There is more to life than ...

Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs - Jerome K Jerome

2009-07-12T10:04:00.009+01:00

Another mixed week for weather. Happily, Monday was sufficiently dry for me to have a good go in the garden on the tractor. The grass is down, and the dogs love it - especially Ulysse and Shitsu. We are fighting a rearguard action against the brambles which, this year, are rampant!

On the domestic front, I have created another trapdoor in the terrace so that the emptiers can get at all three access covers on the septic tank, and shall have a look myself later in the week to see what the scum looks like now. I have also put out a couple of enquiries for quotes for the emptying etc.

The surprise for us was the difference in colour, when cutting the planks. We had forgotten how red they were. Personally, I prefer the grey, but we shall need to re-treat them before the winter sets in.

On the work front, it has become obvious that I need to carry a computer with me to people for web site development. I have already had to arrange for a meeting to happen here, rather than at the house of a collaborator, simply because I couldn't otherwise have the site code with me for prototyping and development. That has now changed with the acquisition of a netbook. Sure, it has a very limited solid state disk, but I can carry all the sites on a 2GB memory stick and, if that isn't enough, I have a 160GB external disk I can use. Even with that it is smaller and lighter than the laptop.

It is an Asus Eee PC 900 running Windows XP. In deference to its diminutive storage, I installed Kompozer for web authoring. As well as being free, it sits in 20MB of disk, whereas the highly expensive Dreamweaver needs more than ten times that much! For browsing, I only installed IE8. I prefer Firefox, but as IE has to be there anyway, I don't want to waste the space by adding a second browser. On the desktop I have five browsers installed, but space is not a problem there - between its internal and external disks I still have 226GB free, plus another 670GB on the network attached drive.

The Eee came with XP installed. The jury is out on whether I shall change that to Linux eventually. That could give improved performance and more economical storage use, as well as still running Kompozer. We shall wait and see.

Now back to the dogs. Firstly, a few portraits, in increasing order of size of dog.

Tinkerbell:

Shitsu:

Ulysse:

and, finally, Flash (with his Mini-me attached):

In terms of their activities, Ulysse has been jumping for joy:

he and Shitsu have followed Clare's lead in looking skyward for inspiration:

Ulysse has been "helping" in the garden by mole-hunting:

and Pierre's puppy, Diana, has been wanting to join in the fun:

Tinkerbell has taken to barking furiously at anyone who has the temerity to walk in the road near our gates and, unfortunately, both Shitsu and Ulysse have decided to join him. I do not like yappy dogs. I am watching The Dog Whisperer to get some tips as to how to stop them

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

There is no dignity in old age - particularly if you are a dog

2009-07-05T09:56:00.014+01:00

... by which I mean a member of the species Canis familiaris, and not someone who fails to match up to one's personal (aspirational) standard of physical attractiveness.

Poor old Flash has had a real week of it. We took him to the vet on Wednesday because, as well as all his other troubles, his stools resembled fresh tar. Not good. Our investigations showed a number of possible causes, all of which suggested a prompt visit to a professional.

I weighed him when we arrived. Bear in mind his steady (and therefore, one assumes, ideal) weight for years, up until Hobie was put down and Flash's troubles started, was 25.5Kg. On Wednesday it was 19.7Kg - a loss of almost 23%. That would be like someone who should weigh 11 stones (70Kg) weighing in at 8½ stones (54Kg). Seriously underweight. I also told the vet that he seemed to have lost all power in his back legs — almost to the point that, from time to time, he seems to be paralysed. She was less worried about this than about the weight loss (another Kg lost in less than two weeks), pointing out that much of his weight is in his muscles and, if he has lost 23% of the muscle mass in his thighs, the power in his legs will be reduced. As to the black, tarry stools (a sample of which we had brought with us - nice); this is indicative of blood in his system, and is a known side effect of the Digoxin (digitalis) tablets he has to take to regulate his heartbeat. She gave him an antibiotic injection and an antispasmodic for his stomach, and gave us two nutritional supplements that have to be administered by syringe, straight into his throat. Twice per day for two days and please bring him back on Friday morning.

We administered the jollop as directed, in addition to his usual tablets. One of the supplements is in powder form to be mixed with a little water and administered (the vet did say Flash wouldn't like it, and she was right) using the syringe provided. Happily, no needle was needed! That stuff has to be administered quite quickly, as it soon becomes very gloopy, and is headed towards being difficult to push through the syringe by the time we get to the third and last syringe full. The other looked alarmingly like the stools that had worried us in the first place. That one he did not like and, by Friday morning, he had used up three of the four doses the syringe contained.

We took him to the vet on Friday, just as the local representatives of the species Passer domesticus were clearing the night's build-up of gaseous substances from their cloacas. I weighed him - 20.7Kg. Brilliant - provided their scales were accurate, or at least consistent, he had gained a kilo. His stools were beginning to look somewhat better, although there was still a lot of blood apparent. She had a feel around his tummy and said that he was in a lot less pain, that we should finish the black jollop and continue with the other one for another three days. She then wanted him to come back in four weeks for another blood test to establish his digoxin levels, to see if the dose could be safely reduced a little.

Our usual vet, Élise (about whom nothing bad should ever be said), will be back from holiday next week and will be brought up to date by the vet we have been seeing in her absence.

Shortly after returning from the vet's, I had to gear up to drive to Paris to collect Tania's dogs - she is going to be away for a few weeks, and we agreed to look after them.

I had done some looking at www.viamichelin.fr and, according to that, if I avoid the chargeable areas of autoroutes, it would cost about the same in petrol (about 35€ each way), take two hours longer, and save over 26€ each way on tolls. It was worth a go. It was a very pleasant drive up - more interesting than the autoroutes, and without incident. There were a few towns and villages where the traffic was a little heavy, but nothing major. I reached Tania's place, parked up, and was in within six hours of leaving home.

Tania's friend Melanie turned up for the evening, which was very pleasant. Most of it was spent trying to decide what Tania should pack for her trip. Her chihuahua, Tinkerbell, wanted to go with her,

but I had other ideas for him!

Were I to say the bin was laden, this blog would probably attract an unusual amount of attention, so I shan't say it.

All the indications were that the traffic on Saturday morning would be horrendous. The schools broke up on Thursday, and a lot of families were off for their summer hols. Tania had to check in at Charles de Gaulle airport at 9am, so we left just after 7am for the thirty minute journey (to allow for traffic) and arrived at 7:40am. Leaving the airport I found out, by the time I reached the A6B, why it had been declared a red day for traffic. It was horrendous until I reached the point where I could choose to stay on the A10 (toll) and follow the A10/A71 route or to veer off into the countryside. I chose the latter and took the non-payage route home. Traffic was OK mostly for the rest of the journey, but the towns that were busy on Friday were clogged on Saturday. The various traffic jams probably cost us at least an hour. At Vierzon I relented and jumped on to the A71 for the last couple of hundred kilometres.

I finally arrived at about 2:30pm, with two dogs that had, apart from a couple of pee-breaks, been sleeping on the back seat since we left CdG - and look who was waiting for me when I arrived.

I did manage to get the grass cut on Monday, then spent a very pleasant hour or two with Jean-Marc, who has the ruin just down from us. Good wine, good conversation (bad French on my part, but we managed) and a jolly good time was had. J-M is hoping for a storm before the weekend, to help his vegetable plots. I'm not.

He won. Massive thunderstorm on Thursday evening, with rain the like of which I haven't seen since I was caught in a monsoon in Kuala Lumpur in the early 80s.

Lots of thunder, very close (according to this source) and very loud! Until then, it had been hot and sunny all week. After that, it was hot and cloudy. Happily, it stayed dry for the drive to Paris and back.

What else has happened this week? Oh yes. We have relocated the rotary clothes line to the back of the house; an area that picks up all the wind. I have also relocated the satellite dish we use for French broadcasts, in the hope that, one day, we shall get the Orange box working.

And we had a visit from a Purple Emperor butterfly. I grabbed the little Lumix pocket camera and tried a few shots (the butterfly was obligingly still). Not good until I turned the auto-flash off. The deep purple colouring on the upper wings need just the right lighting to show up, and flash ain't it!

But that is.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

about generalisations.

2009-06-28T06:45:00.006+01:00

I was reading in "La Folie" in the on-line Telegraph Expatriate edition of the strange impression that the resident's neighbours have of England and the English. It made interesting reading. It seems many of them had never been to the coast, so crossing it was out of the question. Where they got their information is anyone's guess, but they have the impression that England - particularly rural England - hasn't changed since the 1950s. Funnily enough, the comment I receive from a number of our visitors is that this part of France is like rural England in the 1950s.

On that note, whilst talking with my neighbour last week, the subject turned to channel crossings, the Channel Tunnel and, inevitably, the irrational fear that was prevalent at the time it was being built that rabies would be brought in by armies of foxes and the like travelling the 27 odd miles under the channel. Apparently, there are pockets of France (not here) where rabies is coming back after having been eradicated, and work is under way to prevent the spread and rid the country of it once more. What threw me is that my neighbour "had heard" that rabies is endemic in England, and that many people die from it each year. I promptly disabused him of this notion, pointed out that the quarantine regulations have always been very strict and very effective, and that the only case of which I had heard was of a lady who had been bitten by a migratory bat. I seem to recall she was working in a bat rescue centre, but am not too sure on that point.

I suppose that myth, along with the one that all we eat is roast beef and fish'n'chips is, in part, a not unreasonable counter to the large number of wholly false opinions of French folk held by Sun and Daily Mail readers.

We have found French country folk to be like country folk worldwide - mostly polite, helpful, friendly, all that kind of stuff - and French city folk to be like city folk everywhere - often rude, abrupt, always in a hurry, "me first", and things like that. Of course, there are significant variations and exceptions to that sweeping generalisation, but that has been my impression based on living in, working in or visiting 34 major cities in 17 countries (plus a lot in the UK, of course).

On Monday afternoon, I walked Ulysse into Pionsat (3Km each way) to pick up my medications. The pharmacy was waiting for a delivery, on which was one of my prescription items, of which they had run out. I was happy to take the one they had (the most important one, of which my remaining stock was zero) and return for the other, of which I had about ten days' supply at home. They said they would deal with it, and look what was in the post on Tuesday morning:

Yup - a pharmacy bag with my missing pills in it.

That is what I call service.

Flash has been a bit like the weather this week - started off very well but finished on a low. He was on terrific form on Monday. Whilst I was cutting the grass he was almost running down the garden, with Ulysse in pursuit. Flash has been mostly avoiding any hard food for months - we believed because his teeth are a tad manky - and it is most unusual for him to move at more than a slow walk. Here he was though, trotting down with Ulysse in tow, the latter trying to recover the hide chew that Flash had appropriated.

Flash is enlarged in this picture and can clearly be seen to be chewing something.

The end of Flash's week was less happy than the beginning, and we think we may need to get him to the vet again. I plan to take the Astra to Paris to pick up Tania's dogs again on Monday/Tuesday, so it will be Wednesday before we can get Flash to the vet.

Speaking of the garden - I shan't say too much, as that is the subject of Clare's blog - but doesn't the apple tree look well?

On Wednesday, I had occasion to lift one of the inspection covers on the septic tank. Worryingly, the scum that collects on the top - oils, fats etc. - is solid. Solid like concrete. It is about time for the tank to be maintained (cleaned, emptied, whatever they do with it), so I checked all three inspection covers. The scum beneath all of them is solid.

Checking the three was no mean feat either. When the terrace was built, I asked for a trapdoor above each inspection cover. The guy who was helping Rik with it decided that one trapdoor, centrally placed, would be enough. It is fine for two of the inspection covers, but trying to get to the third is rather like trying to escape from Colditz Castle. The land beneath the terrace slopes and, over the roughly two and a half metres travel from the trapdoor to the inspection cover, the height of the terrace above the land drops from about 80cm to less than 50cm. We have decided, before calling the guys in to do the tank, to create another trapdoor above the third inspection cover. I shall start it when I return from Paris and, if I mess up, I shall ask Rik to put it right for me.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Gazebo placebo, rain again, and bird turd

2009-06-21T16:30:00.005+01:00

You will recall from last week that the week started with my birthday. I was all in favour of letting it drift by un-noticed, but Pete and Marcia decided otherwise.

The first thing I noticed was that the gate that Peter had made was adorned (fortunately on the inside) telling all and sundry (on the inside) that I had just become a sexagenarian. Didn't expect to become one of those at my age, but what can you do? At least I qualify for a senior rail card now!

We had invited a few friends and neighbours for a quite drink and snack in the afternoon and, unknown to me, our visitors had bought nibbles and things. As it turned out, there was the beginnings of a thunderstorm on Sunday morning. We decided that, rather than move all the stuff into the annexe, we would erect the gazebo on the terrace. Very handily, the terrace is 3.5m wide inside the balustrade, and the gazebo is three metres square. Quite a good fit, and I thought it looked quite good.

We hadn't invited many people; Rik and his family arrived first and, just as we were settling into a nice chat with them, Pierre from across the road arrived with his wife, daughter and grand-daughter. We had a nice long chat and finally, after three years, established a decent relationship with them. We had both spoken with Pierre occasionally, but had not had a conversation with his wife, Martine, beyond brief pleasantries. Small mistake. When I introduced Rik and his family to Pierre, I referred to them as Dutch. They are Belgian. My first senior moment as a sexagenarian? Maybe, but not the last, I'll warrant!

A little later, after Rik and Pierre and their respective families had gone, Jean-Marc, who has the land and buildings at the bottom of the garden, dropped in for a short while.

Jean-Marc has an enormous task ahead of him, renovating the buildings on that land. He has made a start by doing up the garage and making it into a very usable chalet. He is also developing a couple of vegetable growing areas that, in addition to being a credit to him, make ours look less good than we would like to think them to be.

In the interests of good neighbourliness, I must point out that the fact that he lives at the bottom of our garden does not suggest he is a fairy!

The weather actually remained dry all afternoon. Shortly after everyone had left and we had taken down and stowed the gazebo, etc., this happened

Food on the table looked good earlier, but rain on the table has its charms

The half-harvested field I mentioned last week is now looking better. We discovered that the ride-on, set in mulching mode and at its highest setting, could handle some of the cut grass, redistributing it and holding the still growing grass down a bit. Probably three or four cuts of that kind will deal with it.

Meanwhile, it is not looking too bad and it is manageable!

A few other events have taken place that are possibly worthy of note.

The hot, dry weather, interspersed with cloud and rain, produces some fabulous sunsets.

Pete and Marcia left us on Friday and confirmed that they had a safe, uneventful journey back. The house seems a little empty now.

They did not before the new phones had arrived - these to replace the two DECT phones that had died as a result of a thunderstorm. This is a set of three. We have placed the master base in the study, the other two in the main bedroom and front room

The main handset, with the pretty coloured screen and the oh-so-trendy polyphonic ring tones (the one we have chosen is a really über-cool jazz trumpet thing) is in the front room. We are, so far, very pleased with this set.

Rafaël, Rik's son, had a problem with his computer - it looks like a Windows Vista update put it into a loop that prevented it from starting. A couple of hours work on the web gave me some areas in which I could look, and it now seems to be OK. Don't you just love Vista? Roll on Windows 7 - let's hope it will be quick, stable, usable, stable, effective and stable. I do still believe, though, that the only people ever to have stable software are horse-breeders!

I have been asked to prepare a web site for a local small business (a fellow auto-entrepreneur) - that quote is under preparation. Meanwhile, I finally heard from an organisation in Ireland that had asked me to quote for the redesign of their site that, although they were impressed with my quote, they preferred to try someone more local. I can fully understand that.

I took a look in the septic tank this afternoon, as a result of which I am not a happy sexagenarian. The sludge that accumulates on top of the water, which is made up of grease, oil and the like, is solid! I am sure it is not meant to be. I shall have to find a suitable man to look at it and do whatever is necessary to restore it to health.

And finally, a couple of birdy things. This first one popped in to the study for a visit. Left a present on my monitor as it was finding its way out..

So have a couple of hornets in the past few days! I have found that a standard uplighter will adequately barbecue a hornet trapped between it and the ceiling (lots of smoke though, and smells a bit like significantly overcooked susages; like a barbecue, en effet), and mesh strategically placed in the window opening stops the blighters coming into the room in the first place.

The second birdy picture is simple a snapshot of the first baby swallow to appear outside this year. There are currently three nests in use (that we know of), at least one of which has young that should be fledging soon. The others are in earlier stages - one of them is still under construction.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Friends to stay, harvesting the lawn, and our own flying display

2009-06-14T07:18:00.009+01:00

What am I doing updating my blog on my birthday? A very good question, and one that can only be answered with "because that's the kind of thing I do". So, here goes.

Pretty good week for weather. It started kind of dull, but by mid-week we were basking in high temperatures and wall-to-wall sunshine.

The scythe mower arrived on Tuesday, I assembled it (with a lot of help from Pete) and it was soon ready to work. Incidentally, on a trip to Montluçon later in the week we found that we could have bought the same model from Mr Bricolage, fully assembled and ready to go. Including delivery charges, it would have cost a little over one thousand euros - 43% more than I paid for it. To my mind, two men working for the better part of an hour is OK if it saves over three hundred euros!

A quick set of photographs to set the scene.

1. before

2. during

3. after

We experienced only two mishaps during the cutting - three if you include nearly losing the machine in the pond. The first misadventure surrounded the curious case of the disappearing plum tree. When cutting long grass, as the "during" photo shows, the operator cannot see the blade. Whilst trimming around the new plum tree - the one that was, in its first full year, proving willing to bear fruit - it suddenly fell down. I felt no resistance, even though its trunk was about 4cm thick near the base. It seems that when they say it can cut thick undergrowth and it is good in orchards they did not mention that it was a good forestry device, too! I shall devise a method of signalling the outside edges of the blade to stop it happening again.

The second issue was when a screw holding a crucial part of the cutter drive mechanism decided to go AWOL. It presumably hadn't been sufficiently tightened, and we didn't spot that. That part was pre-assembled, so NOT OUR FAULT! No way were we going to find it, so we had to replace it. It was, for those who care, a M8 x 20mm socket head cap screw. I don't have any of those. Pete and I hot-footed it to Montluçon and headed for Brico Depot. It seems to be more trade and serious DIYer oriented than does Mr Bricolage, which always seems to me to be more aligned to the home beautification market. Brico Depot had no socket head cap screws, neither could they confidently name a supplier, but suggested we try Mr Bricolage. I chuckled.

Mr Bricolage had no M8 x 20mm socket head cap screws, but did have some M8 x 60mm socket head cap screws. We bought some and wondered why we didn't try to find an engineering place (even the local garage). We got home with the screws and promptly attacked one of them with an angle grinder and a few other instruments of torture so it could fit in the space vacated by its predecessor. Back to work in half an hour. In case this is a screw that can vibrate loose - it does have a lot of vibration to put up with - I shall attempt to get hold of a quantity of them.

The entire area is now done, and all we need to do now is gather the cuttings. Currently it looks like a half-harvested field!

Whilst all this was going on, Clare and Marcia were doing flowery fruity gardeny stuff, and I happened to mention that I wanted a gate at the back, to give direct access to the terrace area.

Peter's hay fever stopped him from becoming involved in the harvest, but he did set about making a gate. Thanks Peter!

I would like to be able to say that Peter did the whole thing single handed, except that would be an untruth. I happened to sneak a look into the workshop whilst he was in there, and ...

... I saw him using both hands!

In the hope that the weather would stay good, we invited a few people to pop in on Sunday afternoon for a couple of drinks and a chat. Nothing excessive - no big party or anything, just few friends.

On Saturday afternoon we went across to the tip at St Eloy to see the Black Kites. There is something not quite wholesome about pulling up near a tip and getting out cameras and binoculars. But that is what we did and, to prove it, here I am with my long lens.

There were probably a couple of dozen kites, about 200 metres from us. Mostly they were down very low against a background that made photographing them difficult. We did get a few shots, though.

This is a young bird in very good feather

whilst tis older bird is showing signs of wear. This is possibly a brooding female who needs now to have a damned good moult!

Although they were mostly quite low, we were treated to the occasional spectacular stoop.

The pre-birthday finished up with dinner at the hotel À la Queue du Milan in Pionsat. The name means "at the Kite's tail" and reflects the fact that, from the air, that part of the town's outline resembles a kite's forked tail, and the hotel is in the middle of it.

It is a very fine establishment, the chef is a bit of a genius, and a jolly good time was had by all.

And finally - what do you think of our new rescuing dog?

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Sizzling sun, robust rain, poorly pooch ... and new toys

2009-06-07T09:39:00.007+01:00

What a fabulous week - temperatures in the mid- to high-twenties and wall to wall sunshine from the beginning of the week, right up until Thursday evening.

.. and then it rained!

Completely out of the blue and during daylight hours, there was a flash of lightning that, from inside the house, seemed as though someone had taken a flash photograph in the room in which we were. That was followed in very short order by a peal of thunder that sounded as though its origin were quite close.

I, of course, ran upstairs and unplugged everything but, alas, not everything was saved. From that point on, the DECT telephone in our bedroom and its slave in the lounge were putting out a lot of crackling, although we could hear the other party over it. The trouble is, the other party couldn't hear us. They have been declared dead, and we have put the simple wall phone back in the séjour. There is now no phone in the bedroom, but we have the portable in the study.

On the grass cutting front, the axle clamp for the Toro arrived on Thursday. That machine is now back in use, and we were able to tidy up the front of the house. The new scythe-mower will, according to UPS, be delivered on Tuesday. Let's hope the rain leaves us before then.

We were becoming concerned over the last weekend about a lump in Flash's throat, and decided the vet should see it. Monday being Pentecost Monday, there was no vet's surgery, so we took him on Tuesday. Neither our regular vet, nor the senior partner, could say what it was, so they took some blood which we dropped off at the lab early Tuesday afternoon. The vet called on Tuesday evening to tell us that the tests didn't indicate anything about the lump, but did show Flash to be in kidney failure, so we were to bring him in early Wednesday morning and leave him for the day whilst they flushed his kidneys. When we collected him on Wednesday evening he seemed in good spirits. They had flushed his kidneys, trimmed his claws (at our request) and looked at his lump, which seemed to be full of some kind of fluid tinged with blood. They sent a sample of the fluid to a lab for analysis and we should have the results sometime during the coming week. We are hoping it isn't a malignant tumour!

Flash benefitted greatly from having his kidneys flushed - he is now eating a little better and seems to be less lethargic. However, he has, since then, had a couple of what appear to be episodes of extreme pain lasting two or three minutes. He pants quite hard, his lower jaw trembles and his tongue hangs like in anaesthesia. It might even be a mild fit - we just don't know. Ulysse, being a Wire Fox Terrier, is prone to epileptic fits, but his are not mild, so we really can't use them as a basis for comparison. We shall try to hold off taking Flash to the vet until the test results come back. Having said that, we are not going to let him suffer periodic extreme pain, if indeed that is what it is.

With Marcia and Pete arriving on Saturday evening, we had to make some hasty decisions about the configuration of the séjour and annexe. The final decision (which may change) is that the annexe will make a fine dining room, especially if we can cut a door between it and the lounge, and the séjour can stay as it is. The pictures tell the story. Remember, there is still much to be done to complete the dining room.

Marcia and Pete arrived at about 10pm on Saturday after a relatively uneventful drive from Caen. We soon set about a challenge on the Wii (where, incidentally, the sport game put my age at 20 on Wednesday, the lowest and therefore 'perfect' age - I am normally between 23 and 28), and Marcia produced a helium filled balloon for me, saying it wouldn't last until next Sunday. I wouldn't have minded - I am in complete denial about the whole 60 thing!

Last week, I made the point that if one has to have a barbecue, the view needs to be special. The view I showed was, of course, to the south-east. In case you were wondering, it needs to be complemented by a view like this in the other direction.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

If all we have to worry about is cutting the grass ...

2009-05-31T09:52:00.012+01:00

It is a little known fact, but a fact nonetheless, that many dogs have Thespian aspirations. I have come across what can only be photographs from the dogs' portfolios that they take to auditions and the like. See what you think.

