Adeus a Portugal; Bonjour encore, la France

Our six weeks in the western end of the Algarve in Portugal just flew by, one glorious day after another where I more often than not sat inside working instead of enjoying the sun but was still happy to be there. We did take the occasional walks together on the beach, my friend and I and our brother-and-sister dogs. The promised heated pool never materialized, sadly, as there had been a cold spell when we first arrived and they just couldn’t get it up to temperature fast enough to make it cost-effective—we were only paying to heat it once it got up to the promised temp, which it never did, despite trying for about 10 days. Still, that didn't stop us from sitting around it, soaking up the sun during the warm afternoons.

The Fruits of Fading Summer

All around me people are planning the return of the school year with autumn around the corner. My garden, however, seems to have, at least temporarily, caught itself in a time warp.

Only this week have the tomatoes that went in during mid-May started to redden. The season was so slow that I didn't have the heart to pluck out the rogue tomato plant that sprang from the upward sliding door at the foot of my compost bin, thereby making it impossible to open the drawer without severing the plant. I've had what feels like boatloads of peaches, apples and squash from well-meaning neighbors, more than I can ever eat, can or otherwise preserve. (I still have five liter-sized jars of peaches from last year soaking in rum because I didn't have the time to preserve them any other way.)

Too Chicken to Blog?

   A friend of mine just woke me up to the fact that my blog has done yet another Rip Van Winkle of late.
   Work, admittedly, has been gratifyingly busy, with several books, articles and short stories to edit, not to mention the articles I ghostwrite for various websites, to the point where my own book has also gone back into its regularly scheduled hibernation.

Carving a Niche for Myself

It was six days before I could return, admittedly somewhat unenthusiastically, to wielding a pickaxe and chisel to finish the roadside garden bed. For a week now, it had resembled a side by side, before and after illustration.

The days have been hot so this particular Saturday morning I rose and was outside by 6:45am when it was still quite crisp and cool out. I finished trenching and laying the stone by mid-morning without seeing a soul. Using the pickaxe of an obliging neighbor, I began breaking up the soil bed into fist-sized "rocks" which I then pummeled with the stone mallet into powder.

Spring Transformations

Lately, I've been hard at work doing the typical spring cleaning and reorg, both inside and out. In particular the garden has required a good deal of time.

The welcome catalyst has been the impending visit of a very dear friend from the US come July. So a lot of the tasks that, in true French fashion, I've been willing to put off until another day, have now taken on a new sense of urgency.

To my neighbors' relief, that includes retooling the garden beds that border the street in front of my house and lead down along to the garage (a freestanding building). Neighbors were bewildered when I cloaked the weedy crabgrass-infested section with black plastic 18 months ago, my lazy way of killing off what was beneath and enriching the soil with the resulting decay with very little labor involved on my part.

Bon Anniversaire!

Well, today marks the 2-year anniversary of this blog, as well as V-E Day (Victory in Europe, the end of WWII). It's also Mother's Day back in the States.

It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, more so for chores now that spring is already giving way to summer here with relentlessly sunny days and temps near or at 80F.

When my friend and I returned from the UK, we collected two very excited but well cared for pups and proceeded to spend Easter weekend in moderate isolation, never happier!

Now, in between editing and writing assignments, I’m focusing on the garden.

Best Friends

Although spring and warm weather had deliciously descended on France come March, my friend and I found ourselves hurriedly preparing for a trip to the decidedly colder and wetter UK, taking my larger car so she could return with a few final treasures from her mother’s estate, now that the house had been sold.

 Innis turned cartwheels to find us dog-friendly accommodation in places where we knew we could take them for long walks through Exmoor, a particularly beautiful area in southwest England near her mother’s former home. Too late we discovered that we’d missed the dogs’ rabies shot renewal by a few weeks.

Here in France, rabies vaccinations aren’t even legally required but we’d naturally had them inoculated for everything after their microchipping as puppies and had everything documented on their puppy passports. England, however, is, well, rather rabid about rabies vaccines. And we’d blown it. Missing the annual deadline meant having to have them inoculated, then wait four months to have them get a blood test to prove sufficient antibodies and only then would they be permitted across the border.  I suggested we have their antibody levels tested immediately to illustrate they were still protected. Nope. Unacceptable. There was no way to get around the bureaucracy.

Only an animal lover would understand how devastated we were. And we couldn’t cancel the trip because it wasn’t pure vacation and the cottages had been prepaid, to boot, and were non-refundable. And the few individuals we would trust to look after not one but both little dogs (they can be a lively handful) were unavailable. We looked at each other in dread when we realized there was only one solution—we had to find a kennel.

The vet in Ligueil recommended one in Charnizay, about halfway between my home and Innis’s, so off we went, fully expecting to be riddled with guilt when we saw it. What we saw was a huge farm run by a man who breeds border collies and West Highland terriers, and trains the collies in sheep herding. The kennel cages were spacious with a covered run area and the owner, clearly a dog lover, assured us they could stay together, he didn’t mind the extra work involved in preparing their food (versus feeding them kibble as is the norm) and said they’d get three periods every day where they'd be free to roam unmolested by other dogs inside the massively fenced in area surrounding the kennel cages. We convinced ourselves they were going to camp and would have a great time while we would be the ones languishing, missing them terribly.

So, for the first time on one of our joint holidays the days have been dragging, we’ve each been a bit stressed and we can’t wait to see them again come Easter weekend. We’ve only had these dogs for 18 months and yet we can’t seem to remember how to truly enjoy ourselves without their company. It seems that man’s best friend is woman’s best friend, too!