I didn’t celebrate le fete de St Valentin this year. Actually, I don’t ever celebrate it. I always understood it was for wannabe lovers to declare their interest (anonymously) by the sending of a card or a gift to the object of their desire. At school, a post box was positioned in the foyer and we could pay 5p to post a card which would then be delivered on the big day to the classroom of your crush. You could send as many as you wanted, so some (admitedly including ever-hopeful me) would hedge their bets, all unsigned, the handwriting disguised and finished with a flourishing and mysterious X. On the day, the cards would be delivered by a crack team of first years and I would affect nonchalance when year after year there was no card in the pile for me.
Clock forward all these decades and Two Brains is my Valentine every day. Last summer we walked a glorious walk in the Cezallier to a little Chapel, originally built in the 13th century high high on a rocky outcrop looking over the Vallée de la Santoire and the Plateau du Limon. Battered by the elements it was in a sorry state when in the 19th Century it was entirely rebuilt but houses a bell dating from the mid 1600s and a confessional of similar age and a truly resilient Madonna dating with the original chapel. And the name of this lovely place – La Chappelle de St Valentine, naturally.
PS: The Victorians started another tradition which remained popular until the mid-20th Century. The Vinegar Card was basically a chance to wittily, waspishly, waggishly and entirely socially acceptably slanderously rebuff, dismiss and humiliate the recipient. I’m not ashamed to admit that in the past I could have sent one or two ….
It’s been a while since I wrote anything more than a few lines to accompany a picture but – now there’s a thing … have I been away, or have I been home? I think here is home so I must have been away but then again I was staying with my mother and spending Christmas with family so I must have been home because my definition of home was always where my family is. And Two Brains made it by the skin of his teeth on Christmas Eve arriving 3 hours before we all sat down to Christmas Dinner which we do on Christmas Eve partly because we realised that one of our daughters was eating three Christmas dinners on Christmas Day and had to remain dry because she and her partner were driving to his mother, then his father and then me and then home (possibly to a turkey sandwich) and another has a fiance whose mother would fall on her own sword if her precious boy were not at her Christmas table (I say nothing) and partly because 25th December is Two Brains birthday. So the simple solution is to follow the French lead and that is what we do leaving everyone, in theory, happy. Anyway, enough familial bliss – I was in England. Land of my birth. And increasingly less familiar to me … I wonder if other ex-patriots experience this out of body-ness when visiting the old country, wherever that happens to be.
I lived for years close to various points on the Ridgeway and walked regularly on the section from Streatley-on-Thames to Uffington. When my parents moved to the place my mother still lives, I walked sections of it each weekend with my father and our dogs. I have walked it with children, with friends, with dogs. It is a very familiar path. Two Brains and I and two dogs, because The Bean’s best friend Brian who belongs to my eldest daughter was staying too, walked a bit each day.
Brian – a small dog with the sweetest heart
The Bean – a tiny dog with a big heart
We walked somewhere between 6 and 12 km each time (the distance being un aller-retour, a return, to allow for leaving the car). I wanted to walk this path full of memories with my husband and it was happy – windy, rainy, bitterly cold, foggy, sunny we had all weathers which makes us both happy. Two small dogs and then just one, after Brian returned home, snootling and rootling and sniffing the air and the ground which is generally what makes a dog happy. We would return to my mothers house after an hour or three soaked and muddy some days but we had a very contented time. Except ….