Here, Tinkerbell was auditioning for the part of a bat-eared fox in an African version of The Jungle Book:

Flash has tried out for a number of rôles. There was the part he was after in Bambi:

He went for the job of a Grizzly Bear in a The Call of the Wild, but failed for being too skinny - and too pale (that was in the days before PC):

and this. I'm not sure whether he was after a part in Gremlins III or whether he fancied himself as Yoda:

Either way, he didn't get the job.

For his part, Ulysse put in a bid for the title rôle in Driving Miss Daisy:

... and failed. I think he exhausted all of his options, and exhausted himself in the process!

Meanwhile, back to the saga of cutting the grass.

On Monday, having successfully repaired the tractor, we had a go at cutting the grass which, as this picture shows, is becoming quite tall (or long - take your pick). Sadly, it was just too long for the tractor, jamming it up and requiring it to be cleaned out every twenty metres or so.

We decided to see what we could do with the Toro. It threw its front axle, and lost one of the axle clamps. A replacement is on order, with no clear indication of when it will arrive. The Toro is unusable until it does.

So here is the quandary. We have better than a half acre of meadow grass that is getting longer by the day. The weather is ideal for cutting. Were the area suitable and access good enough, I would try to get the farmer to come in, cut it, bale it and have it for his cattle. It isn't, it isn't, and I can't. I do not wish to dip into our dwindling savings to buy a tractor that will do it (not the 2350€ one - that won't deal with such long grass - it would need to be a 7500€ one). I do not wish to do the whole area with a strimmer. That leaves one choice, which I have set in motion. I am hoping, before too long, to take delivery of a scythe-mower, as described here and pictured below.

Described as "A robust, powerful 'specialist' machine which can cut grass as cleanly as it does thick undergrowth. Optimum benefits are to be gained from use in paddocks and orchards, as well as wild meadows. Intended for use in recreational areas and is particularly suitable for use on larger plots of land.", it sounds as if it was specified for our situation.

The big surprise for me is the price. Delivered here from Germany, its cost at today's exchange rate, is about 20% less than the quoted UK price. It is still a lot of money, but is a great deal less than replacing the tractor. We have at least three or four occasions each year when the tractor really struggles and is possibly being damaged by the way we have to use it, and there are a few areas where the tractor just will not go, but where I anticipate this beast will.

Fingers crossed. We need it, and we need it to work!

I travelled to Paris again on Wednesday to return Tania's dogs to her. It is a long drive. Allowing for road works and stops for the dogs to exercise and for me to eat, it took five hours. It was dry but overcast. I had thought about taking them in the MX5, but I'm not as certain as with the Astra that it would manage a 750Km round trip without incident. There is still a question mark over the clutch linkage. The Astra also gave more room for the dogs, and is more secure when parked on-street in Paris. The only excitement on the way was when I saw some Marsh Harriers near the road; three separate sightings, two male and one female.

The return trip on Thursday was equally uneventful - only four and a half hours this time. The excitement on this trip was seeing, perched atop a fence post at the side of the autoroute, a buzzard which was so pale that, were it not for the shape, it could be mistaken for a male Barn Owl.

Whilst I was in Paris, the weather was dull, but our area was in brilliant sunshine. This has continued since my return. We have been out in the MX5 with the roof off a few times now - two trips to Montluçon to buy stuff, and I took Ulysse to the lake yesterday. It is superb.

If only I could cut the grass. We have some very good friends coming next weekend (I hope they know that they will have to watch the Turkish Grand Prix) and we want the whole place to look nice for their arrival.

We have eaten on the terrace a few times in this glorious weather, and I shall leave you with an image of the view we have from the terrace. If you are going to have a barbecue, you have to have a view like this to complement it.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Troubled tractors and dirty dogs

2009-05-24T09:40:00.010+01:00

I have to say that the week started wonderfully. Warm and dry, if not completely sunny. On Monday afternoon I decided it was high time I had another go at cutting the grass - it was almost a foot high in places and the ground seemed firm and dry enough. The only trouble is that it was still, over part of the area, damp from the overnight dew which, in the absence of good sunshine, often hangs around nearly all day. Nonetheless, I started. I set the blades to level five - next to the highest - which, unless everything is totally dry, is enough to keep it under control. In fact, I have never gone lower than four, as the uneven nature of the ground, aided by the moles and their allies, would mean that I would be spending a lot of my time trimming soil!

I had achieved no more then one third of the first circuit when it was apparent that it wasn't going to cope at level five, so I upped it to level six - its highest setting, went back to the shed and cleaned the cutter shroud. I restarted where I had left off and did another third of the first circuit (it takes about twenty-five to do the whole thing, a bit over two hours when things go well) when it jammed up again. Frequently, when the blades jam, I can disengage them, move to a clean area, and re-engage them, which forces out much of the grass that has clogged them. I tried that. It didn't work. No grass cuttings came from the cutter area. What did come from the cutter area were some unusual and not too pleasant noises, smells of burning rubber and a lot - and I mean a lot - of thick, acrid, black smoke.

Do you ever get the feeling that all is not well? I did then. I hastily disengaged the cutter drive and drove the mower back to the cleaning area. As I was cleaning it, I noticed the left-hand blade was spinning freely. This, I decided, was not right. Tractor back to its garage.

On Tuesday afternoon, whilst Clare was out, I was cutting the front grass and the sides of the road with the other mower [link] and stopped for a quick chat with Pierre, who was out doing likewise. We talked about grass, weather and the usual stuff, and I told him that my ride-on (tracteur-tondeuse or tondeuse autoportée, or just autoportée in French) was in trouble, that I thought the cutter drive belt was either displaced or broken. I asked if he knew of a local repair man. It seems there is a man in Pionsat, but he only does Husqvarna - which I could never afford - and another in St Hilaire, just up the road, who does that kind of thing. He then ran off and came back some minutes later with a name and telephone number.

Wednesday seemed to get away from us and I didn't call the man. As Thursday was a public holiday (Ascension Day) I didn't call then either.

On Friday, another lovely, hot, sunny day, I decided it was "have a go" day, so gathered the tools I thought I would need and set about trying to see what was wrong with the accursed machine. Having successfully realigned the main drive belt a couple of years ago [link] I thought it worth trying this one, too. It looks easy in the book. The book doesn't have to do it! The book has drawings of the various components. They are clean. Real life isn't.

I eventually got the shroud off, so I could see the assembly. Somehow, the area was full of very dry grass cuttings; goodness only knows how they got in, but I must have removed at least a cubic foot of them. I could then see what the problem was. On the left side, the belt had jumped off its pulley and was tight against the pillar. That explains the noise, smell and smoke. When the belt was moving, instead of turning the pulley, it was rubbing hard against the fixed pillar! Next problem? How to move the belt back up to the pulley. The belt was tight against a 1" diameter pillar, and needed to be eased up onto a 4" diameter pulley. After a lot of thought, I removed the step (which turns out to be an important part of the structure) and attacked it with a couple of crowbars - that did the trick.

Pierre chanced by as I was doing the repair, so I called him in to show him what the problem was. We talked around it for a whie and, before going, he told me that the forecast was for thunderstorms during the evening. Happily, they didn't come.

A bit later it was reassembled, tested and (fingers crossed) lives to fight another day without having to pay a professional a shedload of cash.

Whilst the machine was out of commission, and before I fixed it, we were questioning whether it is really up to the job. Sure, when I bought it, I checked its specs - it is said to be good for 3000 sq m of grass, against the 2000 or so we have, and I specified to the salesman that our land was uneven and rugged. However, there are various indications that we are asking too much of it. I identified a machine I should like to replace it [link] - all I need now is someone to sponsor me to the tune of 2350€ (£2100 at today's stupid rate) so I can buy it!

The fruit trees are continuing to do well - those that we can see through the rising jungle - with peaches, pears, apricots, kiwi, black- and red-currants, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, apples, mirabelles, plums and cherries all looking good. One of the pear trees is black with ants so we don't expect that to develop fruit to ripeness. Next year I think we shall need to try a more aggressive approach to protection against insect pests. A few pictures of the current state of

cherries,

gooseberries,

apples

and peaches

We still have Tania's dogs with us, and they are still behaving reasonably well.

For us humans, entering the kitchen to prepare food is a little fraught

the blighters have expectations - or at least aspirations. This is the opposite to the street beggars we have all come to love; this is totally passive begging - standing quietly looking up with coy, pleading eyes in the manner perfected by Princess (expletives deleted) Diana.

They continue to get on well together, sharing beds,

and rides,

starting off clean,

having a lot of fun in the sun

and ending up filthy!

I wonder if we can get her clean before I have to take them back on Wednesday.

Spare a thought for me today. As I am sat inside in my airless study at 30.2°C and 49% humidity, it is brilliant sunshine outside, over 30°C and bloody lovely.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

A dog of a week, all things considered

2009-05-17T10:04:00.007+01:00

Another mixed batch of weather this week - enough warmth and sunshine to permit some outdoor activity, and enough rain to ensure that the grass can continue to grow unhindered. The odd rumble of thunder, including a couple quite close, have had me running around unplugging things like computers and ADSL modems to prevent the risk of damage from lightning or static burst.

This week's walk around the orchard showed the fruits to be coming on nicely, and here are a few pictures to prove it. Subject to the goodwill of the weather, insects, birds and whatever it was ate all the cherries last year, we are looking set for (amongst others) :

Peaches

Apricots

Gooseberries

Pears

and blackcurrants

Of all of which, I feel sure we shall speak at a later date.

Now for the dogs. I am delighted to say that they are all getting on very well together.

Ulysse continues to establish his position as alpha male and third in command of the pack (after me and Clare). Flash has never questioned that - he knows he is no longer up to the job. Tinkerbell is small and submissive, and Shitsu, at ten months, has yet to assimilate how pecking orders work, although she does show proper respect to Ulysse and, more particularly, to Flash.

Like all young animals, she needs to learn about group living and hierarchies. As this picture shows, her ongoing education has been continued by being sat down in front of a number of episodes of The Dog Whisperer.

She and Ulysse are getting into some tremendous pulling games, which they are now initiating themselves without any intervention from us. The trouble is, they mostly happen on the tiled floor, where neither dog can achieve any real purchase

although, as this video clip shows, they all started in the front garden on grass, where Ulysse's weight advantage (he is about three times her weight) came into play.

I was awakened on Saturday morning by Flash padding around the bedroom, wanting to go outside. At 5am! I could have killed him - he refused to go outside for a pee before coming to bed, as it was raining (bless), but he wanted to go at 5am.

A word of advice. If you have to have an old dog, make it a small one. When Ulysse becomes old and less mobile, it will be easy enough. Flash is 23Kg (should be 25Kg). He has, for twelve of his fourteen years, always slept in our room and been close to us. He isn't going to change that. He has trouble with our stairs and usually refuses to climb them in either direction. He has suffered a number of falls on the stairs and his confidence has left him. We therefore need to carry him up to bed, and usually down again. When I am in the study, he frequently like to be here with me - that's two flights of stairs on which he needs to be manhandled.

When I awoke, I noticed a constant sound that I couldn't identify - I couldn't even say for sure from which direction it was coming. It was a kind of white noise, if you know what I mean. After I had carried Flash downstairs and kicked his sorry ass out of the door, I went white noise hunting.

Eventually, I narrowed it down to the cellar and, in particular, to the water system in the cellar. I became aware that water was moving through the system when none should have been. I turned off the feed to the outside front, and the noise stopped. Mystery solved.

I later traced the leak, for such it was, to the room under the garage where the swallows breed. A joint in some pipework feeding a tap in there (one we never use) was leaky. There is a valve behind that joint, so I closed that, went back and checked, and everything seemed fine.

Fine, that is, until Clare informed me that the tap next to the old outside toilet wasn't delivering. The Interesting thing is that the valve I turned off was on a spur that led only to the tap in that room.

A new mystery.

I shall let you know next week if I manage to solve that one.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

I loathe Paris in the springtime

2009-05-10T10:45:00.012+01:00

... and I'm not ashamed to say
I loathe Paris
Why, oh why do I loathe Paris?
'Cos it's so far away
(with apologies to Cole Porter)

At the beginning of the week, when it was sunny, I took a walk around the trees to see what progress was like. I was not unimpressed. Many of the trees are showing the early signs of fruiting. We now need decent weather and protection against insects, birds, and whatever it was ate all the cherries last year [link].

So far, though, all the soft fruits are looking good, like this blackcurrant.

