Running commentary.

Angus sits in the garden talking on the mobile to men in dark suits. Bob listens intently.

Jeff Sessions, James Comey, Theresa May. Bob has an OPONion and a face for each of them.

This is how politicians used to behave : 

https://twitter.com/JayShef/status/872949498431119366

6:00 AM.

Sophie finds a dead mouse under an oak tree. She eats it slowly. After she's finished she snorts with delight.

There's no better or more savoury start to a day. Unless, of course, you find two dead mice under an oak tree - in which case things would be twice as good. A sort of double snort day.

Bob is too busy checking the garden for c-a-t-s to be bothered about pre-breakfast snacks.

Arcadian

The tractors have left deep canyon like paths through the fields. Bob and Sophie head off and race through the arcades of flattened stalks, invisible bar the tips of their waving tails glowing in the six am sunshine. When they reach the brow of the hill they turn and hurtle home. Bob is much faster on the return leg than his sister who scores points for pluck and determination rather than speed.

For me just another walk squeezed in between breakfast and talking to men in dark suits about the UK elections. For Bob and Sophie it is of course a fresh day filled with high speed adventure. This is known as an Arcadian lifestyle. A secret to happiness dogs impart to their owners. 

We pause for Sophie to glare at the pigeons in the church belfry.

The pregnant cows have been moved into a side field where they can sleep without being disturbed. We pass by quickly. Looking at their bellies I'm guessing tomorrow there maybe six new faces watching us. The egrets, freshly arrived from Egypt, stand on the cows backs and feast stoically away on fleas and ticks.

When we make it home The Old Farmer is standing outside his front door. He beckons us over. Ever the gentleman he greets Sophie and then Bob. He didn't sleep a wink last night. The pain returning. He's going into hospital for tests and scans next week. It seems the operation on the femur may have 'complications'. He tells me the hospital he's going to is the one his wife and daughter died in after the road accident. For the first time our doughty old neighbour is looking tired.


Here's a happy Australian dog : http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-40199557

Even better.

Sophie wolfs down breakfast. The family diva devours her meals in the style of a stray dog that's been given a ticket to a Las Vegas '' all you can eat " buffet. 

She then waits for her brother to finish his kibbles. Bob, aware of his sisters impatience, eats slowly. Very slowly. Sophie fidgets. This makes Bob eat even more slowly.

Outside the village hall twelve of the fourteen spaces set aside for election posters have now been filled .

The latest addition a poster from the Pirate Party. ''Don't trust anything'' its decidedly downbeat message.

After this nihilistic start to the day it's off to the bakers with the PONs.

There is a choice between a large blue thing and an Opera.

We choose the Opera. Bright blue things are best left to children's parties.

On our way out we notice a collection of coffee gateaux and the bakers summer specialty - melon cakes.

We promise the baker that we'll return for a melon cake on Friday.

The PONs get croissant slivers.

For Bob and Sophie this is turning out to be quite possibly the best day ever .

Laotian pimentos.

Bob wakes me at 5:37 by sticking a cold wet nose in my ear. Knowing the bedroom is out of bounds he then retreats through the dressing room and lies on the floor in the hallway where his tail goes thwump-thwump-thwump.

His sister, who has been sleeping ( and snoring ) inelegantly on her back, is having a flat hair day.

The village odd job man has refused to deal with the weeds in front of the church. '' I'm too busy with the strimming and grass cutting " he informs the mayor. There is to be a wedding this weekend. At the rate the weeds are growing the bridal party will need a machete to hack their way through to the church porch. A 'supplementary' allowance will be negotiated. It seems the swaying Jesus has recently developed a rather more noticeable lean. 

An air conditioning malfunction in the greengrocers. The chiller cabinets are pumping out cold air which condenses as dense fog between the counters. Angus doesn't linger too long in case he develops hypothermia.

Laotian pimentos make an appearance- not a phrase I've ever used or am likely to use again.

So starts another day in deepest, deepest France profonde.

Five nuns, two policemen and the prostitutes.

The mountains hidden by clouds but here on the ridge it's bright and warm with just the hint of a breeze. The PONs scamper down the hill towards the stream. On the way we pause long enough to welcome no fewer than seven calves who have arrived during the night. Their mothers watch us walk by but are too tired to get to their feet.

'The Font' is of the opinion that we should do something new every day. A peculiarly Lutheran concept . So it is that Angus finds himself at a Chinese government sponsored exhibition of wooden spoons and tea pots. This is interesting for all of 30 seconds but there is only so much one can absorb about wooden spoons... or teapots.

While 'The Font' self improves through careful study of the descriptions Angus wanders off.

He finds a large empty room covered in graffiti.  The plaque on the wall informs him that this was a barracks for 250 prostitutes evacuated from Eastern France during the First World War. Two gendarmes and five nuns were assigned to look after them. Angus can't help but think that you'd be hard pressed to make up a story about five nuns, two gendarmes and two hundred and fifty prostitutes.

It seems the room has recently been restored and the graffiti preserved for future generations. '' My, they did keep themselves busy " says 'The Font' studying some of the more graphic inscriptions. 

Monday night. The village council meeting. It seems this years pottery Fayre has been cancelled. From what 'The Font' can gather the Beautiful Bye Ways Committee Chairman told the village potter that his ceramics were 'wonky' and that his handles were poorly designed ( he didn't actually say that they were poorly designed but you can get the drift). This critique is apparently not what the village potter wanted to hear. Words were spoken. They are now refusing to talk to each other and work on the annual gathering has come to a halt.

The cancellation of the Pottery Fayre is a blessing in disguise. The council agenda calls for a discussion on a) advertising b) the menu for the potters lunch c) the purchase of ice cream for the potters lunch d) the issuing of a cash and carry card for the ice cream purchasers and e) the blessing of the 16th century pottery kiln by the local priest. All of this is now redundant.

Attention shifts to next years commemoration of the end of the Great War. 'The Font' has found an old postcard of the village war memorial and wonders if it might be a good idea to restore the wooden railings. These disappeared during the second war ( they were used as fire wood in one particularly cold winter ) and have subsequently been replaced with a rather straggly box hedge. The box hedge has now succumbed to a parasite and a replacement is needed. A lengthy discussion follows in which all present, bar 'The Font', become weepy as they remember 'absent friends'. 

The back of the postcard written in a rather unsure hand. Was it written in March or May 1940 ? In France a lot happened between those two momths.

And consequently you lived continually in paradise.

This, in translation, is a poem about a dog by a Swedish poet, Lars Gustafsson. It could be sad but it's a poem full of the wonder of life written as only a Nordic poet could write it. An insight into the seasons and the water and the light and the miraculous. Intelligent and wry. 

The line, "In front of closed doors you lay down and slept sure that sooner or later the one would come who’d open up the door " made this dog owner smile. In the early morning I read it out loud to Sophie who falls asleep across my feet.  It's high summer here and we're avoiding the heat.

Elegy for a Dead Labrador

by Lars Gustafsson

Here there may be, in the midst of summer,

a few days when suddenly it’s fall.

Thrushes sing on a sharper note.

The rocks stand determined out in the water.

They know something. They’ve always known it.

We know it too, and we don’t like it.

On the way home, in the boat, on just such evenings

you would stand stock-still in the bow, collected,

scouting the scents coming across the water.

You read the evening, the faint streak of smoke

from a garden, a pancake frying

half a mile away, a badger

standing somewhere in the same twilight

sniffing the same way. Our friendship

was of course a compromise; we lived

together in two different worlds: mine,

mostly letters, a text passing through life,

yours, mostly smells. You had knowledge

I would have given much to have possessed:

the ability to let a feeling—eagerness, hate, or love—

run like a wave throughout your body

from nose to tip of tail, the inability

ever to accept the moon as fact.

At the full moon you always complained loudly against it.

You were a better Gnostic than I am. And consequently

you lived continually in paradise.

You had a habit of catching butterflies on the leap,

and munching them, which some people thought disgusting.

I always liked it. Why

couldn’t I learn from you? And doors.

In front of closed doors you lay down and slept

sure that sooner or later the one would come

who’d open up the door. You were right.

I was wrong. Now I ask myself, now this

long mute friendship is forever finished,

if possibly there was anything I could do

which impressed you. Your firm conviction

that I called up the thunderstorms

doesn’t count. That was a mistake. I think

my certain faith that the ball existed,

even when hidden behind the couch,

somehow gave you an inkling of my world.

In my world most things were hidden

behind something else. I called you “dog,”

I really wonder whether you perceived me

as a larger, noisier “dog”

or as something different, forever unknown,

which is what it is, existing in that attribute

it exists in, a whistle

through the nocturnal park one has got used to

returning to without actually knowing

what it is one is returning to. About you,

and who you were, I knew no more.

One might say, from this more objective

standpoint, we were two organisms. Two

of those places where the universe makes a knot

in itself, short-lived, complex structures

of proteins that have to complicate themselves

more and more in order to survive, until everything

breaks and turns simple once again, the knot

dissolved, the riddle gone. You were a question

asked of another question, nothing more,

and neither had the answer to the other.

The daily perm.

Front door open. With a howl of delight the PONs rush out into the garden in search of c-a-t-s.

Ten minutes later they reappear in the kitchen.

Bob gets into the back of the car.

Sophie doesn't. 

She's in the kitchen hoping the yogurt pot will refill itself. Bob gets out of the car to look for her. Both PONs then go back out to the car. Bob leaps up and sits on Sophie's side of the car. A ' diva moment' ensues. Bob gets out of the car while Sophie moves to her rightful space. Bob then  rejoins his sister. None of this is done quietly.

A visit to the cheese mongers is something both PONs enjoy. Some Pise du Lot for 'The Font'. Reblochon rind for the PONs. Tails wave.

A new hairdresser has opened up. Unlimited access to the blow dryer and curling tongs for E59.95 a month. A kind of 'all you can eat' programme . For men it's a more reasonable E24.95. Angus works out he spends ten euros every six weeks so is not tempted. How do they deal with clients who abuse the system and demand a daily perm ?

This I found to be understated political humour : http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/06/first-political-memory-grandmothers-commentary.html

Non-verbal communication.

I look at Bob and know ( despite our mild disagreement over the bag of fresh peas that slipped through the dog grille and were 'liberated' on the way back from the greengrocers ) this is a 'happy' dog. 

Bob has carefully eaten the peas and left the pods for his sister.

The family fellows attitude to all things in life is ' the boy done good '.

Who could disagree ?

No doubting who's boss here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo-r0Mi-wWI

Never wavers

We're up at five thirty to avoid the heat. The PONs are asleep when I wander downstairs.  After a quick tour of the garden they disappear back into the house. They can be found in the downstairs hall. Bob gives me his 'Don't you know what time it is ?' look. Sophie ignores me in the hope I'll go away.

We set off on our morning constitutional. The PONs sit and wait while the village teenagers are collected by the 6:20 school bus. The teenagers are too grown up and cool to say 'Bonjour' to Bob and Sophie. They do however wave.

Out past the donkey field. We head down to the stream and the waterfall. A late returning owl lands on a tree and looks at us. The PONs 'fish' for minnows. 

When we return for breakfast the sun is up and the donkeys out and about.

The camera on the i-Phone is showing its age. The zoom barely shows up the new donkey.  Time to buy a new phone with a better zoom lens ?

By the church Sophie stops to glare up at the pigeons nesting in the belfry. Bob is more interested in a vole that scurries quickly away from where he's started to sniff.

In the afternoon the special needs home holds a 'disco' on the village green. The staff park their cars and minivans in front of the church. The 'boom box' is set up on the village hall porch facing The Rickety Old Farmhouse. The volume dial is turned all the way to the right. Who would have thought the countryside could be so lively ?

The staff and children are surprised to see a large bus of pilgrims draw up. The pilgrims clamber down and walk over to the ' swaying Jesus'. Some of the children follow them. Good natured chaos ensues.

Is there anywhere quite like a French village ? Bob and Sophie are intrigued. Completely intrigued.

This song is played five time in a row. Then there is a break for lemonade. Then it starts over. The kids enthusiasm never flags and their carers concern never wavers - which makes me smile : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM7MFYoylVs

And this has made its way onto the Eurostar train to Paris from London. Not bad for a word that's barely a day old : https://twitter.com/EurostarJustinp/status/869904091690020864

PON hair.

Six posters up on the bill boards. The Communist ladies have been joined by a couple sitting on a bench and a stern looking gentleman with five o'clock shadow. The other eight parties seem to be slow in getting geared up for the fight.

Outside the church the wrens have built a delicate nest . Closer examination shows it to have been woven out of PON hair.

An uninspiring collection of cakes at the baker. Mid-week pastry doldrums.

Bob is in fine form.

So is his sister although her hair's having trouble with the humidity.

Overnight the Polish builder left his trailer outside the Salle des Fetes. This morning it had gone. Some time during the night an opportunist saw the thing and drove off with it. He wonders if we'd seen or heard anything. ' Did you lock it ? ' I ask him. '' No " comes the reply.

Now here's something you don't read every morning : https://theconversation.com/could-cold-spot-in-the-sky-be-a-bruise-from-a-collision-with-a-parallel-universe-78563