Somewhere between Wantage, once called Wanating and birthplace of King Alfred (he of the frazzled cakes) and Sparsholt we spied something on the fence ahead. Moles. I am very wed to moles. I grew up in the village in Berkshire in which Kenneth Grahame lived the last 8 years of his life and he died there in 1932. He attended the same school as my father in Oxford. I, like so many children, grew up knowing and loving the anthropamorphasised animals he created. ‘The Wind in The Willows’ was read to me when I couldn’t read, then read and read and read when I could, and then again read to my own. And Mole was my particular favourite – so thrilled with the world outside his dark tunnels, his portly little velvety form was one I longed to hug. I do understand that many find moles a nuisance. They dig and they create earthmounds with positively ruthless efficiency and ruin many a lawn (that overwhelming obsession of the English, let’s not forget) and they don’t give a damn about crops in a field. So long as the earth is brim full of worms they are happy chappies and will keep diggering on. Actually here in Cantal I am convinced the moles are genetically modified – or at the very least pumping steroids … their mounds are immense! We have them all over the right side of the lawn though oddly never the left. The Bean is very keen to find one and is often found standing four square with nose poking down a hole in the top of a mound where the mole has come up out of his laberynth of tunnels early in the morning or at dusk.
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The thing about these moles though, in case you thought that they were some sort of genetic mutation that dwells above ground, the thing is that they were dead. Hanging on the fence, tied with yellow binding. To say the sight was gruesome is an understatement. It was a sharp and frosty morning and everything had that eery beauty that comes when the only movement is the twinkling of the ice particles in the hazy sun trying to break through a shroud of cloud. The moles too were frozen, their little black coats glinting with freezing moisture. Stiff. Cold. Dead. Unfortunately our Opinel (the ubiquitous knife in a huge variety of sizes, ours with a 4″ blade, that no Frenchman would be without) was in the car about 2 miles back so we couldn’t follow our hearts and at least cut the little creatures down and lay them somewhere dignified. Out of sight of, incidentally, the many walkers, riders and particularly families with children who frequent the path. I was disgusted. Choked. Angry actually. For heavens sakes what is the point? And yes, I do know that in days of yore the mole catcher would hang the moles as proof to the landowner of what he had earned and to ensure that he didn’t try and bill for same mole twice. But this is 2015 (I think it was January 2nd) and I do not believe for one moment that any landowner now uses such feudal methods in fact I’m not convinced that there even are travelling mole catchers these days. No – this was just some foul blood lusting individual or group who thought it would be clever to hang their barbaric catch out for all to see. Or perhaps they were crass enough to think that they would put other moles off digging there … not understanding that they are blind. Before you shout me down – I actually found a thread on the internet that had me quite helpless … a thread about this very practice in which one person states that it is to put other moles off and another points out that they are blind. Person one says ‘what – every single mole? I don’t think so’ and the other patiently points out that they live underground. Person one says ‘why?’ patience says ‘Because. They. Are. MOLES!’ As I live and breath it is entirely unbelievable.
And now I am back home, because on reflection I know this is home and wherever my family are, they are always in my heart. Here it is still hunting season – I have to be judicious when choosing my walks particularly at weekends because I don’t want to be shot. And neither does The Bean. The French have a reputation for shooting anything that moves but le chasse is strictly governed here. And I live in an area far off the beaten track where undoubtedly folk could break the rules if they wanted to. But they don’t. The Ridgeway is a well walked path and I wish the Police success in catching the culprits of this heinous act if they so wish. I know they try to stamp out illegal hare coursing but The Law says that you can only prosecute if you catch the perpetrators red handed. Not for the first time in my life, I fear that The Law is an ass.
Presumably this was aimed at the moles ….
PS: The following day we walked from Sparsholt to Uffington. The White Horse here is the oldest chalk horse carved into a hillside in Britain and there is Dragon Hill which, legend has it and I like to believe is actually the body of the dragon slain by George himself. And there is Uffington Castle … an iron-age hillfort. We walked around it and I was heartened to see that the moles had invaded and clearly conquered the castle. Sweet victory to the little men in black velvet as they diggory diggory delvet according to Beatrix Potter in Apply Dapply’s nursery rhymes from whence the title comes.
Living where I do, the winters are measured on a scale of cold to bitterly cold but when the sun shines, no matter what the actual temperature I feel warmed. This picture was taken on a cold day in early Spring when our breath froze as it hit the air, the trees were bare of leaves and the snow still iced the high peaks ahead of us. And yet I feel its warmth and as John Steinbeck said ‘what good is the warmth of summer without the cold of winter to give it sweetness’.