The vinous kiwi fruit looks set to yield some fruit this year,

whilst the apricot looks ready to give its first harvest,

as does this pear.

All in all, a promising start.

.. and then it rained!

I had to go to Paris on Friday to collect Tania's two dogs. She is off to Cannes for a couple of weeks for her job, and asked us if we could look after her pair for her. Naturally, we are quite happy to do that - her dogs get on well with ours (probably better than they do with each other), and it gives ours some extra company for a couple of weeks. One of us will need to take them back at the end of the month - we shall decide later who should do it.

The drive to Paris takes, including a short stop for fuel for driver and car, approaching four hours. Much of it is autoroute which is quick, efficient, and BORING! And, having reached there, one then has to turn round and drive back again. I set off after a hearty breakfast late on Friday morning and returned on Saturday afternoon. Whichever of us does the return trip will most likely do something similar.

You probably know that we have a track record of, shall we say, sturdy dogs. Hobie was overweight all his life, and that we are calling Ulysse Podge speaks for itself.

Words cannot describe, therefore, how good I felt when I saw a poodle with a French couple in the car park at a picnic stop on the autoroute. I think it was a poodle - the head looked decidedly canine and of the poodle race. The body, however, was more ovine, prompting me to believe I may have discovered the original sheep-dog!

It even looks as though it is grazing in the car park.

That apart, the Paris trip was uneventful. Tania is always a good hostess and, although she had to work Friday night, we went out for a bite to eat and met up with Zoë (which is always nice), before Tania had to get ready for work. I had no real desire to do the Paris night scene, so I sat through the entire third season of Weeds on DVD, with two diminutive canines for company.

Saturday morning we took the dogs to the vet - Tinkerbell (Chihuahua) needed some vaccinations - and they were both treated with flea and tick repellant. It is as well, as we have already found ticks on our dogs this year, and I don't know how Tinkerbell and Shitsu (of that breed) would cope with such unwelcome visitors, to say nothing of their removal. After crèpes, we loaded various things and dogs into the car and I set off. Thankfully, it was again an uneventful journey.

I now have two requests for web sites - one is new and the other a redesign. Quotes are under preparation.

A couple of doggy pics to end up with.

First, Shitsu and the Podge are getting along OK

whilst Tinkerbell seems to think the insulated shopping bag is a nice nest!

Meanwhile, I have a serious job to do - I must cheer on our Jensen!

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Foggy fête, armchair adjustments, stupendous scenery and growing grass

2009-05-03T09:13:00.008+01:00

As promised, we went to the village last Sunday afternoon, to have a look at the Fête de la Saint Georges celebrations.

Sadly, Sunday was the most miserable April day in the whole, long history of miserable April days - incessant drizzle and sporadic fog.

The good folk of St Maigner put on a sterling show, recreating village life in 1909, but a lot of what should have happened in the open was hastily relocated inside, which spoiled the atmosphere. This is our third St George's Day in France, and the first that has not been gloriously sunny and warm, veering on hot. Last year's was the one to remember, as it was the day before my futile attempt at weight loss by having part of my ear removed.

Here are a few images from the St George's Day celebrations.

On Tuesday, Clare had a group of ladies around for a craft afternoon - paper making, felt making, that kind of stuff. I remained at a safe distance - two floors up in the study. The afternoon went well and is likely to be repeated.

To make it easier, we decided in advance to move the dining table and chairs and the table from the terrace into the annexe, first clearing out the sofas and so on, which we moved into the séjour, where the dining table normally lives. We have half a plan to convert the annexe into a dining room, cutting a doorway between it and the séjour, so this gave us the opportunity to try a few configurations in the séjour, to see how it would look. I am not displeased.

Thursday afternoon's ladies and dogs walk was cancelled by the lady who was due to host it, as her daughter was unwell. We decided to do our own, so bundled the dogs into the car (OK, we lifted Flash in, but every time any of the car doors is opened, Ulysse is in before you can say 'Flash') and drove to the viaduct at La Celette. This is one of our favourite places to take the dogs, as it is quiet, safe and very pretty. Generally, we make a comparatively short walk, in deference to Flash's limited abilities, but this time we ventured much further.

We reached a point where Flash was tiring, so Clare stopped with him and admired some of the wild flowers, a couple of which we pictured for later identification.

Meanwhile, Ulysse and I carried on for another ten minutes or so before returning.

The outlook from this route is superb - somewhat flat for the area, but extremely pleasant nonetheless. Whenever we look at the local scenery we need to pinch ourselves, and remind ourselves that

Whilst all this was going on, we were waiting for the ground to dry out, and for the weather to stay dry for a few days so we could attack the grass. It was dry enough on Friday, but we noticed that, it being Workers' Day, no work was being done anywhere, so we didn't want to stick out like a sore thumb by having mowers and stuff making noise. The cut finally happened on Saturday, and we are very pleased with the result

Meanwhile, I did a couple of pictures of Ulysse before and after his trim. What is interesting is that they were taken less then three weeks apart - but look at how much the jungle grew in that short time. This is the area where we feed the wild birds, and a lot of their seed ends up on the ground - goodness only knows what all these plants are!

And finally - whilst following some threads of research in connection with my TESOL studies, I came across a video clip that really made me laugh. Give it a go - see what you think.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Spring blossoms, spring walks ... and spring rain

2009-04-26T10:09:00.006+01:00

I promised myself that, if it stayed dry over the weekend, I would cut the grass on Monday.

The ground was almost dry, but there was so much moisture in the grass and in the very healthy dandelion crop, that it was very heavy going, with so many pit stops to clean out the cutting chamber that I could only get half of it done - at that at its highest setting! The second half I did on Tuesday, along with the sides of the road.

In case anyone is wondering how bad the grass can be in the middle of April, here's a brief look:

That particular area cannot be cut other than with a strimmer, as there are a few occasional streams running through there, and the land tends to be somewhat boggy for much of the year.

The good news is that the cattle are now out of the barns and back in the field, with the first instalment of this year's veal crop.

Having given the grass a bit of a cut, it decided to rain a little, to help it grow again. We took the opportunity to take a check on the fruit trees, and I am happy to say that they are mostly looking pretty good. They are still very young, but are growing well. As I mentioned last year [link], the apricot tree appeared to have a different tree growing from a point well above the heel. We took off the part that we believe to be rogue, and replanted it further down the orchard. Many of the trees, like this pear below, are in fine blossom.

The swallows, redstarts, blackcaps and others are very active, and we are expecting to see nests appear any day now.

There was a lot of excitement and activity at The Hawk Conservancy Trust at the beginning of the week, when Chris Packham (the new Springwatch presenter) officially opened what is the UK's only publicly accessible Great Bustard aviary. Naturally, that gave me a bit of work, which I was more than happy to do. The Great Bustard was hunted to extinction in England over 150 years ago. Until then, one of its strongholds was Salisbury Plain. The Great Bustard Group is working hard to reintroduce the species to the plain, and this aviary is an important part of the publicity machine behind those efforts. In case you are not familiar with the species, here is a picture taken at the opening by Thea Love.

On Thursday afternoons, weather permitting, Clare joins a group of ladies (mostly English but with the odd Dutch and German thrown in for good measure) for a country walk and natter. Most ladies bring their dogs along, and Clare takes Ulysse. Last week's walk looked particularly nice, so I have added a few pictures to give a flavour of the area.

Friday was a fabulous day. The temperature all but reached 20°C and the sun shone all day. It seemed a great shame not to set the mower a notch lower and go over all the grass again. It is still a high cut, as I need the land to level out a bit (which it will with regular mowing, if only by virtue of the weight of the mower and driver pressing down on it) before I can achieve the cut level for which I am aiming.

.. and then it rained!

Today in St Maigner we celebrate the feast of St George. This year, it is with a re-enactment of the beginning of the twentieth century, the "belle époque". Look out for pictures next week although, as I am writing this, the weather is pretty naff.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Podge has a haircut!

2009-04-19T11:17:00.006+01:00

Another quiet week, with mixed weather. On Tuesday morning, I was surprised to see Pierre out mowing, as I didn't think the grass was anything like dry enough. However, it seemed to be just about OK, so I thought I might give it a try in the afternoon. Our patch is more sensitive in view of its undulating nature, and the ground underneath needs to be dry to be able to drive the mower up any of the inclines.

Having made the decision, I finished what I was doing in the study ...

.. and then it rained!

And did it rain - very heavy, mixed with hail, the odd rumble of thunder and more than a little bit windy. That set the pattern, on and off, for the rest of the week.

On Wednesday afternoon we took Ulysse for a walk across the fields and into some woodland. As we approached the wood, three deer came bounding out and across the field - immediately followed by one small terrier!

The small terrier came back, exhausted, ten minutes later. No need for any more walk for him that day! Generally, he is very responsive. A single call or whistle gets him straight back - unless he is focussed on something else, then he goes deaf! Not an uncommon problem, I know, but still annoying!

We took Grandma back to the airport at Limoges on Saturday, for her return trip to England. Ryanair now fly regularly from Limoges to Bournemouth, and it works out a little cheaper than FlyBe to Southampton. The only downside is that, in order to catch the FlyBe flight, we need to leave home by 10am; for the Ryanair flight, we must be away by 6am!

We needed to pop in to see Kim anyway, so decided to slaughter as many birds as we could, with the minimum number of stones. The trip to Limoges airport is a little over two and a quarter hours by road. The trip to Kim's house is a little under two and a quarter hours. The trip from Limoges airport to Kim's house is a little over an hour. Given that it takes four and a half hours' driving to get to the airport and back, and four and a half hours' driving to get to Kim's house and back, if we combine the two, we reduce from a total of nine hours' driving in two trips to five and a half hours' driving in one trip. That saving of three and a half hours converts to 35€ petrol saved! Molluscs to the planet - that is cash saved!

So we set off at 6am, Clare and I up front, Grandma and Ulysse behind and Flash in the back. The dogs having survived and enjoyed the Millau trip a few weeks ago (over four hours each way), we were quite confident taking them with us. After we had ensured the Ryanair flight was on time and watched Grandma disappear into the departures area, we drove the hour and a bit to Kim's house, arriving at about 10:15am.

Ulysse was the first out, with Flash not far behind. The pack was as Ulysse had left it, except that his place had been taken by Trevor, a Jack Russell capable of moving faster than a speeding bullet (particularly if another dog drops some food). There were a few small things I needed to do on Kim's PC, but we took all of the dogs (except Flash) for a long walk first. It was fascinating to see how Ulysse quickly settled back into the pack, and he and Trevor were soon chasing each other at breakneck speed, disappearing into old hunting haunts and generally having a good time.

Before lunch Kim offered to give Ulysse a trim for us, and to show us the style she had developed, which Ulysse seemed positively to enjoy.

Before we took him there, Ulysse was looking like this:

Kim gave him some attention, whilst other dogs and a parrot looked on

and now look at him

Isn't he smart?

Both our dogs took part in another long walk before we took them home. Flash did much better than we had expected and seemed really to enjoy the day, as did Ulysse.

We arrived home at about 7:30pm, both dogs having slept through the entire journey. Both dogs then went straight to their beds and slept all evening - bliss!

Incidentally, for anyone thinking about buying property in western France, Kim has an estate agency business at www.caissinfrance.com and if you are looking for a dog, her dog rescue and rehoming activities are described at www.porridgeclub.com.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Happy Easter, everyone!

2009-04-12T08:51:00.006+01:00

The week started very well. Monday was nice, sunny and warm, and we all ended up in the garden. I managed to give the grass its first cut.

.. and then it rained!

It's like déjà vu all over again!

Much of my week has been spent reworking a number of pages on the Trust's web site, including some work on mail forms. Active content has never been my forte so there was a (re)learning curve to work through to ensure that whatever I incorporated was consistent with the level of software on the host's server. Well, it gave me something to do in the rain.

I have been delighted, in the past couple of weeks, to see the progress of at least one of the four South African vultures that is reporting its position here. Of the four

one last transmitted on 11th January having covered 5 Km (3 miles) between its furthest points
one last transmitted on 15th February, it being, at the time, the most travelled, with 165Km (103 miles) between its furthest points,
a third bird wasn't seen for over a month but now pops up occasionally, although its range so far is less than a mile - 1.3Km.
the fourth bird did little for some time, disappeared for a few weeks, then reappeared. It is now disappearing for a few days at a time because it is in desert areas where there are few opportunities to report its position by SMS. It has an operating range so far of 500Km (310 miles). Its most recent reported positions are smack in the middle of the Kalahari desert.

