Well wasn’t the snow fun – I don’t think !!! Yes very beautiful but then you get idiots like me “I’ve lived in Switzerland, I can drive on snow” who go out, get 200 yards down the road and whump ! Great big grinding halt !! Luckily there was a very nice young man in an ambulance taxi in front of me who had also got stuck and he managed to turn my car round and I limped home feeling very foolish. What I forgot was that in Switzerland, before you’ve got your feet out of bed, the roads have been practically cleared and it looks as though the snow has only fallen either side.
As for the rain, well “ENOUGH” I cry !! Fine if you’ve got a house and can shut yourself in by the fire, but no fun in an old leaky mobile home with a bedroom in the house across the garden with mud in between. I’ve given up cleaning the floor only for it to be covered in muddy paw prints two minutes later. Spending the time getting on the outside of a nice cold glass of white is much more productive.
Even though I’m still not working – or receiving dole money, thank you Mme X at Pole Emploie, I hope you’re out of work one day then you may be more pleasant to people like me. In fact, don’t you realise that it is thanks to people like me that you are in work !!! – I seem to be busy every day. Doubt that I’ll get a job before the Summer now, 63 is not a good age to be looking for work in a foreign country. Also I’m really worried that my memory is going. I was in Montcuq the other day when a lovely young lady came up to me to say hallo. I looked at her puzzled then realised she was Eloise, the lovely girl who used to pester people in her mother’s bookshop to put coppers in the Poorpaws collecting tin ! When did she go from being six and wearing pink to a teenager in black and grey ?! I asked her how her friend was who adopted one of Kirby’s pups and she said “you can ask her, she’s standing next to me !!” Chimera (a great shop, do go there and browse through the hundreds of cheap books when you are in Montcuq) still has the Poorpaws collecting tin and when I counted out all the bits and bobs last week there was an wonderful 35 euros in there. Thank you so much.
We had a panic this weekend when I got up, later than usual as it was Sunday, to find that Kirby has escaped in the night and her pups had followed. Crisis ! I had no idea when they had left. One of the pups was found crying on the other side of the fence trying to get back, but the other remaining unadopted two were nowhere to be seen. I got Ernst up and we spent the next hour driving and walking in different directions looking for them, without success. I was in floods of tears – those who know me know that I cry very easily, don’t ever talk to me about Bambi or Balou from the Jungle Book ( yes I know he didn’t actually die but you don’t know that at first ). Then Ernst spotted the runaways all at the top of the plateau opposite our house. He whistled and I raced over the road, down the ditch, through the stream which was much deeper than I had expected (!) and up the other side. One pup came running down to me but the other gave me a distant ‘high five ‘ and followed mum. A very anxious day followed with kind friends and neighbours all on the lookout. Then at 4 o’clock a very tired pup appeared at the gate. I hugged and squeezed him so hard that he has avoided me ever since !
Mum turned up an hour later looking very sheepish. Phew !!
So, dogs. You will see from the Adoptions Page that it has again been a good month and there are more possible adoptions in the pipeline. I’m hoping that Houston and Hector soon find homes of their own but I’m not going down the personal chocolate deprivation road again yet !!
Have a great February,
love,
Sue x