Where is the line between stubborn and stupid? I’m not sure I know, in fact I think I have walked the thin line most of my life. Stay with me as I tell you a tale of malice in which our obstinance prevailed and we won, what for us, was a little victory.
We walk. We walk a lot. In all weathers and all over the place but we have one rule. We stick to the PRs – Petits Randonees which, all over France are the marked routes (almost but not always circular) which vary in distance typically from 5-30 km and in difficulty too. In Cantal we can buy books from the Tourist Office at the head of each paysage (there are 14) which describe the route, what to look out for and give a little map. I always carry the relevant one in case I am challenged. Incidentally there are also GRs in France – Grands Randonees which are, well – Grand, varying from 80-90 km upwards to many 100s. We will walk some of those across France and all of the 340 PRs in our departement. We love walking, you see – we see and feel the terrain so much better than from a car or a train.
Ten days ago we set out to do PR16 in Le Cézallier Cantalien. We chose the walk carefully it being only a handful of kilometres from the friends we were dining with that evening. The day was ludicrously fine – you could easily have pretended it was summer were it not for the tell-tale burnishing to the trees giving the game away that it was in fact the very end of October. We arrived at the start (and finish) point, parked in front of the ancien ‘Gare de Landeyrat et Marcenat’ now a velorail station of which more later, donned boots clipped The Bean onto her brand new hi-viz leash (it’s a cat lead but please don’t tell her) and set off in childishly high spirits. Not a half kilometre down the road having walked past a fine painted panel proudly demonstrating the good walks (including this one) that families could take from this place and spotting several buzzards and kites wheeling and dealing in the rudely blue sky above, we spotted the first way-mark. An altercation took place because it seemed it could not mean turn left since there was an electric fence blocking the path. We pressed on but, looking at the map, it was obvious that we should turn off and circle the village of Landeyrat which we were fast approaching on our race-fit legs (give me a little artistic licence, will you). Hey ho – clearly we had missed something but if we traversed the village we could pick up the path again the other side. I stopped to take some pictures of this typical small conurbation high up in a pays that depends entirely on agriculture for its living. Two Brains was looking at a fortified farmhouse as an elderly woman snapped at him ‘do you want something’. ‘I was just admiring the house’ he replied, typically mild and unflappable and we walked on. We nodded to a couple of other people and said ‘bonjour‘ to stoney faced responses. If you have ever watched ‘The League of Gentlemen’ you will get the picture … this was not a welcoming place which is unusual in Cantal – the people are well known for their lovely nature but I guess there is an exception to every rule. We strode on, found the path and followed it looking down a beautiful little valley to a copse of gilded trees in which we supposed we would find the ‘Chaos’ that was described in the book. Chaos in this context means a volcanic rock-slide and there are many across the area (it is, after all, entirely volcanic) but this one is singled out as special.
Milan Royal in a sapphire sky
Les Roches de Landyrat
Volcanic Chaos field
Late October – honestly!
The beautiful wild paysage of Cezallier
Typically rounded hill-tops at an altitude of around 1200 metres
We walked on and came to a Stile waymarked yellow. Which is what we were following. The other thing to note about this stile was that it was electrically wired. As was the entire field. Our stubborn-meters clicked in simultaneously. Neither of us was giving up so we found the best way under and rolled. First Two Brains, then the dog lifted over, camera, bag, coat and then me rolling inelegantly under. We walked to the Chaos which was worth it – a fantastic spewing of gigantic basalt rocks and a great view of the Orgues above. We have driven past Les Roches de Landeyrat before many times but being on foot as ever, was better. Which was just as well because after that the walk descended rapidly from bad to appalling. Literally every stile had been electric wired and I think we spent as much time rolling as walking. Our senses of humour were fraying but the stubborn, pig-headed pair that we are would not, could not give up. At one point we were squeezed between two fences and had to walk through waist high nettles and undergrowth – I carried The Bean. She was on her glow-in-the-dark leash most of the time and that is absolutely reasonable. I have already said that Cezallier relies on agriculture. We were walking amongst cattle. You must respect. And we do. But, and here is the bite. The area also needs visitors – visitors who will buy coffee, lunch, dinner. Stay in the hotels and auberges. Many many people have been driven out of business here – the hospitalities industry struggles. It is hardly surprising when an objectionable farmer makes one feel about as welcome as a runny cow pat in your living room.
Still smiling – or are they gritted teeth?
This was the point in the walk where we nearly failed. The next stile was behind a secondary electrified fence. This meant that we had to roll under one, stand up in a space that was about 18 inches wide and walk to the style and climb it without touching the fence. We managed it. We are extremely bloody minded. We did this to a background of shotgun fire. We assume that the target was not us since neither of us was hit. Only three more electric fences to go and we were back.
Clear waymarks, clear electrification
Touch it if you dare
Another wired stile
No fence untouched by the force
Slithering under a shocking fence
Two Brains cradles The Bean after she has been passed over yet another mean fence
Stay flat …
Normally, on my own I expect to walk the walks in less time than the estimate given by the Tourist Board. Normally with Two Brains and our attendant chatter we take the guestimate given. This time it took 3 and half hours against their estimate of 2 and a quarter (and we have shaved 20 minutes off at the start by not rolling under that first electric fence and taking the proper route). A family with children could not have walked the walk. I could not have done the walk on my own with dog, neither could Two Brains. The farmer in question is in my opinion odious. We have since reported him. He will be visited by the Gendarmerie because what he has done is illegal. He should, in my opinion, be made to pay back the Tourist Board all the money they have expended in putting up stiles, their lovely information points, the time they have taken to make this walk what should be a great taste of the paysage de Cézallier.
But do the walk we did. I shan’t do it again. I’m stubborn but perhaps I’m not stupid after all. The gun-shots were off-putting the fences just plain unkind. We did however, as we arrived back at the velorail station having walked the last of the walk up the railway tracks like a pair of bedraggled gold prospectors, do the victory dance and have a group hug. Well you would, wouldn’t you?
The Bean runs the last half kilometre along the sleepers
The story of Landeyrat (or Launderamat as we hilariously Christened it in our efforts to keep up our spirits on the walk) does not end there. The following Friday (Halloween as it happened) we met our great friends to give the children a birthday treat – two of them have birthdays in Late October and November and we wanted to do an outing rather than just buy them more toys. We booked tickets for the velorail and arrived at 10:00 to take our carriages for an hour and a half spin down the tracks. 6 kilometres there and back and the last but one day of the season. The sun duly shone and we took our instructions (I got told off by the lady for not concentrating on her words) and set off down the tracks. Velorails are my new favourite mode of transport. Big enough for four, two pedalling and two passengers you potter down the track to a given point where you turn your car on a simple devise that lifts and spins with the aid of ones bodyweight ready to go back the other way. Ours was the shortest option – the youngest child being just 4 years old, this was plenty and took us to a lovely cascade near Allanche which we had been to before. We sat in the sun, took pictures, ate biscuits from Hawaii and variously sketched or stared into the crystal waters for tiny fishes. Tranquility itself and blissful this place figures in Le Hobbit: Le retour de roi de Cantal which is the sequel to ‘Lord of the Rings – made in Cantal’ two brilliant spoofs made by a young Cantalien and funded by the Tourist Board.
