What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?

It occurred to me the other day that our philosophy at the moment was admirably summed up by William Henry Davies (1871-1940) in his well-known poem Leisure.

What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs and stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass, where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight, streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance, and watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.

Addendum by me
... and even if the weather's storming, the cows will help with Global Warming!

Meanwhile, we have had what can only be described as an interesting week.

First, Clare’s car became quite technical with enough smoke coming out of the bonnet to raise global temperatures by at least a couple of degrees and making some very expensive noises. We thought that the alternator was shot but, after Jan had a look at it, we discovered that the oil filter housing was damaged and leaking, and it was the oil leaking onto the exhaust outlet that was causing the smoke. Jan managed to get the oil filter casing off (how he did when Norauto couldn't is beyond me) and we are now trying to source a replacement, which should be quite straightforward to fit. Jan has said that he will do it if I have any difficulty. I don't think I shall be asking Norauto to do anything else for me! We went up to Montluçon on Saturday to visit the Opel dealer, but their parts department was closed for the weekend. Monday is Bastille Day, so it will be Tuesday before we can try again. That reminds me - big celebrations and firework display in the village tonight (Sunday). Should be fun.

Then my PC went technical – motherboard fried as a result of drawing too much power through the PSU and overheating the entire system – I have agreed with the repairer replacement specs which will actually give me a stronger machine, with more upgrade potential. The parts should arrive in a week or so, and then it’s just a couple of days to assemble and test. I managed to find a hardware guru who has a shop in Montluçon, but lives only five minutes from us. He is a real find - committed and very capable, reasonably priced and, as Harry Enfield's Tim, Nice but Dim would have it, a "bloody nice bloke". I was interested that he described the motherboard as grilled, whereas we would use the word fried. Superior gastronomics, I suppose.

To cap it all, Hobie stopped eating at the beginning of the week and became very lethargic to the point that we had to carry him outside to do his business. We took him to the vet who said it was very advanced arthritis in the area of his hips. It is so bad, given also his blindness and now deafness, that when we took him to the vet on Tuesday, he wouldn’t go beyond saying we could try to ease his pain but with no guarantee. He gave him a cortisone injection and told us to bring him back on Wednesday. Happily the injection worked wonders, and Hobie was very soon mobile and eating again. He is now in the middle of a ten days’ supply of steroid tablets and we have to take him back next Friday for reassessment. Depending on how it goes, we will hopefully be able to cut back to steroid tablets every other day instead of every day. If the tablets don’t give him enough relief then we shall have no option other than to finally release him from his pain. Either way, the vet doesn’t expect Hobie to be helped by the tablets for more than a few months. I am concerned about his quality of life, or lack of. I honestly can't remember when I last saw him wag his tail!

On the bright side, Tania is in the early stages of changing from a renter of property to an owner of property. She is negotiating a mortgage for the purchase of a nice apartment on the outskirts of Paris. My little girl's all growed up!

And the weather has been reasonably good to us for most of the week, too.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine