Salut tout le monde. This is my 29th entry – apt given that it is my first since turning 29. Yes, that’s right, Anna: 29, not 30… I haven’t begun 30 therapy yet, but I am so far coping ok with vingt-neuf. Still in my prime (well, it’s a prime number at least). Not too much going on out here at the moment… feels like I say that every time I do an entry. Our lives aren’t really boring, honest!
Sooooo…. since the last entry, it has been business as usual: Matt enduring runs of bad luck at online poker, interspersed with occasional fruitful games – just enough to keep him well and truly hooked, and me acquiring blistered fingers from endless repetitions of finger picking songs on the acoustic. The weather has been mostly great out here for several weeks now – around 12 degrees, with occasional sunny spells and not too much rain. Well, that has been the Dordogne anyway – as you may have read on the BBC news site, a truly horrific storm, named Xynthia, raged through Western Europe on Sunday, battering France’s Atlantic coast and killing over 50 people. Horrible stuff. Several of the worst-affected “departements” are just north of us – we were truly lucky to get nothing more than a bit of rain from it. It is due to get a bit colder here over the next few days – down to around 8 degrees and back into the minuses at night, but at least we have clear skies and sun.
Today, we have begun a week of temporary dog-ownership: Sharon has headed back to the UK for business, returning this coming Friday, so we are watching over Oscar, who is still fairly morose at the moment, pining for his mother. He is languishing over at Sharon’s, having spurned both our company and the sunshine in favour of a good sulk indoors. We did get him out for a nice walk this morning and he enjoyed that lot, so we will take him out again in a bit and see if he feels like sulking at ours afterwards. Poor mite.
So, that explains half of the bizarre title for this entry. The other half? Well, I have been pining as well recently: I miss cat ownership! Those of you reading who have met, or know of, our last (adopted) cat, Koshka, may find this hard to believe, given the 5-year long Cold War of a relationship we had, but I did still love her – well, when she wasn’t pooing/peeing/vomiting on the floor or howling for attention for hours on end. But it isn’t a Russian Blue I am pining for – we met two of the most, affectionate, funny, bizarre, and charming cats while in London. Our ex-neighbour’s lodger, Ludwig is the proud owner of Mista and Sista, two Devon Rex cats. A very unique breed, who clearly aren’t wired right in the head, but who could steal the heart of even the coldest of cat-haters.
Usually, when the urge to own a pet seizes me and I run it by Matt, he is obliged to point out a few practicalities – eg, “yes, I know you’d like an iguana, but they grow to be 6 feet long and require their own room”, so I was momentarily taken aback when he had no objections to my plea for a couple of Rex kittens. Since then, I have been scouring the internet – so far, fruitlessly. There are a few breeders out here, but as we have mentioned before, France still doesn’t really understand the internet, so finding information online is quite a challenge. The one contact I have made was a clearly insane woman somewhere outside of Toulouse, who I think has decided I am unworthy to receive any of her “babies” – not that she is due to have any before August anyway. Impatient, but undaunted, I shall keep looking! Sharon is a believer in the idea that, if you want something, you just need to visualise it, and it will happen – “thought manifestation” – well, I am going to manifest 2 cute Devon Rex kittens one way or another! Watch this space….