Raymond who is a Special Commendant in the Gendarmerie (in other words he is not a full time Gendarme but rather like a high ranking Special Policeman in the UK) told us that the reason for the sign saying ‘no swimming’ hanging above the very shallow water (no more than a foot deep) is that a Dutch youth jumped off the top of the waterfall and broke both legs and his pelvis. His parents sued because there was no signage. So this lovely place has to have a ridiculously obvious sign to warn others against being imbecillic. The judge, incidentally told them to get lost and ruled against any compensation. We passed a lovely interlude and then velorailed back to the station – harder this way … it was uphill. I would highly recommend a velorail outing – you can do much longer ones and it is great fun. However, it turns out that with monotonous regularity there are incidents. People managing to pull the cars off the tracks, turning it over when they are turning it around, throwing rocks at cattle, getting their fingers or toes caught. This was why the lady had told me off – they need to be sure that people have heard all the instructions. As an advice, I would suggest that they make a cartoon crib sheet and give it to every hirer before they set out. It would be a real shame if something happened to close them down. There seems no end to peoples stupidity. Me – I’m happy to be just stubborn and I am glad that I didn’t just give up on Landeyrat Laundermat because our morning on the velorail was the greatest fun – it would have been stupid not to!
Cascade – the water is about 9 inches deep
Which is why you don’t dive into it
The simple system for turning the cars
Simplicity itself
Childish bliss
Happy
The line of Velorail cars at the ready
The cafe at le Gare de Landeyrat
PS: Before it all, I had photographed a name that made me smile on a pair of great oak barn doors in the village … Diabolo – perhaps I should have taken the hint!
We walk. The Bean and me and HB2, when he is here makes three. There are 340 marked PR (petit randonnees) across le Cantal and I have set myself the ideal of walking all of them. In keeping with the rest of France these are marked walks, mostly circular and varying in length and difficulty. The simple colour coding system tells you if it is easy (blue), longer and more difficult (yellow) or very long and varying in difficulty (green). One weekend recently we decided to drive to the far north east of the departement (a drive of about 1.5 hours) and do a nice long green walk. The duration was estimated as 4.75 hours for the 14.5 km. We packed a picnic of cheese and bread and tomatos and set off. The day was glorious – sunny, hot and with a fair scattering of the fluffiest white clouds dancing across the bluest of blue skies.
The walk was glorious too … and along the way we three became four. About 5 km into the walk having marvelled at a tiny Roman bridge, failed to find a museum founded by two young boys aged 11 and 16 in the 1990’s housed in a pain four they restored themselves, and nattering contentedly whilst watching The Bean foraging and ferreting as she does, we entered a petit hameau.
As we exited the village it could not escape our notice that a young and very boisterous German Shepherd dog, ears yet to stand upright so probably no more than 8 months old, was running along beside us. We stopped and shooed him home. We walked back up the road to encourage him but, oblivious, he continued out of the village. After a kilometre we were concerned – he was haring in and out of fields, he was very very happy, joyous in fact, but he clearly was not clear about where he lived. Let me put this in to context – this is a huge and rural area … houses are scattered and he did not appear to belong in the hamlet we had traversed. The Bean was getting fed up with being carried to prevent canine fisticuffs so we decided to release her and let them bond or not. At this point I named the dog Boomerang for not so subtle reasons. We spoke to him in French – he was quite forgiving of our accents but he obviously had absolutely no notion whatsoever of discipline.
An hour later, so three hours into the walk, we decided it was time for lunch. The puppy sat nicely on the other side of the track on whose grassy verge we had plonked our behinds and watched intently as HB2 wielded the Opinel (as essential a French accessory as a mobile phone to an adolescent, this is a wooden handled foldable knife which comes in a huge variety of sizes … the blade on ours is about 3 inches) to cut cheese and bread. What lovely manners I murmured – he clearly knows not to disturb his humans when they are eating. The words barely vapourised in the air, he leapt up and floored me and I, like a beetle on my back, was helpless to fend off his face-licking. ‘Non’ bellowed Two Brains at which the dog fell back looked around and seized up my spectacle case before bounding up the path and lying down with his trophy triumphantly pinned between his front paws. We hastily finished our peturbed picnic and packed up. The dog surrendered the glasses case and off we set again.
