The Joys of Owing a Labrador

Warning - do not read if you have a weak stomach.

Some of you know that when we were still in NZ we had a problem with Cassy being constipated. He had eaten some ashes because Wouter had burned some juicy leftovers to prevent them being eaten, but Cassy got them in the end (pardon the pun) which blocked up his plumbing, so to speak. The result was an emergency weekend visit to the vet at Helensville followed by a visit to our local vet which left Cassy knocked out for the day for manual removal, us with a bill for around $400 and Cassy with a sore rear end for a few days. What they removed were sticks, stones, ashes, and other unidentified objects. Goodness knows how he got them down - but where there's a Labrador there's a way - and of course they wouldn't come out the other end without medical assistance.

So when we saw him this morning on the front garden trying to go to the toilet we started wondering if we have to go through the same thing again. But this time it's the opposite - the runs. He has a sore rear end as it's red. Then it must be itching as he scoots across the muddy ground (blast - our first real rain in weeks and this is the day he picks to do that!) ending up with muddy paws full of clods of earth, bottom fur caked with mud and still no apparent relief from the discomfort.

Now for the reason - the other day we were innocently taking a look at the vineyard at the back of our place to see if it had been picked or not as the season is getting on now and we could still see grapes. Aha - all picked but they missed a few bunches (the ones we could see) with the machine. So Cassy has been over there inspecting and harvesting as you can see from the evidence below:

(contains entire grapes)

(photographed as found)

We now know we obviously cannot trust him out of our sight as he loves his fruit and by nature he is a hunter gatherer, just like us, but he does not know when to stop. So he is confined to quarters until further notice and pit stops are on leash until we can fence off that boundary.

Snow in Pyrenees

The following story from BBC confirms the cooler weather we've been having:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7695975.stm

It will remain cool for the next few days, and if you take a look at the story on BBC you can see why. Luckily we had the plumbers checking our central heating today and tomorrow we get oil delivered, then we can start it up and warm our toes.

Meanwhile a lovely Cambieuse has loaned a hot water bottle (ah, bliss) much to my delight, so we'll be nice and toasty until my own one arrives.

Cassy very keen to sleep inside and I can't say I blame him. More stories again soon.

Any which way you turn

It may sound like the title of the next Clint Eastwood movie, but it's not. It's autumn and everywhere you look lovely colours are appearing. But first, many thanks to those of you who sent birthday wishes. That Monday was supposed to have been a gloomy day, so we thought we would leave taking a trip in the car until later in the week. So it turned out to be a low-key day. Pressies included a Larousse Illustrated forWouter and a collection of Jaques Brel's 100 most popular songs for me - but of course we both share these things. As we had been painting and tidying for a few days, we knocked off early and got stuck into the wine, seeing we had a good reason to celebrate! (look carefully below)

To continue - we thought we were missing out on autumn colours elsewhere, as in our garden it is like Mother Nature suddenly turned on a switch and everything started changing colour. Leaves have been falling off some of the trees big time. So we took our promised trip around a route which takes you roughly 20-25km radius of Cambieure. To our surprise we found few autumn colours except for the grape vines. However, we did enjoy a break and Cassy managed to get some play and adventure time in, much to his delight.

We found a place just up the road from us where they are selling pick your own apples, and what a pity to see heaps of apples lying on the groundso we will check it out further on the weekend and pick some to eat now and some will go in the freezer for crumbles and pies over the winter. But we have to make another trip or two around the local villages over the coming weeks to make sure we capture all the autumn colours.

After spending a while gathering up leaves on the driveway, what a shock to see it totally covered again the next morning! We love the colours and only raked up the leaves because we were supposed to have some rain. The rain didn't eventuate but a small breeze did which blew more leaves off the trees!

Thanks to Marlana who confirmed the mystery insect (of a previous posting) is indeed a humming-bird moth. Now we have another item to identify, a tree:

It has lovely white scented flowers which have rosy pink bracts. Once the flowers are finished, they produce a dark blue/black berry which sits inside the bract. Please let us know if you have a name for it.

More pics below of autumn colours in our neighbourhood over the last week or two as we've been travelling around. Snow will fall in the next day or two to 1000-800m so we're pretty sure it will become cooler quickly. Having said that, all the things we've planted in the garden seem to be doing well, and we have already been eating the radishes. Most of the grapes have been harvested as have the old sunflowers and maize.

Introduction to the Village

A few snippets which don't really fit with other blogs but thought you would be interested to read.

Village Celebration:
Last week we were invited to the inauguration of the village primary school for primers. Actually, we turned up the week prior, after being told by our lovely, friendly Maire that it was on 3rd October. So off we trotted thinking we would be in nice time - couldn't see many people and started to feel a bit sorry for the few children still in the playground that not many people had bothered to turn up. It didn't really look like anything official so we walked around the corner to the Maire's office to check the notices, and met Mr le Maire himself, who politely told us it was 10th.

OK, no problem. So 10th we did the same thing, and this time it looked more promising. A few official looking people who would conduct proceedings and Mr le Maire was there to greet everyone. There were about 150 people, which is a fantastic turnout in a village of just over 200 inhabitants.

We met some lovely people and we will make more contact as we are here longer. After a tour of the school, we headed in loose groups (we were in the pelaton) up to the village hall, which was nicely decked out with a spread of goodies (some of the younger children couldn't wait for the official speeches to finish and helped themselves to nibbles) and wine and lots of hand shaking and greetings. Lovely. After the speeches there was a humerous apology for the mix-up about the date, and also an apology for those who didn't receive an invitation..... We came away feeling like we are real Cambieuses.

Phone:
And now a story about our phone. We have been expecting some calls this week and noone called on our home line, only on the cell. Funny, we thought until Wouter's brother emailed saying he was trying to call but couldn't get through. So we did a test - 09 number works fine, 04 number doesn't ring at the phone even though it sounds like it's connecting. Why is that?

We realised that when the telecom technician came to connect the phone line, he told us, once you get the codes for the internet and are connected, change the phone plug so it goes into the livebox (that is, voip - voice over IP). So we did that, thinking both numbers would work. But it only works on the 09 number (of course!) and now we realise that when we spent a few hours at telecom setting it all up [I must add, with millions of things to remember], why the woman asked if we had enough phones - yes, we said, we have two (but little did we know they should not be one system, but two completely separate phones. Another frustration of language barrier, but luckily nothing more serious came out of it except a funny story.

Pole Dancer:
And another story before I forget. A few weeks ago we were out for a walk and Wouter decided to measure a tree - without his trusty tape measure (one already lost so he had to buy another) he had to measure it by putting his arms around it. Then he came up with the line - - "hugging trees is the next best thing to pole dancing". A man of so many talents - this one had completely escaped me. After I stopped laughing and caught my breath back, I made him promise to show me what he knows about pole dancing, but I'm still waiting..... (I'll try to have the camera ready if it ever happens and promise to post it on the blog!)

Bottoms Up:
Lastly, we have taken advantage of an old saying. A friend of ours told us about the Dutch saying 'the five is in the hour'. I'll explain this for non-Dutchies. Telling the time in Dutch is a bit different to in English. We say 4.30, but the Dutch say 5.30 (30 minutes BEFORE 5). So once it's 4.30 in the afternoon it is an acceptable time to have an alcoholic drink. Hence 'the five is in the hour' means let's drink. We have adapted this when we're ready for a break and a glass of wine. We now say - the 5 is in the hour when it's 3.05, 3.15, 4.25, and so on. After all, we are in the south of France and surrounded by vineyards and can enjoy the afternoon sun fully relaxed.

The New House

Most of you will know that we were offline for a couple of weeks (story in itself further down the page) so this is a running commentary of how things have been for the first couple of weeks in the new house.

We had our first visitors late in the first week who promptly highlighted a problem with the toilet. The problem - flushing fills the bowl and then the bowl empties and sort of surges back. Next morning Wouter was outside digging around the inspection holes to see where the problem might be. The first hole showed no obvious problems, neither the second. Coordinating flushing with inspecting proved the problem actually lay between the second hole and the road. So Wouter took some buckets of water and filled the second inspection pit to see how quickly it filled and drained. After filling to the brim with water and not draining away, all of a sudden the water drained. It seems something must have been stuck further along the pipe - we don't really want to know what was stuck, only that it now drains properly and we don't have to call out the 'plombier'.

[2 days later] Spoke too soon! The loo is playing up again which meant Wouter had to figure out where the problem was again - different place this time so we're wondering if it's just the goose neck in the toilet - not too concerned as replacing it would be quite cheap. However, until that happens we'll have to be careful with what goes down there as it doesn't seem to be able to handle too much at once...

There was a sudden cold snap start of October - we were supposed to get some rain, but that was very short lived. However, it has been very windy, which is typical for this part of the region - close to Carcasonne and a sort of east-west wind tunnel over the plains to the coast. We wondered why there were so many trees on the western boundary, and now we know! So they will stay to cut down the blast from the west when we do get it.

On the northern boundary there are lots of leilandis, which we thought we'd seen the last of in NZ, as they were fairly high maintenance there. They cover quite a long boundary and do keep the wind at bay, so we will keep them trim. The leilandis on the eastern side will be replaced with pyrocanthus - the fire thorn - when we get chance. They are a bit like cotone asters in their bright berries at this time of year and make a great hedge. My favourites are the bright orange ones, but we plan to mix the reds, oranges and yellows as they give a nice effect. The only disadvantage is the thorns, so we'll have to watch out when pruning...

In the northern garden Wouter has managed to even out some of the ground which was rotary hoed before we moved in. It's quite a large area and we're trying to decide what is the best thing to do with it. Maybe just a lawn? Anyway, we won't rush into this decision as whatever we do, we need it to be low maintenance.

Wouter made some seed beds in the southern garden to plant some seedlings. The first shoots of radishes are through, and hopefully it's not too cold yet for the others still to make an appearance - I have beetroot, onions and chard (like a sort of silverbeet with red stalks). In the last couple of days we've also planted more yellow and red onions, garlic, shallots - lovely.

Over the next week we plan to get an electrician in to check all is ok. The other person we need is a plumber to see about the central heating - it may be ok but we'd rather not use it until it's been checked over and we know what we're doing with it.

The next person we need fairly quickly is the chimney sweep - Wouter has replaced the worn chord inside the door of the fireplace and cleaned it up ready for use. We also have had some firewood delivered as we both like a fire when it's colder. In fact, we're trying it out tonight to see if there are any obvious problems so we can tell the person who comes to check it out.

Our other immediate need is a settee - we have 2 chairs at the moment until our container from nz - one is a borrowed chair and the other is a garden seat we found here when we moved in. I've sanded it down and painted it - it looks fine and is usable, but neither is comfortable for sitting on for longer periods of time.

Wouter has been designing our new kitchen - using a programme called "SketchUp" by Google - it's a free download, and you can draw and design heaps of things - buildings, gardens, etc. It's really great once you get used to the tools and what you can do with them. The weather has picked up again, so we've been out in the garden trying to finish off some chores which need doing before the next lot of rain arrives and another cold snap. Wouter had a burn off a few days ago which cleared a couple of big piles of weeds, branches and other garden rubbish. Great.

We have finished doing undercoats of paint in the first bedroom which will eventually be ours. It is looking much lighter - heaps different to the previous paper and cupboard doors - there is so much more light in there now.

On Wednesday the guy from Orange (telecom) came to connect our phone and internet and cable tv. The phone now works, but apparently we don't have a decoder to use the tv - thought it was too good to be true. Anyway, now we have to go back to Carcasonne to get the decoder and find out what happened with our code which enables us to use the internet. ..... [After our visit to Telecom, we were sent the codes by courier - once connected, we found a lot of emails from Telecom telling us the courier couldn't find our place - imagine, no internet connection and we are contacted by email...]

Problem with the roof - we had a rain shower yesterday morning and suddenly drips galore from the dining ceiling - reason - when our dish was connected by the delivery people, he installed it on the roof but managed to break one of the female terracotta tiles on the roof - so Wouter had to buy a ladder to get on the roof then he had to find the tile, replace it - in the meantime he broke another 3 tiles as they are so fragile. Hopefully that leak is now fixed. We are learning all the time how to manage French property and how to fix it as well!

There is a sudden surge into autumn. Two weeks ago when we moved in, it was still hot during the day and evenings, now it's much cooler at night, but still warm during the day. The leaves on the trees were still very green, and now quite a few have fallen and there are heaps of colours appearing the garden which we both love:
Cassy has made himself at home and absolutely loves the fig trees - he knows how to slip away when we're not looking and scrump at the 4 trees which are bearing fruit - some dark variety figs which are really tasty - no wonder he likes them!

One last little item for this blog - we found an interesting insect - at least that is what we thought at first. Then we thought that because it was feeding intently on the pineapple sage with a probiscus that it could be a very small humming bird. Next time we saw it, Wouter took lots of photos to see if we could enlarge it in Photoshop and see what was feeding. It moves so fast that it was hard to photograph, but then suddenly we managed to get pics and I saw that it had feelers - out with the bird theory and back in with insect. However, we still don't know what it is, so any feedback would be appreciated - size about 4cm length:
Thanks to all for the well wishes - much appreciated.