The images below show the markers of all four birds. The one we are discussing here has the green marker, and its latest position is marked with the date, on the far left of the image. The second image shows that position from a lot closer. Both images are clickable for a larger version.

Still on the subject of birds of prey - I very rarely watch the One Show on BBC1. Mostly that's because I cannot stand that Adrian child who hosts it, and the programme's general condescending air doesn't help. I did look in a few days ago, as Jimmy from the Hawk Conservancy Trust had said that he was going to be on it. His part turned out to be very small, and there was no mention of the Trust. I hope they were paid for their work - they certainly gained no publicity from it!

The crux of the thing was that owls fly silently, and scientists were looking into how they do it, with the aim of applying the principals to aircraft, in order to reduce landing noise - in fact reporting on work that has been ongoing at NASA since 2004 [link].

The first questionable premise is that owls fly silently so their prey won't hear them coming. Although this may be an effect of this skill, I cannot believe it to be the main aim. Were it so, I would have expected more birds of prey to have the ability. As it is, I know of no diurnal bird of prey that does - apparently, some owls that hunt in daylight don't have it either. That suggests to me that the ability to fly silently has developed only in birds that hunt by night; birds that use hearing to locate their prey, rather than eyesight. Might it not be an aid for that activity? It certainly seems to me that if you are relying for your survival on the ability to hear the sound of your predator coming through the air from downwind, you'd better be able to move pretty quickly, as you will not get much warning!

If the owl is listening for very small sounds as it is locating and homing in on its prey, it does not want the noise of air rushing over its wings to interfere with this. But, wait a minute, the BBC knows this - take a look at this film from the BBC's archives!

The report then intimated that massive noise reduction can be achieved simply by putting fringes on the back of aircraft wings.

As far as I can find out, the silent flight that helps the owl to function is achieved by a combination of four things:

Serrated leading edges to the wings break up the turbulence and vastly reduce windrush over the wings, whilst also aiding stability
Limited hard surfaces (beak and talons only) reduce windrush over the body and legs
Soft, downy feathers over the entire body also significantly reduce windrush over the body and legs
Serrated trailing edges reduce turbulence when the low-pressure air over the wing and the higher pressure air from under the wing recombine.

The thing is - go to an airport and listen to aircraft, including light aircraft, landing. Then go to an airport where gliders operate and listen to gliders landing. I reckon if you subtract the noise of a glider on final approach from that of a light aircraft on final approach, you will still have quite a lot left to deal with. I think it's called engine noise.

Once again we are blessed with highly selective populist reporting, greatly simplified so the masses can try to understand it. There is a name for this. Some call it infotainment, some call it edutainment, I call it the BBC!

Finally, I have been totally underwhelmed by the responses to last week's fruit tree quiz. If anyone is interested, the answers were:
A. Plum, B. Kiwi fruit, C. Apple, D. Pear, E. Apricot and F. Cherry.

I shan't try anything like that again!

Happy Easter, have a good Bank Holiday and a good week.

À la prochaine

... and then it rained.

2009-04-05T13:19:00.008+01:00

Once again, congratulations to Jensen, Brawn and Virgin - a superb performance under very trying conditions. It's a great pity that Lewis managed somehow to become embroiled in a political thing, and a greater pity that his car is not up to speed this season - I should love to see Jensen and Lewis evenly matched and taking F1 by storm!

More signs that spring is here to stay. A number of swallows have been in the area now for a week or so, and we heard our first cuckoo a couple of days ago.

In addition to that (and the confirmed arrival of Blackcaps, Redstarts and others), our fruit trees are looking healthy. Well, most of them - there are a couple that look as though they might not make it any further, but they were questionable for this location anyway.

The nice sunny weather didn't last too long, but it did get things off to a reasonable start ..... and then it rained! The rain has also helped to get things started for the year including, sadly, the grass!

The weather has also been very good to our orchard and soft fruit bushes. I took photographs of the buds of some of our trees, and thought it might be fun to invite anyone to throw in ideas of identification. Here goes:

A
B
C
D
E
F
No prizes - it's just for fun.

The man-flu decided it would rather be bronchitis, and is still hanging around a fortnight later. It is improving slowly, and I am hoping to be back to reasonable condition before the end of this week.

On the financial front, my pension increase for the year has come through. Allowing for exchange rates, taxes and so on, I confidently expect to be better off to the tune of more than seven and a half euros per month. That should help make up for the 500 euros per month we are down over the last two years as a result of the exchange rate, thank you Messrs Brown and Darling. And don't try to sell me the labour lie about it all being due to global conditions. The pound is significantly down against most currencies. That means most economies are doing better than the UK's. It seems to me that if all economies were doing equally badly, exchange rates should not move dramatically in relation to each other. In 1992 Gordon Brown himself said: “A weak currency arises from a weak economy which in turn is the result of a weak Government.”

Interestingly, this financial disaster seems to have been caused mostly by excessive borrowing, unwise lending and rampant unregulated speculation. The best the clever people can offer to put it right is to borrow money (presumably against future tax income) to give to the banks so they can lend it to people. Hmmm - that'll help.

Given also that short trading in currencies, commodities and securities has been at the root of so many troubles lately (just look at oil prices over the last year or so), am I the only one who is surprised that the clever people are waiting to see how the markets react to the G20 non-event before commenting? Am I the only one who thinks that the situation whereby currencies are affected more by sentiment, expectations, and whether or not the head of the ECB used the word vigilance, than by real, actual data is ludicrous, if not farcical?

It seems to me that in this arena, it is not so much a case of the lunatics running the asylum, as the predators running the zoo, or the mafia running the government, although ...

I did promise myself that this blog would not deteriorate into a vehicle for me to spout my opinions - there are far too many like that already - but, sometimes, I feel that things need to be said. Rant over, and I apologise.

Some of you may remember that I have, on a number of occasions, mentioned my attempts to register as auto-entrepreneur. I am delighted to tell you that my efforts have finally borne fruit. With effect from the beginning of March, I am now permitted to trade in France in my declared activities, which are mostly writing web sites for people and looking after them. What it really means, is it is now lawful for me to do that kind of thing and ask for money, and it is lawful for people to give me money for doing that kind of thing. OK, what it really means is that I can do it, charge for it, declare it, and pay tax and social contributions on it. There are important details that have to be shown on any commercial documentation, and these are now included in the footer of my front door web site at http://channing.info and in the signature block of the email address I shall use for business stuff (keith@channing.info).

I shall finish off with a couple of photographs taken this week. The first is what we thought was a particularly nice sunset:

and the second is of Ulysse, aka Podge, taken by Clare during a ladies and dogs walk on Thursday afternoon. There is nothing special about it, except that it is to my mind, a really nice picture of him.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Well done Jensen, Team Brawn GP and Virgin

2009-03-29T11:57:00.004+01:00

What a nice start to the day.

I have been hoping, since the then Honda team took Ross Brawn on as team boss, that things would turn around. It is a great pity that Honda felt it necessary to withdraw from the sport, although I completely understand their reasons, but the end result appears OK - especially with Virgin Group coming on board as lead sponsor.

For a new team to achieve pole and second place in the qualifying sessions of their first ever Grand Prix is quite something, to achieve a 1-2 finish is exceptional.

More power to your elbows, people - the future starts here.

Meanwhile, Lewis put up a far from shabby show, for an excellent fourth. Such a pity that Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica had that coming together three laps from the end of the race, robbing themselves of podium places.

As for me this week - I really have nothing to say.

Last Sunday I got out the old scythe - identical to that carried by Father Time, but all metal, heavy and cold - sharpened it, and started to tackle some of the bramble growing around the perimeter. I started on the ramp and stopped after maybe an hour or so, not wishing to risk damaging my back.

On Monday it was all I could do to stand, with pain spasms in what I can only describe as my gluteus medius. That was to hang around for much of the week, gradually improving but still, seven days after the initial exertion, noticeably there.

In the way the body has of kicking a man when he is down, mine decided that this would be a good opportunity to add a cold to the mix. We have managed to be free of these little monsters since coming here, so I was taken a little by surprise at its arrival. A cold is not generally a problem, but anyone who has had a need to sneeze violently whilst in possession of a spasm-prone back will know that we have a kind of synergy here. One of those situations where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Still, I found that if, knowing a sneeze was about to come, I turned my body in a certain way, I could get through it with relative ease.

Bad move.

Body wanted more.

Body decided that the common cold, or man-flu, to give it its proper name, was not enough and that the situation called for a full-fledged bronchial attack. Try coughing whilst in possession of a spasm-prone back, and go for a major reduction in lung effectiveness at the same time!

So - I haven't done much this week, so I have nothing to write about.

Sorry.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Viaduct, vultures and dogs - and a lot of sunshine

2009-03-22T10:50:00.008+01:00

What a glorious week we have had, weather-wise! It has been pretty well sunshine all the way, with cold nights, and mid-day temperatures pushing 20°C.

On Tuesday we bundled into the car - dogs and all - and took the drive down to Millau to see the viaduct. Including comfort stops, the trip took about four hours. Both dogs took it very well - Flash sees the back of the car as a safe place to sleep, and Ulysse just loves car journeys. I took him out for a trip in the MX5 recently. He has a short leash attached to the seat belt mechanism, so couldn't get out, which meant we were able to go out for a twenty minute drive with the top down. He loved it. I have to say, though, that the hat didn't stay on for long!

Meanwhile, the drive was uneventful, and we arrived at the viaduct in the right number of pieces. I have spoken about the viaduct before so I shan't go into it again, but there is lots of information in its Wikipedia entry [link], and here is a picture of some fat bloke with his dog, both trying to look slimmer than they are, and both failing. Oh yes, and the viaduct is in the background!

The viewing point, at road level, gives some tremendous views of the area, as you can see here,

although it is a little bit of a hike to the top. In deference to her years, we allowed Grandma to stay behind in the car park whilst we went up to the top and, to give an idea of the climb, took this picture from about a quarter of the way up.

After we left the viaduct, we went into Millau for a spot of lunch. Millau is a place we have visited a few times now, and we always like it. We have always been impressed by the way the trees alongside the roads are trained to give good leaf cover in summer, without becoming a problem beyond the road. They also give good framing for any street photographs.

After Millau we went off the find the vultures in the Gorges de la Jonte, to give me a chance to try out my new toy - all the photographs so far had been taken on my pocket camera. It was not all that well signposted, as all the direction boards were leading to the Gorges du Tarn, but we knew that it was close to, and just north of the latter, so followed those signs until we found the turnoff we wanted.

We were looking for the Belvédère des Vautours (vulture lookout), which is an excellent place from which to see the birds, as well as being an important conservation and information centre. Sadly, they don't open until the end of March, so we reeled off a few photographs from their car park. I had forgotten to put my tripod in the car, so the shots were taken hand-held at an effective focal length of 750mm. The way they turned out is a testimony to the anti-shake technology that Sony acquired from Konica/Minolta and built into the body of their Alpha range.

A couple of vulture shots,

followed by a portrait of Grandma, hand-held at 750mm focal length!

I think Grandma was hoping for some camera shake or soft focus or something!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the woodland management had produced large piles of pine that I believe is destined for the furniture and DIY markets. Whilst walking Ulysse during the week it was apparent that the great pick-up has started.

I have to say, though, that in the week since that image was taken, nothing more has happened.

What has happened is that Ulysse has made a new friend. Pierre's young Spaniel puppy has found a way in (hardly surprising, Ulysse has found many ways out), and she and Ulysse play together very well. Until, that is, Ulysse has decided he has had enough whereupon he, being a gentlemen, runs and hides rather than becoming aggressive. He saves his aggression for rodents! You wouldn't want to be a rodent when Ulysse is on watch.

Ulysse disappears off sometimes and comes back absolutely filthy. I think there may be something in Jean-Marc's pond. Jean-Marc did tell me that he had some animals in his pond a couple of years ago, and his description suggests it was coypu - Ulysse's preferred prey!

Now you may think, looking at this next photograph, that the wee fellow has been eating too many sausages.

However, he is not elongated, merely trying to hide from a spaniel who doesn't want to be hidden from! This is the scene before the hiding started, and which looks nice and calm, although there was a great deal of running and excited yapping involved.

Finally, as they say on the news at ten, we have to be fair. It seems to us not to be right that Ulysse should be the only lap dog in the establishment, so here is Flash, doing his impression of a lap dog.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Spring has arrived, and the garden beckons

2009-03-15T10:45:00.005+01:00

Not that it looks much like a productive vegetable garden at the moment!

A few decisions have been made. Primarily, we are not going to try to cultivate the lower part as we did last year. The bottom of the lower part - close to the oak tree - is only forty metres away from the house, but a full eight metres lower then the higher part. We believe there to be enough room higher up for us to grow what we want to, without having to lug tools and equipment up and down that slope all the time!

The first signs of spring have definitely arrived - witness this blackcurant bush sprouting leaves already.

A look around the garden has shown the trees and shrubs to be healthy, and we had a couple of pleasant surprises. Twelve months ago, we planted a small number of trees that Jan had brought us from Holland. Included in that planting were three willow whips, whipped from a willow somewhere. Two of them are not showing any promise, but just look at the third!

Still a little spindly, but over seven feet tall already. It is in a place that has plenty of water, and we expect it to continue to do well. The original whip is the short(ish) dark-looking twig coming up from the right.

Our second surprise concerns another of last spring's plantings; the tall apple tree that gave some fruit in its first year [link]. Take a look at this, a comment on the cleanliness of our air up here in the Massif:

Lichen, I am assured, only grows in the absence of any pollution and is harmless to the trees. Here is a closer look at it.

If anyone has compelling evidence that it is harmful to the tree, or indicative of the tree's poor health or bad environment, please let me know.

Meanwhile, Grandma is surveying the garden on foot and will comment on our plans in due course (and probably beat me about with her stick for putting this photograph up!). She seems to be enjoying herself here and hasn't yet tired of us or of our frenetic lifestyle.

Ulysse has been in a strange mood all week. Something in the air makes him want to hunt. As well as taking up a position in the garden from which he can see any rat arrive (good lad), he has been chasing leaves, rather like a kitten and, in the middle of a walk, ran up a steep bank where he saw a lizard moving about.

He didn't catch it, though. He also likes to disappear down any holes he finds, in case there are rabbits, foxes or anything else he might fancy.

Flash, meanwhile, has been spending time in the study, on his favourite sofa, tucked up in anything that will keep him warm.

The poor old fellow is still desperately thin and having a lot of trouble keeping warm. Having said that, he is improving slowly. We haven't seen any more flesh on him yet, but he is eating a little better and seems to be brighter in himself. His back legs are still quite weak, but that seems to be improving slowly as well.

The new camera arrived this week, a Sony Alpha 350. I coupled up the lenses about which I spoke last week and reran the shots - here are the results.

Firstly, with the 18-70mm lens

Next the 100-300mm

And, finally, the 150-500mm

I shall finish up with an image of a Great Tit on our terrace, taken using the 150-500mm lens at full stretch (not cropped at all),

and promise ourselves a trip to Millau as soon as we can, both to see the bridge (Wikipedia link, official link), and to try some photos of the Griffons that abound on the nearby clifftops on the edge of the Cévenne.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Daddy wants a brand new toy!

2009-03-08T11:22:00.008+01:00

I have spent a lot of time recently looking at the quality of other people's photographs and at the quality of mine. Whilst accepting that there is no way I can aspire towards the levels achieved by people who own high-end Canons, Nikons and the like, with body only prices between £2,500 and £5,000 and lenses that can cost up to £20,000, I really do think that I should be able to do better than I am.

A few sample images taken this morning, within a very few minutes of each other will show my dilemma. You will need to click on each pair to see them a bit closer. In all cases the cameras were set to full automation and the images, apart from resizing and pasting are as they came out of the camera, with no sharpening or other work. The pair represent the maximum wide angle and the maximum zoom, all taken from the same place. The embedded close-up is, when expanded, acual pixels.

The first pair were taken with my pocket camera - the 9.1 megapixel Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5, with 10x optical zoom, equivalent to 28-280mm on a 35mm camera.

This second pair was taken with my 9 megapixel Fujifilm Finepix S9600 Zoom, this one having a lens that is equivalent to 28-300mm on a 35mm camera - a zoom factor of about 10.7x.

The last two pairs were taken with a 6 megapixel Konica/Minolta Dynax 5D; the first using the supplied 18-70mm zoom lens (27-105mm equivalent)

and the second using a Sigma 100-300mm f/4.5-6.7 zoom lens that was originally bought 20 years ago for use with a Minolta Dynax 404si film camera. This lens is effectively 150-450mm due to the CCD size.

The thing is, the 100-300mm does, by being about 450mm in real terms, get me quite close, but lacks sharpness and definition at most focal lengths. This, I believe, is because the lens is aligned and balanced for full-frame 35mm and the characteristics of film, and would need some work to make it absolutely right for digital media. Some of my wildlife images demonstrate these problems quite eloquently.

Many of you will know that I have a major birthday coming in June and we had pretty much decided to address these issues then, with a budget that some would consider tight, but is as much as we can afford. There are a number of discount offers around at the moment, so we decided to bite the bullet now, whilst discounts are still there and before the next round of price increases starts.

I had been looking at replacing the 100-300mm lens with what people call the Bigma, the Sigma 50-500mm f/4-6.3 but was a bit concerned about a number of aspects of its specification, its availability for my Dynax body and, of course, its price. In the end we decided to set the budget at the price of that lens, and look for alternatives. We looked at Nikon, Canon, Olympus and Pentax solutions but couldn't find the right mix of body and lens within the budget. What we finally ended up ordering - yes, we have done it now, so it's too late to tell me I have goofed - is the Sigma 150-500 mm f/5-6.3 which I shall couple with a 14.2 megapixel Sony Alpha 350 Digital SLR body. The effective focal length of the lens, in 35mm terms, will be about 225-750mm. That's quite long! When Konica/Minolta pulled out of the photographics business a couple of years ago they transferred all that part of their business, including the technologies they had developed, to Sony, who incorporated the best of it in their Alpha series. In a number of ways, then, the Sony A350 is an upgrade to the Dynax 5D, so the standard lens will work on it, and the big lens will work on the Dynax (and the 100-300mm will be a disappointment on both).

Meanwhile, lining up on the usual basis of shortest at the front ad tallest at the rear, here are Flash and Ulysse forming a queue for dinner - another example of Flash photography?

Flash is doing better now. He is still very thin and very weak on his back legs, but we believe he is enjoying life. I have inserted a small clip of video shot last Sunday on our walk in the area of the viaduct at La Celette. What do you mean you haven't heard of it? This isn't the first time I have mentioned it in this blog.

What pleases us is that, whilst by no means running, Flash is trotting along with his customary happy, mincing gait. Interestingly, he was not hurrying to be with me, he was trying to catch up with Ulysse. They are becoming closer all the time - Ulysse now follows Flash every time Flash goes into the garden, and goes looking for him if he (Flash) has gone out alone and not returned quite quickly.

He also nicks Flash's food if Flash isn't quick - which, frequently, he isn't!

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

What a difference a week makes.

2009-03-01T09:21:00.005+01:00

After the excitement of the previous few days, you will understand that, on Flash's behalf, we were viewing the prospect of a few days with two small, excitable dogs with a little trepidation. As it happens, there was no need.

Tania arrived on Sunday afternoon with Tinkerbell and ShihTzu. Flash stayed out of the way initially, leaving Ulysse to do the welcoming stuff.

I should explain something. Tinkerbell is now six years old, and I believe that Tania acquired and named him before Paris Hilton acquired hers (and Tania's Tinkerbell is male, which is even more bizarre than the name alone). We therefore refute any suggestion that Tania copied Paris Hilton. Neither would we suggest it to be the other way around. It is but a coincidence.

ShihTzu is like a furry slinky. We didn't try releasing her down the stairs to see if she would behave like a true slinky, but it looks possible!

Once they were inside we had the inevitable jockeying for position during which Ulysse established that he is top dog, and Flash is his number two. It should be the other way around, but Flash is no longer eligible to go to the well woman clinic so has been usurped. I think he is secretly relieved at losing the responsibility! Following that, both my boys decided that, ShihTzu being female, some investigation was in order. I dare not post any of those photographs here! She was a very willing participant in the rituals and, although both she and Ulysse have been neutered, it didn't stop them trying!

They all hit it off and, although it looked at one point as though Flash was about to use Tinkerbell to break his fall,

they did end up with some kind of a relationship.

Meanwhile, Grandma, who is on a flying visit

was pressed into service as dog-sitter emeritus whilst we were off doing our dancing lessons or taking Flash on one of his regular visits to the vet.

I shall end this part with a couple of images of Tania's dogs; both of which are, in their way, very attractive as well as being well-behaved.

Flash went to the vet on Tuesday for a blood test, to check the level of foxglove juice in his blood. The vet was very pleased with his pulse rate - down to something in the area of 80bpm, and the tests showed his blood serum level to be near enough spot on. He seems better in himself, although he is still not eating well and his weight, which should be between 25Kg and 26Kg is currently below 22Kg.

There has been a vast improvement in the weather during the week, we having enjoyed at least three sunny, relatively warm days. Clare and her Mum have started gently on the veg garden, preparing for the upcoming season. Unfortunately, my back is not a happy back at the moment, so I don't think I should even try any of that stuff.

Ulysse is walking happily off the lead (where I let him - on quiet roads with no cats etc.). One of the walks takes us past the house of a retired farmer who has a small terrier of some sort. I was walking past that house early in the week and, unusually, the workshop door was open and a strange man was doing stuff in there. Ulysse went in, just to be nosey, and the man came out, told me that he also has two wire fox terriers, and promptly opened his front door to call one out. His wife came out with the dog, Ulysse dashed in and ended up playing with this older dog for a while. I think this couple are house-sitting, although the owner is now back, and they are still here, so I don't know. All I have found out (for which you may read understood) is that they are here from Franche-Comté in the east of France.

We did the same walk with Tania and ShihTzu a few days later - the man came out, greeted Ulysse by name, and we chatted some more. Yesterday, whilst Clare and Grandma were gardening, I did the walk again with Ulysse and we eventually caught up with this man and one dog, another man with a small black dog of indeterminate composition, and a young girl of about three who seemed to belong to the couple in the house of which we spoke earlier.

We exchanged a few pleasantries about the weather, and I said that my wife and her mother are working in the garden, but I have a bad back, so I took the dog for a walk instead. I think that is the closest I have been yet to receiving a high five from French country folk!

We have been giving some thought during the week to my birthday in June. You probably know it is a milestone one (or is that a millstone?), and we need to recognise it somehow. We had looked at various options - going to Florida to see Adam and Marie, cruising, long-haul holiday and so on, but the current economic situation really prevents anything like that. In other words we can't afford it. Current suggestions include a trip to Spain or the south of France, or a new lens for my DSLR (Konika/Minolta Dynax 5D) . The 100-300mm zoom lens I am using at the moment is quite elderly and not correctly balanced for the digital camera, resulting in unsharp images, so I may look at replacing it. Current favourite is a Sigma 50-500 mm F4-6,3 APO DG EX. If anyone knows this lens and has any comments, I should be grateful.

Again, one of the benefits of decent weather in these parts is a spectacular sunset. I shall close today with a couple of shots taken during the week.

First a wide shot

then a little closer

Don't forget, if you click on any of the photographs in the blog, you will be presented with a larger version of it.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Insurance, lost keys, skiing accident, more insurance and more about dogs.

2009-02-22T10:17:00.012+01:00

As Ulysse is a good bit younger than Flash and eligible for vet's fees insurance, we had decided to set that up at the same time we registered ourselves as his new owners in the national registry. The local agency for the company we used is in St Eloy-les-Mines, and their man visits this area every Friday to do business locally. He called in on Friday last to deliver the insurance papers (and collect a cheque for the premium) and, whilst talking, we thought it a good idea to have him quote for the other insurances we have — house and contents, two cars and health top-up. He will come next Friday for that, and we shall see what he has to say for himself. Communication is relatively easy, as his level of English and my level of French are pretty similar.