The day was hot and of course got hotter as hot days always will, so when we entered the sweet and tiny hamlet, no more than a farm, a couple of houses and the remains of a church now welded to a barn, we were gently fatigued. Actually we failed to notice the welded church as we searched for the table d’orientation so that we could regally survey the landscape laid out below us. We found, we surveyed and we assumed l’ancien eglise must have succumbed to the elements at some point because it was no-where to be seen. Assume, as our youngest daughter regularly reminds me, makes an ass out of you and me. And as we walked on now following yellow markers (we had been following green and then green and yellow together which is not unusual – the paths often link for a while) and occasionally consulting the book for reference points the terrible truth began to dawn. We, The Bean and the adopted dog which showed absolutely no sign of fatigue were on a different walk. And the walk was taking us in entirely the wrong direction. In this terrain it is not a simple matter of backtracking so we took the decision to continue in a circle back to the village with the viewing point. And from there try to find our own walk. That this meant in total a deviation of 6 km with a stray dog seemed perfectly reasonable to our heat-shrunk minds. And so it was that this raggle taggle foursome made its way back into the village and joy of joys there, beside the welded church which we had failed to notice before which was indeed (as the book told us it was) opposite a table d’orientation (not the one we had found earlier but one looking in the opposite direction – so we have now regally surveyed the entire 360 degrees of landscape laid out before us in this lovely spot), joy of joys in addition there was life – there were people. Real people. A woman coming out of her milking parlour, two little girls of around 6 years old and a smaller little boy and, as it turned out, the most joyous of all – Granny! The imposter dog disgraced himself by hurling upon the children with us shouting – ‘he’s not ours – he’s following us’. But as deranged as this must have sounded these lovely people helped us. Granny really. The younger woman did not understand a map which is entirely reasonable given that she knows perfectly well where she is and doubtless can find her way anywhere necessary with no problem at all. They clearly thought us mad to be wanting to walk but Granny showed us the way, even tipping us off for a shortcut and with much waving, sighing relief and many thanks we continued on what would be the last 5 or 6 km of our epic journey. The dog was still with us – Granny had advised us to find the mayor in the town and pass the problem to him. We felt rather bonded to Boomerang by now and agreed that if we were by now in our own house with a garden (the search is on) we would keep him.
It was on this last part of the journey that I realised that he had clearly been a commando in a previous life. He took to leaping up high banks and running ahead of us only to explode down on us again when we least expected it. This was very funny except when we were walking high above a small river and he decided the best approach was to divebomb The Bean and see how funny she would look bouncing down the sides of what, in my tired, vaguely emotional and borderline delirious state seemed to be a very steep ravine. We put him on her lead (perfectly adaquate for her, this slender piece of leather looked more than faintly ridiculous on the overgrown puppy). It was clearly a new experience and took all of Two Brains strength to keep him vaguely steady. At the end of the path, relieved that we were coming into the last village before our destination, we let him run again. We were just congratulating ourselves at how clever we were to train him a teeny bit in the hours (and by now it had been 5 hours) he had been with us when he bowled us the googly of the day. At the entrance to the village was a huge, very old and very deep water trough – the sort that entire small herds of cattle could take their fill at when moving from field to field or field to barn for milking. The sort that appear in Constable paintings of rural idyll in the 18th Century. Rambiggles the divebombing commando dog went over to look, braced himself and leaped in. Being steep sided he could not get out. That in itself was bad enough but I should tell you that the water was gloriously embellished with hugely swollen cowpats across its entires surface … how, why, I know not. I prefer to keep it that way. Sighing the sigh of the resolute and exasperated, Two Brains walked over, hooked the dogs collar and pulled. I held my breath so hard I think I may have turned blue because Two Brains can’t swim. Images swam infront of my tired eyes of me, anchored by The Bean, having to pull the pair of them out. Or me diving in and shouldering them as The Bean hooked them out. I was well and truly scared. I am happy to report that none of this came to pass and the dog was liberated. And liberally drenched us with stinking water as he shook himself dry.
