Given the title Half and Half for this week’s photo challenge I immediately thought of The Bean. She’s half Jack Russell and half Chihuahua – a feisty combination particularly if you are a rat since both breeds are bred fundementally for snapping and trapping rodents. I get asked all the time what she is. I could answer ‘une croix’ which means a cross but the correct expression is la moitié x and la moitié y which means half x and half y. I learned this from the delightful middle child of friends of ours. He must have been 6 at the time and it was a relief not to have a poo-related conversation. This particular evening he fired moitiers at us all and we had to act them out. I thank him for the half fish-half hippo, half dragon-half horse, half raptor-half mouse etc etc because it really really helped my French. With his growly childish slightly lisping voice it has taken a while to tune my lame ear in but he and his beautiful siblings are always forgiving of this apparition of a lady who speaks French like a two year old. Middle child also happens to adore The Bean despite the fact that she once bit his nose. She has no idea how lucky she is. But I know how lucky I am to know, love and be loved by the three of them.
Here comes The Bean, running back from a shady ditch to jump in the car for the obligatory post walk drink, served from her bespoke bowl made from the bottom of a small mineral water bottle, and a treat from her personal supply kept replenished in the car at all times. As you can see from her tongue she was a hot dog … a condition she has had to get used to these last few weeks as we boil and frizzle in France. The picture is a little blurry – life here is a little blurry in the heat but it sort of seems to fit the challenge in that she is half the frame – give me some licence here, please!
PS: Do I wish I had a million dollars (or whatever inflation has done to the million since George Bailey exuberantly made his wish in 1946) … not really – give me the love of beautiful children, my tiny Hot Dog and HB², the place I adore, and I feel as I do – the richest poor girl in the whole wide wonderful world.