Andy arrived safe and well on Sunday evening, along with Jordan, Ryan and Grandma. There was still plenty of snow about and, as you can see from this image taken on Sunday morning, it was frozen hard.

The drive down was relatively uneventful — aided by the TomTom satnav which, of course, knows the way right to the door, and the Télépéage device that means no fumbling for money or cards at the Autoroute tolls. They were all fairly tired when they arrived, so it was a relatively early night all round.

Andy and his boys had come down for a skiing trip, in addition to which Wednesday was Ryan's tenth birthday, so Andy wanted to do something special for him. Grandma was keen to come for another visit for a few weeks, and saved a good amount by hitching a ride with Andy and the boys.

Monday was planned to be a relaxing day after the long drive down. Mid-afternoon we all took Flash and Podge to what we believe is their favourite walking place (we like it, Ulysse gets a car ride and Flash is OK with it, so that'll do), the viaduct at la Celette. We cross the viaduct and there is a very nice area with lanes where we can safely walk them off their leads.

Most of the roads were clear by this time, but the lane over the viaduct and beyond was covered in snow about 10cm (4") deep. Driving through it was OK as under the snow the lanes are very rough and uneven. Andy, being a southern softie and not like us mountain folk, was (judging by his car's rate of progress) a little concerned about the driving conditions, but we didn't let that slow us down too much. On arriving at our destination, we needed to be quite choosy where we parked the cars, as getting out again could have been a challenge and, as we were parking them, a couple of quad bikes passed us, not so much driving, as what Paul Simon would describe as slip sliding away!

The dogs had a nice walk - Ulysse found a couple of rabbit holes high up in a bank and decided to dig in to investigate, and Andy and his boys played snowballs. When we came to move off, we were having a bit of an interesting time of it, and Andy helfully gave us a helping push. We moved a few yards up the lane and waited to see if he would also appreciate some help. It seemed not. Pushing wouldn't have helped. What was needed was help in finding his car keys which, it seemed, had dropped out of his pocket somewhere in the fracas. In ten centimetres of snow. Snow on which people and dogs had been running around and playing.

After about an hour of fruitless searching, we decided it would be a good idea to get Grandma back home into the warm, and for Andy to call International Rescue, or whomever he was registered with, for necessary help. I bravely volunteered to take Grandma back, leaving the rest in the cold and, once I had her home, returned to the scene of the grime as fast as my little Astra would carry me.

As I was crossing the viaduct, I suddenly saw flashing lights. Was this my Damascan road moment? No, it was Andy signalling that he had, indeed, found his car keys and was again mobile. They all went on to the lower lane to take a photograph similar to the one above. I drove to the top of the lane, turned, and went home. I won.

Early on Tuesday Andy and the boys left us to go skiing. The next thing we heard was a call from Andy on Wednesday to say that Jordan had suffered a mishap on the slopes. Something about his body and legs having different ideas of where they should be going, which resulted in the poor lad breaking his leg and needing to be rushed to hospital. Fortunately, if there can be a fortunately under these circumstances, the nature of the fractures was such that re-setting and plastering was enough - there was no need for pinning or any surgical intervention.

Andy had arranged travel insurance with winter sports extension before leaving UK. Having spoken with the company, he is happy that all the costs incurred in France related to Jordan's injury will be covered. Clearly, a very sensible precaution.

By mid evening it was apparent that Jordan wasn't about to be released that day, and Andy called to see if we could collect Ryan and bring him back. Clare had anticipated this and had taken no wine that evening. I, by contrast, was well into my second glass by then.

I bravely stayed home in the warm with the dogs (are you beginning to see a pattern here), whilst Clare and Grandma drove to Clermont-Ferrand to collect Ryan, returning about half past midnight. Ryan was understandably upset - his brother was in hospital with a broken leg and probably high on morphine, his father was staying with his brother, whilst he had to come back with Auntie Clare and Grandma and face the dreaded Uncle Keith - AND IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HIS BLOODY BIRTHDAY!

Jordan was released from hospital the following afternoon, once they were able to control his pain with tablets, and was back with us for Thursday evening. Andy and the boys left for the UK, as planned, on Friday morning and got home without further incident (apart from an initial inability to locate the car keys again and the télépéage device).

Before they came, we were a little concerned how the dogs would cope - Flash being weak, frail and a bit of an emotional mess (although the anti-depressants seem to be doing their work), and Ulysse having no experience of children. We needn't have worried. The boys were very good at leaving the dogs alone, although Ulysse did want to spend much of his time on their laps! He was quite relaxed about the whole thing.

In the meantime, the snow has ended, it has all melted and we are back to soggy. Temperatures are climbing, although there is still some more winter to come - the forecast for the next couple of weeks has lots of temperatures with minus signs before the numbers.

On the same basis as getting back onto a horse after one has fallen off, we went back on Thursday to the lane where Andy lost his keys, and gave the dogs a good walk. Driving back over the viaduct, we saw a man sat in the field, watching two dogs playing. We recognised the man as Giles, a fellow attendee of the Thursday evening dance classes (currently on a break to coincide with school holidays) with his puppy and the dog of another friend. We stopped off and let our dogs play with his, and spent a very pleasant hour or so in his company, including a visit to his house where he showed us the excellent renovation work he is doing.

When we got home, we were treated to a spectacular sunset!

Tania is on her way down as I am writing this, looking forward to a couple of days skiing. She is bringing her dogs with her, and we anticipate a few interesting days as the four of them jostle for position. More about that next week.

Meantime, have a good week.

À la prochaine

This week it is mostly about Flash

2009-02-11T18:29:00.013+01:00

First things first. I am delighted to say that my intestinal cancer test came back negative, so my efforts with the spatula were not in vain!

I had been told before we acquired Ulysse that he loves his car rides. I am beginning to realise just how much he does. I call this photograph Driving Miss Daisy.

We went to Rik's house on Monday to try to help with some computer and networking issues he was having. We took both dogs with us and introduced Flash and Ulysse to Rik's dogs, an elderly Bernese named Lisa and a young Spaniel called Duur (I think that's how it is spelt, but could be wrong). Flash having recently started on heart tablets, he soon found that he and Lisa had something in common - no frantic activity. Ulysse and Duur also had something in common, although it was the exact opposite to what Flash and Lisa shared, as this video clip will show:

Quite active dogs, both of them.

We noticed on Tuesday evening that Flash seemed out of sorts and, feeling around, noticed that his heartbeat was very rapid. On Wednesday morning we took him to see the vet, who did a few tests and noticed that, although his heartbeat was strong and very rapid (160bpm she said), his femoral pulse was weak and thready. She then took an x-ray image of his heart, which she discussed in detail with a senior colleague.

They said more tests were needed, but they had neither the equipment nor the expertise to be able to do them, so referred us to a vet in Clermont-Ferrand, who is a cardiac specialist. An appointment was made for 5:30pm on Friday - the soonest he could offer.

On Friday, it decided to snow. Stand by for an image from the back of the house and a gratuitous image of Ulysse in the snow.

It was still snowing lightly just after 4pm, when we had to leave for Clermont-Ferrand. The route to Clermont is about ten percent Autoroute, eighty percent relatively well used roads and ten percent what the maps describe as other roads. As you can probably imagine, we were a little concerned about ten percent of the trip, and not the ten percent that is Autoroute!

As it turns out, the drive down was not bad - here is a section of the eighty percent:

We arrived at the vet's office at about 5:15pm, in plenty of time for our appointment. Ulysse decided that he wanted to play with another dog in the waiting room, and became rather precious when we wouldn't let him. Well - the other dog in question was wearing a load of bandages and a lampshade, for goodness' sake! We decided Ulysse would be better off in the car, where he could sleep for the half hour or so that we would be with the vet.

That was the plan.

It seems the vet had an emergency to deal with, as a result of which we didn't get to see him until well after half past six. By that time Ulysse had been alone in the car for over an hour. Flash knew something was going on and refused to walk into the consulting room. He had to be carried.

The vet started by giving Flash an ultrasonic scan - lots of them, with stuff going on in between. Here are a couple of the pictures:

Here, one side of his heart is clearly beetling along at 268 beats per minute - far too fast

and the other side seems to be poodling along at 53 beats per minute. The words out of sync would not seem to be inappropriate.

He then decided to do an ECG to be sure of the electrical activity going on, but was using a new piece of kit, for which he couldn't find the instructions, and which did not seem to do what he wanted it to do. Flash was hating all this - a strange man first pressing hard on his side with the ultrasound scanner then clipping wires onto him and holding him still.

We eventually had some good traces, of which a brief extract is below, which confirmed that poor old Flash is suffering from atrial fibrillation.

According to the vet, a human with these symptoms would have a bit of defibrillation followed by a pacemaker and drugs. What is available to Flash is the drugs.

The vet gave us a prescription that he said had to be fulfilled at a pharmacy, not a vet's surgery, he also gave us a couple of reports, the traces and ultrasound images and told us to go back to our usual vet on Saturday morning (which we had been planning to do anyway). He said he would call our vet to explain everything.

We left his office just before 8pm. Ulysse had been in the car for more than two and a half hours. When we got to the car, he awoke, stretched, wagged what would have been his tail had he not been relieved of it as a pup, and jumped out to greet us. No mess, no damage, no nothing. In fairness though, after relieving himself on the vet's lawn, he did seem a little reluctant to get back in the car.

To any difficulties you may imagine we had on the drive down, you could now add darkness, fog and sub-zero temperatures. Not the best drive home we have ever had, but we made it.

One of the effects of the imbalance of his heart is that the flow of blood to his back end is impaired which results, amongst other things, in a reduction of power in the back legs. This explains why, for some weeks, Flash has needed help getting into the back of the car. During Friday night Flash stood up for some reason; his back legs gave out under him, and he evacuated his bladder.

We took the dogs to our normal vet on Saturday morning. When we got out of the car, Flash's back legs slipped on ice and gave out under him, down went Flash and out came the contents of his bladder. Flash is a timid soul at the best of times, and that kind of episode scares him silly. I had to carry him into the vet's office. Once in there, we looked out for Elise, who has been looking after Flash and knows his history. We couldn't see her, but she may have been coming in later or busy in one of the side rooms.

Whilst we were waiting, a phone call came in - as it turns out, from Dr Planeix, the vet in Clermont - and we heard the receptionist tell him that Elise was off sick. We eventually saw the senior vet whom Elise had consulted about the x-ray, and who had taken the call from Dr Planeix. He explained pretty much what Dr Planeix had explained the previous evening, and stressed that we should get the prescription made up straight away, and start Flash on one tablet each morning and a half tablet each evening.

The pharmacy we use in Pionsat made up the prescription and we now have the tablets. They are digitalis, which he has to take in concert with the heart tablets we were given last week. Flash now has to take four lots of pills, one of them twice per day. He doesn't like it, but will take them when suitably disguised. This is his regime. Left to right, digitalis, heart tablets, arthritis tablets and anti-depressants.

The digitalis seemed to have an immediate effect, noticeably reducing the speed of his heart. We shall see how well they do over time - we have to get Flash back to the vet on Tuesday for a follow up.

Now, if only we can get him to eat a little more - I would like to get him back to 25Kg, which he had been for a long time - at the moment he is 22.3Kg and slowly losing.

Spare a thought for the poor old chap.

The back garden is still four to six inches deep in snow. When Ulysse runs around in it he has to bound like a polecat to clear it - most of his legs are lost in the snow.

Visitors arriving today; Andy and his boys for a week, Grandma until she has had enough of our frenetic lifestyle.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Roll on spring

2009-02-08T11:39:00.005+01:00

... we might have something to talk about.

This has not been a week that lends itself to a lot of analysis. In other words, nothing much happened!

We had a couple of short periods of snow, although nothing to speak of when compared with what much of the UK had. It is interesting to see how many of the people who apparently welcomed the snow initially are now fed up with it and want to get back to normal. That will be the British five-day syndrome. Any unbroken period of five days without a change in weather seems to be more than people are able or willing to tolerate without moaning. Whether it is five days' continuous rain, winds, snow, low temperatures, high temperatures or sun, the boredom threshold seems to be five days. Funnily enough, when on holiday, especially abroad, the rule is suspended for sunshine.