Onwards to our destination and we sank onto the tailgate of our car, changed our boots, ate biscuits and wondered what on earth to do … Sunday night is not the night to find a mayor and we didn’t feel like ringing 112 and declaring an emergency. Lights from the Auberge called us like moths and we walked in – it was quite a chic establishment and we looked and probably smelt like something you would cross the street to avoid, but thankfully the lady in charge was sweet and accomodating and took control. Dog was fed, shut in and the Mayor informed in the morning. We have since heard that he has been returned to his rightful owners. For how long is a dubious question – this dog is in dire need of a high fence, a strong lead and Barbara Woodhouse (or for those of you not old enough to remember her … Dog Borstal!)
PS: The necessary PS. So touched were we by the lovely attitude of the family high up on the rounded hill who helped us that the following week we returned with a box of sweets to thank them. The look on the face of Granny and the children was enough to warm my heart for the rest of my life. We chatted for a while – she said she was pleased to have helped us, that she could no longer walk where we had walked but she used to and is sad those days are behind her. She told us she had been to our part of Cantal and that she liked Saignes (about 10 km from us) because of its beautiful Roman Chapel. The children, dark limpid eyes fixed earnestly on the tin with its sweet delights to come, listened, smiled and waved us off as we drove away. I am certain that they thought us dotty but they didn’t judge us, had never expected to see us again in their isolated spot where they have lived and will live out their lives, and will live in my memory for the rest of my life as an example of who I would like to be.
I am a dog. My needs are simple. Food (not necessarily dog-specific food), a bed (actually three beds – one up, one down and one in the car) and exercise. In return I give total devotion and protection from the evil cat next door. Serious … it might look harmless but it’s actually extremely dangerous which is why I must attack it.
Today I want to tell you about snow. I did not ask to come to this place (which took what felt like my whole life to get to and, even though I am small, I was squishelled in the car so tightly that to move risked the whole thing bursting on the peage) but I really do like it here. I get to run around loads, I have discovered that I don’t mind getting wet and I rather like the snow.
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Snow is white and it is very very sneaky. I never know that it’s occuring because I can’t see much from down here when I am in my house or in the car unless I stand on my back legs which I can do very well but I reserve the skill for getting attention and treats. Snow makes the world look completely different and is strangely inviting. Don’t be fooled though – it might look like a nice warm blanket but it’s actually very cold and when it blows across exposed places I have to close my eyes into slits which makes it tricky to see and also possibly makes even me quite unpretty.
The best sort of snow is crusty and I can walk on top of it. The worst sort is soggy and I can’t. Then I have to walk in the footsteps of my humans. His are best because his footprints are bigger and just the right size for me to jump in and out of. He’s quite often not here though so then I have to compact myself into hers.
Things smell different when it has snowed (they smell different when it has rained too – unfortunately you are only a human with a weak nose so you wouldn’t understand) and I find myself irresistibly compelled to dig in it – luckily my snout is quite gimlet-like and my paws are nice and pokey and nimble (which is why I can type) so I can make short work of digging a fine hole. It’s what I do. I am a dog.
I didn’t celebrate le fete de St Valentin this year. Actually, I don’t ever celebrate it. I always understood it was for wannabe lovers to declare their interest (anonymously) by the sending of a card or a gift to the object of their desire. At school, a post box was positioned in the foyer and we could pay 5p to post a card which would then be delivered on the big day to the classroom of your crush. You could send as many as you wanted, so some (admitedly including ever-hopeful me) would hedge their bets, all unsigned, the handwriting disguised and finished with a flourishing and mysterious X. On the day, the cards would be delivered by a crack team of first years and I would affect nonchalance when year after year there was no card in the pile for me.
At this point I named the dog Boomerang for not so subtle reasons. We spoke to him in French – he was quite forgiving of our accents but he obviously had absolutely no notion whatsoever of discipline.
The words barely vapourised in the air, he leapt up and floored me and I, like a beetle on my back, was helpless to fend off his face-licking. ‘Non’ bellowed Two Brains at which the dog fell back looked around and seized up my spectacle case before bounding up the path and lying down with his trophy triumphantly pinned between his front paws. We hastily finished our peturbed picnic and packed up. The dog surrendered the glasses case and off we set again.
