Vegetables, dogs, decorating and travel plans.

Three varieties of potatoes (Rosabelle, Mona Lisa and Bleu d'Auvergne) edged with french beans run up a flagpole of yellow courgettes. All destined for the pot, and all from our garden and, as Jimmy Cricket said, "There's more". See Clare's occasional garden blog for the more that there most clearly is.

Hobie is just about hanging on in there. The weather has been warm and humid for most of the week, which seems to help him. We have noticed that he appears to suffer a little when the temperature drops, so I am not looking forward to the day summer ends.

Tania called us last weekend to let us know that she had seen a small dog sitting outside her club for well over three hours one night and, on at least one occasion, it had wandered into the road and almost been run over. Being the kind soul she is, she took it home with her and set about finding its owner. Shortly after she had contacted the Société Central Canine they called her back to let her know that the owner had reported the dog as missing.

Unfortunately for Tania, she had become quite attached to the dog, whom she had provisionally named Pompidou, for reasons that are far too complex to discuss here, and she was a little upset at having to give him back. Here he is with Tinkerbell (Tania's Chihuahua which, incidentally, she had purchased and named Tinkerbell some months before Paris Hilton acquired her Tinkerbell - so who copied whom?).


Following this experience, I think it will not be too long before Tania acquires a second dog, albeit possibly one smaller than Pompidou (real name Ugo). What sort of name is Ugo for a dog? It's almost as silly as the name Flash had when he came to us. When we first rescued them, eleven years ago, we kept Hobie's name, as it seemed right for a Labrador - even though just about everyone wants to call him Toby (he doesn't mind - he's deaf), but a Greyhound called Spud? I ask you!

Tania is very close to completing the purchase of her apartment on the outskirts of Paris - not in the hallowed district of Neuilly, where she lives now and where Nicolas Sarkozy bought a property not long before being elevated to the Presidency, but just across the river in what seems to be an OK area, and the apartment itself looks very nice indeed. Clare will be travelling to Paris tomorrow to spend a few days helping Tania with her preparations for the move and the two of them will be redecorating the apartment. It is, apparently, in good decorative order, but the colours are not to Tania's taste. Left to me, I would paint everything magnolia. I like magnolia. It reminds me of Waitrose Clotted Cream ice cream which, if not the original ambrosia of the gods, is a bloody close contender!

We are finalising our outline travel plans for our trip to the UK in October. We shall arrive in Folkestone during the evening of 2nd October and overnight there, before going on to Welsh Wales for a family wedding where we shall be until the morning of Sunday 5th October. From there we shall travel to Plymouth to see daughter Miranda and husband Dave, staying until Monday morning. We shall then be in England until our return home on Saturday 11th October. We haven't yet worked out our full itinerary for the week, as there are a number of people we shall wish to see and we shall aim to make steady eastward progress during the week. We know that we shall need to spend one full day in the Andover area (currently looking like Thursday 9th) and some time in the Reading area (probably Friday 10th) from where we shall leave for Folkestone on Saturday.

That apart - not too much happening here.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine