Minnie

For a couple of weeks now Minnie's breath has been smelling really bad. I mean really bad, worse than mine after a night on the curry. (We get the message - Ed) This morning we had an appointment at the vet for her annual injections and mentioned the symptoms. After a lot of difficulty, the vet took a look in her mouth and said 'there's the problem.' Stuck across the roof of her mouth, between two rear teeth, was a piece of wood which blended in perfectly with the surroundings and which had caused an open wound the width of her palate. The poor thing.

Birthday girl

It's Minnies birthday today. She's three years old.

Ovariectomie

After such a late night last night, it was hard getting up this morning to pick up the pooches from the kennels. Minnie was due at the vet by 09.00 to go under the knife. Jan, who has been spayed herself, (I'm lost for words - Ed.) was not a happy bunny and shed the odd tear, knowing what Min would have to go through.

When we picked her up late afternoon, the little mite (if you can call a 40 kilo dog little, or a mite) was very groggy and you just couldn't help feeling sorry for her. Bless.

A trip to the vet

William and Peter turned up for tennis yesterday morning as agreed. We weren't able to play the day before because of wind (no fart jokes please - Ed.) but this morning was sunny and cold. Cold enough for me to wear a hat and a left glove until I got warmed up. Despite my hacking cough, I was in good form and won the majority of my games. The leader board currently reads GB 12, Fr 9 and Cz 8. That's more like it.

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My trip to the vet with Minnie this morning was good fun. It was her annual vaccination and, as we sat and waited our turn, a heavily pregnant lady entered. I pointed out to her that maybe she had made a mistake because the doctor's surgery was next door. She didn't seem too amused but the man sitting next to me thought it was funny.

Talking about waiting, in my experience, the French seem to have no concept of giving service to people waiting at a counter and will take new phone calls and/or plough on with existing phone conversations as if no one else existed. Take this morning for example, there were four of us waiting patiently whilst the harassed receptionist had to hand hold a phone enquirer about the use of some drugs. She had to keep repeating the names of drugs and the order in which they should be given. After ten minutes, when we are all shuffling our feet, I said in a loud voice to all the people hanging around, "I'm English, and even I understand the instructions!" Ah well, it calmed everybody down.
Minnie behaved well and got lots of admiring comments. When all is said and done she has very good antecedents and is a very fine example of her breed. (More than can be said for you - Ed.) As we were leaving, a man who may have been single and not too sure about the ways of the flesh came in and asked the vet to accompany him outside because he thought his dog might be pregnant. Why he didn't bring the dog in baffled everyone waiting but, more to the point, the poor guy seemed very unsure when asked if the dog had grown fat slowly or had it come on suddenly. Good fun.

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Just before I posted this piece, Jan complained that the picture above was not an actual one of us playing tennis. I had to point out to my beloved that the picture was supposed to be representative. That we do not have acres of grass courts and, the last time I looked, none of us was black. Bless.

Everything gets done, eventually

A few months ago I mentioned that our centralised hoovering system was blocked and wouldn't work. Well yesterday, the chap finally turned up to fix it. He ended up cutting away several pieces of piping, under the house, to find the blockage. He eventually found it and the blockage consisted of another piece of small pipe. It must have been there since the system was installed and a steady build of rubbish around it had finally completely blocked the pipe.

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We've decided to put Minnie 'on the pill'. Jan still hasn't decided whether she wants to let them have pups and we can't afford to keep replacing the shutters when Max decides that he wants to get his leg over and breaks out of the house.

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Vincent D turned up this afternoon, as agreed, to start filling in some of the trenches that he dug with his pel a couple of years ago (above). Nothing around here gets done in a hurry. Not what we set out to do, nor what artisans say they will do. Welcome to France.

Manon des Sources

Max and Minnie are difficult to control whilst they are on the lead because they pull so much. Max is much worse than Min, and, being the heavier dog, pulls with much more force. No amount of training seems to help. In itself not a major problem but it causes quite a severe strain on my lower back and therefore becomes very tiresome and painful. On the recommendation of Bryan S we purchased a couple of Halti head collars. We took them both out this afternoon and at first glance they seemed to work. Max had no problem with his and Min tried everything she could think of to get hers off. She failed. Fingers crossed we might have solved it. Thanks Bryan.

As an aside, Jan pointed out later that I'd attached their leads incorrectly. And there you were thinking that I was infallible (er, no we didn't - Ed.)

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We have finally got our hands on a subtitled copy of Manon des Sources, (it's the sequel to Jean de Florette) and we watched it tonight whilst choking on the fumes from our problematic fireplace. Excellent film - lousy fireplace.

Minnie the minx

I went on a mushroom hunt today when we took the dogs out for a walk. Despite the fact that I carried my all new, huntin, shootin and fishin knife, I couldn't find any. Bum. Ah well, I managed to get the dogs to sit still for a couple of seconds and took the photo above. William had me in fits last night with tales of the last time he went to find mushrooms. They drove for miles, arrived before it was light, like an hour before, so had to head for a bar (with two committed drinkers) and then found nothing. They then moved on and drove for another 20 minutes and found a little. Like me he said that you can buy them relatively cheaply (when you take the man hours and petrol into consideration) at the local market. But, and this is the big but, they don't taste as good. Hmmm?

Whilst she is very soft and gentle with us, Minnie is very aggressive when she plays with Max and despite being slightly smaller than him, it already looks like she will rule the roost in a years time. Typical female (he said bitterly)!

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We'd forgotten that I'd invited Christine round this morning to help her with her computer. We were both still in our pj's when she arrived. Anyway, her machine was in a right mess and when I checked the Windows Update site there were 61 patches to be downloaded. I started at 10.45 and didn't finish that bit until 15.00. Yuk. On top of that, the machine kept freezing and is very low on memory (256 Mb). I ordered some more from Crucial, which is my one stop shop for this type of thing. Recommended.

Happy birthday Min

It's Minnie's first birthday today. She has developed into a warm, friendly and terrific companion (which is more than can be said for you - Ed.). We think that she is an absolute delight. Despite their different ages (Max is nearly two years older) she is nearly as big as him and gives a good as she gets when they play fight. We are so lucky with them both.

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Toby and Alison arrived this afternoon. As readers of this rubbish I'm going to have to be on my best behaviour, but not as much as Jan because, to quote my uncle, "they know how to eat." Toby's business supplies produce to all the best restaurants in and around London so they both know their way around a plate of food. Should be interesting.