree dogs born in 2024, all have names begin with "V".  Viliane is hard to remember and starting "Vi" almost always morphs into Vita. She needs her own name. So Rona she is, and we remember most of the time

She came to us at 9 months and now she's 10.  She is a handful and still very much a puppy.  Friends ask why was she 9 months and still at the breeders. We don't know, but can well imagine more than one set of prospective owners brought her back!

Her preferred stance is front paws on our chest so she can converse more easily with us. On the ground is too far away. And if front paws are not on us, then on the kitchen worktop, so she can see what we are preparing for supper.

Plastic is irresistible, making a satisfying cracking noise between her teeth. The clasps on one of Tod's sandals have been chewed - fortunately he has another pair.  Hose connectors are a fair target, as are the plastic containers for young plants (which are scattered round the lawn while she runs off with the tray). More alarmingly, she likes plastic wiring (my phone charger lead is no more). She's taken a fancy to the telephone wire on the ground that goes down to the cottage (not good for internet connection) and we fear she may go for electric cables - we are hastily "puppy proofing" how we live.

She has found her voice, which is a banshee wail (no doubt much to the horror of distant neighbours). Often, we have no idea what she is yelling at - bird song, dogs barking on the TV, to let us know it's morning, to warn us we might have visitors (not that we have many - her bark/howl is enough to deter anyone - she could audition for the hound of the Baskervilles).

We're hoping that her tendency to wee in the dining room is gradually being resolved - by a crack of dawn walk with Tod before any "accidents" can happen. Having lived outside at the breeders she's never been house trained and the tiles in the dining room look much like the tiles on the terrace where she lived. 

She also comes when called (even when in the middle of "greeting" Jehovah's Witnesses), knows "sit" and "down" and (unlike Vita and Bertie) actually does it. Our field with its long grasses is a joy, into which she bounds, disappears and then re-emerges with a grin on her face, zooms past us and disappears again - Airedale version of hide and seek.

She rolls on her back in the long grass by the entrance post and then slides and summersaults backwards into the ditch alongside. It looks alarming but she climbs back out and comes racing across the drive to tell us "what fun".

She is adorable and she makes us laugh. We are so lucky we found her.

A house is too quiet ...

 ... without a dog.

We were not going to have another one - we are too old, we want to go travelling and it's complicated with a dog.  That idea lasted a month.

Tod was lying in bed with flu. I was sitting in the lounge alone watching late night TV, imagining this is how my final years would be. We both needed joy back in our lives.

So, last weekend we set off 600kms, beyond Aix-en-Provence, to bring home Viliane, a nine month old Airedale teenager.  She is adorable.