The Best of Dogs

We said goodbye to Bertie Thursday afternoon.  He went easily and happily, off on his next big adventure. 

I am bereft.

A Small Triumph

We live surrounded by farmland.  We follow the seasons of ploughing, harrowing, planting, watering, harvesting. We talk to Monsieur F about what crop he's growing this coming year and learn how French agriculture slowly, slowly is changing, adapting, expanding.  What used to be the monotony of maize, rape and winter wheat now also embraces sunflowers, beetroot (for the seeds) and new this winter "trèfle" which we suspect is a type of clover.  He tells us the field will be a mass of purple flowers in June, and (we hope) a mass of contented bees.

His land envelopes us and stretches across two fields to a boundary with what used to be the terrain of a chateau, sadly dismantled to make way for a cluster of sheds and buildings holding pigs.

Between the two fields is a narrow country lane that ascends steeply from the bridge over the stream at the bottom of the valley to the road along the brow of the hill up behind us.  Rarely used, we did not even know the lane was there until after we had bought our house. Standing in the garden and looking across what we thought was a continuous field of maize we were somewhat startled to see the roof of a car heading up through the middle.

This lane is even quieter these days, used only by the most hardy. The potholes are deep and frequent and require skilful manoeuvring up onto the verges. But for us it is a useful shortcut on the way to Agen.

It also is part of our morning walk with Bertie: down through our field to the stream, along the bottom of Monsieur F's field, said stream beside us, today bubbling and gurgling from all of Sunday morning's rain, to the small bridge, missing part of one side (never repaired) which the pig farmer's young daughter managed to clip with the huge tractor she was driving during Covid, then turn back up the steep country lane to the road at the top, along the road to the bungalow with all the dogs, who greet us enthusiastically and with not a little envy as they are never let out.  With the dogs, who quickly lose interest, behind us we head back down "our" farm track to our house below.  All the changing contours make a good morning workout for all of us.

Sometime towards the end of last year I suddenly found I could not walk up the steep pot-holed country lane without stopping to get my breath back. I thought it was my pacemaker malfunctioning, or maybe just needing retuning, so made an appointment with my cardiologist (there's a phrase I never expected to have in my life).  Appointments take time and so for several weeks I continued to puff my way up the hill, sometimes having to stop twice to recover.

In preparation for the cardiologist's appointment I take a blood test and all is revealed - not my pacemaker after all, but severe anaemia.  The GP's surgery swings into action and, with much tutting and fussing, I have a blood transfusion within a couple of days.  I feel better, but continue to puff going up the hill.  Another blood test (the French are thorough) reveals the anaemia is better but not by much.  So an "iron infusion" is arranged.  The authoritarian office manager looks up from her desk and gives me a reassuring smile (a rare occurrence) telling me I will feel "much better" after it.  Google tells me it will take two weeks. 

This morning, it's ten days since I had the iron and for the first time in many weeks I walk up the hill without stopping. It is a small and very satisfying triumph.  

I think I'll be alright ...

 ... if I just sit at my computer for the next two weeks watching Graham Norton videos.

If I move, if I talk, or if I laugh, I cough.  Maybe Graham isn't such a good idea, after all.

A friend told me it takes a month to get over this cough - that's what his pharmacist said.  And there is a fierce poster in our doctor's surgery telling us that antibiotics do not get rid of bronchitis.  So I rely on hot lemon, ginger and honey (some recommend whisky as well) and lashings of Vicks on my chest at night and try not to sound like I'm smoking 50 a day.

We're into week three. So hopefully not much longer.

This could not have come at a worse time - but then when did a cold or flu come at a good time?

Knowing we would be into a round of doctors' appointments and check-ups, I thought how nice to take a week away and return refreshed, relaxed and fortified.  So off we set to see friends in Trujillo in the middle of nowhere, in Spain.  We set forth in the car, unfortunately already a moving petri dish, Bertie in the back and Tod keeping quiet about his newly started sore throat.   As a result, our trip was subdued and we feared for infecting our friends and refused their welcoming supper, much to our mutual disappointment. 

We have smugly avoided all the germs going round since Covid - we have friends who regularly get vaccinated and still have managed to get the lurgy four times - "ah, but we haven't had it badly", they crow.  "We haven't had it at all, or flu, or a cold" we congratulate ourselves.

So now, we've both have had the cold to end all colds and a cough that refuses to go. 

It's strange. I sit in our doctor's waiting room, being good and wearing a mask, for the sake of him and his other patients and I don't cough at all.  I can watch an hour of Rogue Heroes and not cough at all.  I can watch YouTube videos and not cough at all - except when I laugh at Graham Norton's guests.

We promise we will go back to see our friends when all of this is over.  Their front door opens to a cosy cavern of a kitchen, stone walls, no windows, filled with shelves of gleaming pans, pots and jars of intriguing foodstuffs and glittering fairy lights and ornaments.  Cool in the ferocious Spanish summer, and warm in a chilly winter, it will be a place of welcome, comfort and healing.