One of the things we can still moan about on holiday is the exchange rate. For those coming into Euroland, the exchange rate hit a new low in January. Then, if you bought Euros in a travel agency, the Post Office or a bank, you would have been very lucky indeed, after commissions etc., to receive anything like 100 € for each £100 exchanged. Things are looking a bit better now, I'm happy to say. When the official rate was down to 1.05 or thereabouts, those of us who regularly use Foreign Exchange companies (which should be everyone who lives in Euroland and is paid in Sterling) would have been very lucky to get 103 € for each £100 exchanged. As at this weekend, the official rate is a little over 1.14, which means we should get about 112 € for each £100 exchanged. Two and a half years ago we were getting 146 € for each £100 exchanged.

I still ask myself the same question. If the Darling/Brown pair have it so right, are so clever at what they are doing to get Britain out of the slump; if their policies are so envied by the rest of the world and even likely to be copied by them; if Britain is, uniquely, so well prepared to ride the economic storm - why is the pound so weak against almost all other currencies, including those of countries like the US and Japan, whose economies are said by the British government to be so much weaker?

I found out this week that my attempt to register for auto-entrepreneur (self-employed) status failed at the first attempt. I was aware that some of what I am trying to register is classed as professions libérales, the effect of which is that the contributions, as far as pension goes, are payable to a different organisation to that to which they would be paid were it classed as commercial services. What I didn't appreciate, is that the said organisation had not, at the time of my application, signed up to the régime. I and thousands of others are in limbo. We cannot legally start our activities until registered, but we cannot register. Many people (not we) had invested a lot of time and money into getting their businesses ready to start.

I was told by my adviser at the Chamber of Commerce that I should reapply through a different web site - the form is the same, but it will go to the right people. Whether he right people are now signed up to the régime I have not yet ascertained. The current statement on lautoentrepreneur.fr is:

"Aujourd'hui, le statut d'auto-entrepreneur n'est pas ouvert aux professions libérales sauf celles relevant du Régime Social des Indépendants pour leur assurance vieillesse. Toutefois, un texte est actuellement en discussion au Parlement visant à ouvrir en février 2009 ce statut aux professions libérales relevant de la Caisse Interprofessionnelle de Prévoyance et d'Assurance Vieillesse (CIPAV)."

This translates as

The status of self-employed is not currently available to the professions except those falling under RSI for their old-age insurance. However, a bill is currently under discussion in Parliament to open this status to professions covered by CIPAV in February 2009.

Sounds hopeful, doesn't it?

A friend called around to see us on Thursday. She had come to meet up with Clare and they went off for French class. Whilst she was here, I had noticed that she was looking rather interestedly through the back door, but thought nothing of it as we have a varied bird population very close to the house, as well as visiting cats, the occasional rodent and the odd alleged Barn Owl.

She suddenly announced that she was watching a Buzzard. Nothing surprising there; we can often see them wheeling above the field. Clare went over to the door for a look and apparently frightened off an Buzzard that had apparently been sat on the balustrade on the side of the terrace, less then five metres from the door! I, of course, didn't see it - it had flown off before I could get into a position from where it would be visible to me.

We remain vigilant. I shall try to photograph it, if it comes again.

Speaking of photographs of birds of prey (did you notice the smooth transition?), judging of the 2008 Hawk Conservancy Trust Photographic competition finished in the week and the results were published here. It was a good competition, yielding some excellent photographs.

I think about the only other thing I have to mention is poor Ulysse suffered what appeared to be a fit on Friday evening. To my mind, it looked like a mild epileptic seizure with no after-effects. This breed is genetically predisposed to epilepsy and we shall need to get him checked out at the vets if he has another one. There are horror stories on the web from people whose dogs suffer repeated fits, although between episodes they seem to be well and happy - as, indeed, do their dogs.

We are looking at ways of celebrating my 60th in June. We had been hoping that Adam and Marie could come over from Florida, but that isn't going to be possible. We have been looking at the cost involved of getting ourselves across to Florida for a week. The air fares are not too bad (although it is galling to see a nett fare of £310 London/Orlando return, of which £215 is taxes and charges) but, by the time you add on the cost of getting to London from here, and accommodation, travel and expenses in Florida, it is just not doable. One possibility is a week in Spain - we can take the dogs with us in the car - Flash is quite a good traveller, and Ulysse, typical of his breed, loves it.

In the meantime, we are expecting visitors next weekend and the weekend after. I have already mentioned that Clare's brother Andy will arrive next Sunday with his boys and Grandma, who will stay with us until she has had enough of our hectic lifestyle. Tania will be coming the following weekend. It seems we are a handy staging point for sking, being only an hour or so from Mont Dore and Superbesse. No matter, we like to se these folk.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

A few more hats

2009-02-01T13:11:00.005+01:00

For some reason, when this winter season came on, our central heating timer decided not to restart. Not a serious problem, as we don't use it much and, on the rare occasions it was wanted, we can override on each radiator. It did mean though, that there would be no warmth downstairs until the fire was lit and producing decent heat. Not a worry to me, as I start each day in the second floor study, where the heat generated by three or four PCs takes the edge off the cold, in addition to which all the heat is trapped up there and it is seldom cold. At the time of writing this, the outside temperature is 10.8°C and, without any heating, inside the study is 22.9°C!

Nonetheless, we do need to be able to have the heating on programme, as not all of our visitors are as accustomed to lower temperatures as are we. Examination of the control unit (pictured) showed that a splined rod that engages with the main controlling electronic thing inside (I want to call it a potentiometer, but that's probably more because it's a word I know, than because that's what it is) doesn't. The chances of finding a replacement component for a unit like this are, I would venture, somewhat remote.

So I ended up doing a search for a replacement, and found a supplier in France whose web site showed a picture and details of the exact model, with a note that it has been superseded. This I would normally take to mean that there is limited support or limited availability. In fact, they sent the model that had superseded it!

It has to be said, in the interests of fairness, that it is the same width as its predecessor. It is less tall, and the fixing holes in the backplate don't match up. Its connecting block is on the opposite side to that on the older model and somewhat smaller. It was, therefore, not a simple replacement, but, in hardware terms, a restart. I clearly needed an electrician's hat for that job.

However, it is in and working, and we can now control the radiators as we could before. In fact there is a modicum of added functionality which, like much of the functionality of the old unit, we shall probably never use. A hundred and twenty five quid well spent!

Whilst taking Ulysse

for a walk

a few days ago, we came across a lot of economic activity in the area of forest management. The French use the word exploitation which, whilst accurate, does have unpleasant connotations when rendered in English.

What they are doing is managing the pine forests for constructional/manufacturing timber. The first evidence is, as one would expect, aural. Put bluntly, it isn't a job that can be done quietly. The trees have to be felled, cut, and transported

to one of a significant number of stacking points close to the road, for onward transport to where they will be processed.

Walking past these piles of cut trees is very pleasant - there is, as one would expect, a strong smell of pine resin.

All of which serves to remind me that I have to decide what to do with our larger trees - whether I need to do some lopping now, or whether I should leave them to grow naturally, removing only dead wood. Leave that one with me for a while. I don't yet have a tree surgeon's hat.

You may recall that, some weeks ago, I remarked that Clare had seen a Barn Owl on our terrace but that, each time I joined her to see it, it had flown away. On Monday, Clare told me that there was a Buzzard on our electricity cable, and that she could see it from the window half way down the stairs.

I grabbed my camera, trotted down the stairs to find that it had just flown away. At this point I begin to wonder ...

However, on Wednesday, she called again, and I turned up with my pocket camera, expecting nothing, but

it was true after all. I thought I could get a better picture through the open window, but the bird was obviously startled by the window opening, albeit as gently as I could manage, and it flew off.

Maybe next time.

Back with my other hats on, the Trust site is progressing well - the updates of vulture movements now take place twice daily; the build of the Réseau site is going very slowly, as is most of my own work. My application for self-employed status is still in the same state - the powers that be have said that it should be possible to do something before the end of February. My TESOL study is struggling to find time and impetus to keep going, although I am making every effort to keep it on track, and my violin hasn't come out of its case since before Christmas.

Maybe I need a time management hat!

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Kaka, IT, Food, Snow and Visitors

2009-01-25T08:00:00.000+01:00

Kaka

I have often been slightly amused by my Doctor asking after my prostate by checking with me if I have any problems with pipi but this week he surpassed himself.

Being of a certain age, we receive invitations from the French health insurance service to take part in screenings for certain cancers. This time the screening is for Colo-rectal cancer, and the letter said we should go to our Doctor to collect the kit and be told how to collect the samples.

I shall not go into details here except to say that the Doctor said we should collect samples of kaka, and it involves paper plates and spatulas!

Whether those terms are normally used by the medical profession, or whether he is using them because he thinks I wouldn't understand the normal terms, I don't know but, either way, pipi and kaka sound, to my ears, strange terms for a mature, professional man to be using.

IT

I am still working on the new web site for the Réseau Rural en Combrailles. The existing site, www.rrecombrailles.com needs to be replaced with something more interactive. I have looked at all the usual suspects, as I said on 16th November, and I think I am settling on a French system called SPIP, which has excellent multilingual capabilities.

Whilst in the early stages of this, I thought it a good time to upgrade my Linux machines. My server has been running 64-bit Fedora Core 9 for some time, and the guest machine, which is too old and weak to run Windows XP is on 32-bit Fedora Core 9.

I duly downloaded the DVD ISOs for 32-bit and 64-bit Fedora Core 10 and burned DVDs. Neither worked!

I then downloaded the CD ISOs for both - by this time I had downloaded almost sixteen gigabytes of data - and burned the CDs. They both started well, but were, according to the checks, full of errors and thus unusable!

Frustrated, I tried booting the workstation with the netinst CD, which was part of the set and which is supposed to do a network install, only needing the one CD to get it started. The system said the CD was unusable due to errors. I didn't care. I forced it to continue. It started OK, went up to the web and downloaded exactly and only what I needed to upgrade everything that I had installed.

Flushed with that success, I did the same on the server.

Both upgrades, once started, ran up to the point of needing to reboot to start using the new system. It was not quick. The download, especially for the server, was lengthy, and the install and configure was worse. I wasn't timing it, but it felt like about five hours for the server, which was the longest job. However, it went through totally unattended and, most importantly, cleanly. Both machines are now running the latest operating system.

Whilst looking at these things, I decided also to take a look at twitter. A lot is said about it, it has a lot of users and is an interesting technology. How relevant it is to me and to my lifestyle is open for debate. I have signed up, forged a link with my Facebook account and shall give it a try with an open mind. I shall not be updating it via my mobile - I can see no real benefit in it that would justify the cost of the text messages involved.

Food

I have been trying, for a few weeks, to find some recipes that I used a number of years ago. One of them is what I think was called Hawaiian Roast Chicken, involving bananas, sweet potatoes, pineapple and, of course, chicken. I haven't found it yet, although we have had some interesting meals along the way. My latest foray did lead me to some interesting food sites, a couple of which I should like to pass on. Back to the Cutting Board is one, and I shall be trying one of her recipes today. That site also has a number of useful links including one that has gone straight onto my favourites list - Food Porn Daily. Take a look at it - it is delicious.

Snow

Yesterday morning, it was raining quite hard. Clare was due to go with a bunch of people to a fair where, amongst other things, a friend was selling UK greetings cards. Greetings cards in France, as I think I have said before, do not have the same profile and tend to be quite expensive.

As she left at about 3pm there seemed to be some snow mixed with the rain. An hour later, this was the view from my study window!

It was snowing heavily and it had settled. Clare eventually came home a couple of hours later, having failed to reach her destination, and needing to drive with great care!

That, however, pales into insignificance when compared with the terrible weather experienced in SW France and northern Spain!

Visitors

Tania has said she may well be visiting us for a few days at the end of February, on her way to doing a bit of skiing at Mont Dore or SuperBesse. She may be bringing her dogs for us to look after whilst she is there. That should be interesting - Ulysse will think he is back in a pack again!

Clare's brother Andy says he will be coming for a few days in the middle of February, bringing his sons with him. He will probably also bring Grandma as well. If so, she will stay on for a while after he goes back. Grandma enjoys her visits here, and the change of air seems to do her no harm at all - and, of course, we are always happy to see her and any of our relatives and friends.

Tired now - going to sleep.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine