Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts

Wednesday 2 March 2011

124. Guilty as charged

2nd March 2011. My French failed me this morning - by that I mean my ability to instantly understand what someone has said to me and then to come out with the right reply (grammatically as well as socially).

Here's what happened.. I was walking with the dog in town when a woman d'un certain age passed close by going in the opposite direction and she said to me, "Les chiens sont pour les sentimentaux.." (Dogs are for sentimental people) and then she was gone.

It took me a couple of seconds to a. realise that she'd been talking to me and b. understand exactly what she'd said. I then spent the next ten minutes mulling over what I could/should/should not have said in English, let alone French. Curious thing to say though - was it a spur-of-the-moment thing or had she just been waiting for the right moment to come out with it? I mentioned it to Madame and she described her exactly to me - apparently she's well-known around town for being two or three prawns short of a paella. In the end, it was just as well I said nothing.

There are several people around town who are "down on their luck" - another way of saying their life choices were bad - and they sit on the ground outside places like the Post Office, the cathedral after the Sunday morning service or Monoprix and they all seem to have large dogs. There's normally an influx of them when there are public holidays or when it's the tourist season. Some are quite aggressive, some have little signs made up with their life stories, some demand you return their "Bonjour" - I do give to charities but I think the first thing they need to do is to stand up. And when I see them smoking then I'm afraid my sympathy is in short supply. There are jobs out there - but they won't find one sat on their backsides. I've very little sympathy - as in none at all - with young people sat on their backsides begging as well.  

Sad scene at the bottom of the avenue this morning - a large skip was parked outside a house where an old gentleman had lived. He always looked like he had a haircut every two years - whether he needed one or not. A few months ago I realised we hadn't seen him for a while and this morning his house was being cleared. I saw his old furniture thick with the dust of years being thrown unceremoniously into the skip by 3 men in the kind of white overalls that police wear at crime scenes.

But - back to the lady's comment - yes, I probably am sentimental as far as the dog is concerned. Why have one if you're not?

Now here's a 13 year old I could listen to all day:


Gypsy jazz guitarist Dorado Schmitt (in the centre above) is no mean violinist himself.. But here he is with his guitar:

Sunday 28 February 2010

47. Wind in the Willows

28th February 2010. An Alerte Rouge for 60-odd departements in France last night.. Strong winds swept the country overnight - the storm crossed the Bay of Biscay from Spain and coasted in around La Rochelle and devastated some low-lying villages when a high tide, whipped up by the strong south-westerly winds, breached a dyke and flooded villages and farmland. So far around 45 dead have been reported with many being drowned in their homes.

The idea of drowning during the night in one's own house is far from our thoughts when we go to bed and so the unimaginable shock of waking up in the wee small hours with the house flooding and no lighting must have been appalling for those involved, especially the elderly and infirm. Many houses were flooded to a depth of 1m 80.. (almost 6 feet) It doesn't bear thinking about..

I now feel somewhat guilty about my reactions during the storm because I was lying in bed, listening to the noise outside and feeling content that, with the new windows fitted, things were now much quieter.

2nd March 2010. 
We were on the beach at Anglet this afternoon and I heard some unfamiliar honking sounds coming from above.. Looking up, I spotted several great straggling broadly vee-shaped formations of cranes beating their way back to their northern European summer retreats (from Africa?). There were a good few hundred of them. My next question is what is the difference between a stork and butter oops, a crane..? I’m no ornithologist as you can guess.. This must be a sign that spring is on the way.. The car thermometer registered 22C yesterday at 3pm on the way to the beach.
  
Our pooch (9 this summer) met another English cocker spaniel, a 10 months old bitch, down there and the two of them started racing about like a coupla eejits.. (“Wow, another dog!”) It was so funny to watch.. Would have been hard pressed to say which one was the 8 year old.. Strange, isn’t it, how dogs never lose their fascination with each other.