Who needs four legs anyway?

Hello and welcome to the latest blog from The Olivia Rose Diaries on November 30^th 2023. This week finds us on our first house-sit of the autumn, in the Gers region, just an hour and a half drive from Le Shack. Although we could in theory have cycled here it wasn’t a particularly appealing proposition at this time of year and so we decided to hire a car for ten days.

As we knocked on the door our first greeting came not from our hosts but from the three-legged whippet who would be one of our charges during our stay here. He had jumped up against the inside of the door, which was solid on the lower half but had glass on the upper portion. A pair of huge black eyes stared at us from between his two front paws, and as soon as the door was opened he was out, racing round the garden and jumping up, completely beside himself with excitement at having visitors. The fact that one of his back legs had been taken away from the hip didn’t seem to hold him back in the slightest.

Apparently he had been involved in a car accident and his previous owners had faced the choice of amputating the leg or losing him. At some point after that he had ended up needing a new home and had the good fortune to end up here, a recent and much-adored addition to the family.

Whippets are known for being food thieves and yet again the loss of a leg was no reason not to be true to his breed. We had been warned about this by our hosts, with a salutary tale concerning three quarters of a whole salmon, laid out on the table in preparation for a dinner party, which disappeared in minutes as soon as their backs were turned. I had a biscuit whipped expertly out of my hand as I wandered around the garden with a cup of tea and realised we would need to be very vigilant indeed.

The dog was called Raven, an affectionate and lively three year old, but it was a strange choice of name as he was tan in colour rather than black. His new owners wondered if it was a reference to ‘ravenous’, which certainly made more sense.

We would also be looking after another dog, an old Italian greyhound called Lovely, which conjures up an image of a large dog but in fact they are a miniature breed, incredibly delicate and the size of a small cat. Three chickens, a cockerel and a cat called Whitty completed the menagerie.

Whitty was as curious as she was beautiful. Every nook and cranny of the house had to be explored and a closed door was an insult to her enquiring mind. One afternoon I watched her hook her claws around the larder door in the kitchen. It was heavy, made of solid wood and couldn’t have been open more than an inch, but to an experienced, and persistent, cat burglar like Whitty an inch is all it takes.

Our accommodation was in a charming farmhouse, used as a holiday home and separate from the main house. This is Armagnac country, vines stretching out in all directions, the landscape rural and scarcely populated, towns and villages sleepy and quiet. In fact some of them were so sleepy, so utterly lacking in any signs of life that at times we wondered if the human race had disappeared and we were the only ones left. This isn’t particularly unusual in France at this time of year. Many visitor attractions outside of the cities and big tourist attractions will close from October onwards. Cafés and restaurants will drastically reduce their opening hours, to the point where experience had taught us that it is better to take sandwiches and a flask than to assume that we will be able to get a coffee or a light lunch in a small town. On the one hand I love this lack of people, but on the other hand, at times, I find it very frustrating.

As we drove around the region we noticed something strange about the signs for local villages and towns. Many of them had been unscrewed from their post, turned upside down and put back in place.

This is part of a protest movement by young farmers in France, rebelling against a whole raft of EU regulations that they feel are unacceptable and unfair. The signs, denoting a village or a town, have been targeted country-wide, perhaps as many as 40,000 in total. The farmers claim that it is a high-profile and humorous way of raising awareness about the problems they face without causing ordinary people any inconvenience.

Another reason that this house-sit appealed was because it is located not far from the Canal de la Garonne, which we visited on Olivia Rose in 2018. We were missing our boating life and wanted to see a canal again.

Most boats are left empty over the winter months but at the little port in Buzet we stopped to chat to a French man outside his boat. He had just returned from the supermarket and had a mouse trap and a packet of BabyBel mini cheeses in his hand.

‘I have a mouse on my boat,’ he explained. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to get this cheese, or maybe some Roquefort.’

‘I don’t think the mouse will mind,’ I suggested. ‘Although I think you made the right choice. Blue cheese might be too smelly.’

‘That’s what they said at the supermarket. I asked the girl on the till and the manager and they both said BabyBel would be the best thing.’

At this point a passer-by walking their dog joined in the conversation and they began to discuss the merits of which cheese is best for catching mice in earnest. This is so typically, endearingly French: most things in life merit a prolonged discussion and decisions can’t be rushed. We smothered our smiles and said our goodbyes.

A few more days and we shall be returning to Le Shack but this interlude has given us a much needed change of scenery and recharged the batteries. I’ll leave you with two photos that made me smile and hope that they do the same for you.

MJ