Insurance, lost keys, skiing accident, more insurance and more about dogs.

As Ulysse is a good bit younger than Flash and eligible for vet's fees insurance, we had decided to set that up at the same time we registered ourselves as his new owners in the national registry. The local agency for the company we used is in St Eloy-les-Mines, and their man visits this area every Friday to do business locally. He called in on Friday last to deliver the insurance papers (and collect a cheque for the premium) and, whilst talking, we thought it a good idea to have him quote for the other insurances we have — house and contents, two cars and health top-up. He will come next Friday for that, and we shall see what he has to say for himself. Communication is relatively easy, as his level of English and my level of French are pretty similar.

Andy arrived safe and well on Sunday evening, along with Jordan, Ryan and Grandma. There was still plenty of snow about and, as you can see from this image taken on Sunday morning, it was frozen hard.

The drive down was relatively uneventful — aided by the TomTom satnav which, of course, knows the way right to the door, and the Télépéage device that means no fumbling for money or cards at the Autoroute tolls. They were all fairly tired when they arrived, so it was a relatively early night all round.

Andy and his boys had come down for a skiing trip, in addition to which Wednesday was Ryan's tenth birthday, so Andy wanted to do something special for him. Grandma was keen to come for another visit for a few weeks, and saved a good amount by hitching a ride with Andy and the boys.

Monday was planned to be a relaxing day after the long drive down. Mid-afternoon we all took Flash and Podge to what we believe is their favourite walking place (we like it, Ulysse gets a car ride and Flash is OK with it, so that'll do), the viaduct at la Celette. We cross the viaduct and there is a very nice area with lanes where we can safely walk them off their leads.


Most of the roads were clear by this time, but the lane over the viaduct and beyond was covered in snow about 10cm (4") deep. Driving through it was OK as under the snow the lanes are very rough and uneven. Andy, being a southern softie and not like us mountain folk, was (judging by his car's rate of progress) a little concerned about the driving conditions, but we didn't let that slow us down too much. On arriving at our destination, we needed to be quite choosy where we parked the cars, as getting out again could have been a challenge and, as we were parking them, a couple of quad bikes passed us, not so much driving, as what Paul Simon would describe as slip sliding away!

The dogs had a nice walk - Ulysse found a couple of rabbit holes high up in a bank and decided to dig in to investigate, and Andy and his boys played snowballs. When we came to move off, we were having a bit of an interesting time of it, and Andy helfully gave us a helping push. We moved a few yards up the lane and waited to see if he would also appreciate some help. It seemed not. Pushing wouldn't have helped. What was needed was help in finding his car keys which, it seemed, had dropped out of his pocket somewhere in the fracas. In ten centimetres of snow. Snow on which people and dogs had been running around and playing.


After about an hour of fruitless searching, we decided it would be a good idea to get Grandma back home into the warm, and for Andy to call International Rescue, or whomever he was registered with, for necessary help. I bravely volunteered to take Grandma back, leaving the rest in the cold and, once I had her home, returned to the scene of the grime as fast as my little Astra would carry me.

As I was crossing the viaduct, I suddenly saw flashing lights. Was this my Damascan road moment? No, it was Andy signalling that he had, indeed, found his car keys and was again mobile. They all went on to the lower lane to take a photograph similar to the one above. I drove to the top of the lane, turned, and went home. I won.


Early on Tuesday Andy and the boys left us to go skiing. The next thing we heard was a call from Andy on Wednesday to say that Jordan had suffered a mishap on the slopes. Something about his body and legs having different ideas of where they should be going, which resulted in the poor lad breaking his leg and needing to be rushed to hospital. Fortunately, if there can be a fortunately under these circumstances, the nature of the fractures was such that re-setting and plastering was enough - there was no need for pinning or any surgical intervention.


Andy had arranged travel insurance with winter sports extension before leaving UK. Having spoken with the company, he is happy that all the costs incurred in France related to Jordan's injury will be covered. Clearly, a very sensible precaution.

By mid evening it was apparent that Jordan wasn't about to be released that day, and Andy called to see if we could collect Ryan and bring him back. Clare had anticipated this and had taken no wine that evening. I, by contrast, was well into my second glass by then.

I bravely stayed home in the warm with the dogs (are you beginning to see a pattern here), whilst Clare and Grandma drove to Clermont-Ferrand to collect Ryan, returning about half past midnight. Ryan was understandably upset - his brother was in hospital with a broken leg and probably high on morphine, his father was staying with his brother, whilst he had to come back with Auntie Clare and Grandma and face the dreaded Uncle Keith - AND IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HIS BLOODY BIRTHDAY!

Jordan was released from hospital the following afternoon, once they were able to control his pain with tablets, and was back with us for Thursday evening. Andy and the boys left for the UK, as planned, on Friday morning and got home without further incident (apart from an initial inability to locate the car keys again and the télépéage device).

Before they came, we were a little concerned how the dogs would cope - Flash being weak, frail and a bit of an emotional mess (although the anti-depressants seem to be doing their work), and Ulysse having no experience of children. We needn't have worried. The boys were very good at leaving the dogs alone, although Ulysse did want to spend much of his time on their laps! He was quite relaxed about the whole thing.

In the meantime, the snow has ended, it has all melted and we are back to soggy. Temperatures are climbing, although there is still some more winter to come - the forecast for the next couple of weeks has lots of temperatures with minus signs before the numbers.

On the same basis as getting back onto a horse after one has fallen off, we went back on Thursday to the lane where Andy lost his keys, and gave the dogs a good walk. Driving back over the viaduct, we saw a man sat in the field, watching two dogs playing. We recognised the man as Giles, a fellow attendee of the Thursday evening dance classes (currently on a break to coincide with school holidays) with his puppy and the dog of another friend. We stopped off and let our dogs play with his, and spent a very pleasant hour or so in his company, including a visit to his house where he showed us the excellent renovation work he is doing.

When we got home, we were treated to a spectacular sunset!


Tania is on her way down as I am writing this, looking forward to a couple of days skiing. She is bringing her dogs with her, and we anticipate a few interesting days as the four of them jostle for position. More about that next week.

Meantime, have a good week.

À la prochaine

This week it is mostly about Flash

First things first. I am delighted to say that my intestinal cancer test came back negative, so my efforts with the spatula were not in vain!

I had been told before we acquired Ulysse that he loves his car rides. I am beginning to realise just how much he does. I call this photograph Driving Miss Daisy.


We went to Rik's house on Monday to try to help with some computer and networking issues he was having. We took both dogs with us and introduced Flash and Ulysse to Rik's dogs, an elderly Bernese named Lisa and a young Spaniel called Duur (I think that's how it is spelt, but could be wrong). Flash having recently started on heart tablets, he soon found that he and Lisa had something in common - no frantic activity. Ulysse and Duur also had something in common, although it was the exact opposite to what Flash and Lisa shared, as this video clip will show:

Quite active dogs, both of them.

We noticed on Tuesday evening that Flash seemed out of sorts and, feeling around, noticed that his heartbeat was very rapid. On Wednesday morning we took him to see the vet, who did a few tests and noticed that, although his heartbeat was strong and very rapid (160bpm she said), his femoral pulse was weak and thready. She then took an x-ray image of his heart, which she discussed in detail with a senior colleague.


They said more tests were needed, but they had neither the equipment nor the expertise to be able to do them, so referred us to a vet in Clermont-Ferrand, who is a cardiac specialist. An appointment was made for 5:30pm on Friday - the soonest he could offer.

On Friday, it decided to snow. Stand by for an image from the back of the house and a gratuitous image of Ulysse in the snow.



It was still snowing lightly just after 4pm, when we had to leave for Clermont-Ferrand. The route to Clermont is about ten percent Autoroute, eighty percent relatively well used roads and ten percent what the maps describe as other roads. As you can probably imagine, we were a little concerned about ten percent of the trip, and not the ten percent that is Autoroute!

As it turns out, the drive down was not bad - here is a section of the eighty percent:


We arrived at the vet's office at about 5:15pm, in plenty of time for our appointment. Ulysse decided that he wanted to play with another dog in the waiting room, and became rather precious when we wouldn't let him. Well - the other dog in question was wearing a load of bandages and a lampshade, for goodness' sake! We decided Ulysse would be better off in the car, where he could sleep for the half hour or so that we would be with the vet.

That was the plan.

It seems the vet had an emergency to deal with, as a result of which we didn't get to see him until well after half past six. By that time Ulysse had been alone in the car for over an hour. Flash knew something was going on and refused to walk into the consulting room. He had to be carried.

The vet started by giving Flash an ultrasonic scan - lots of them, with stuff going on in between. Here are a couple of the pictures:


Here, one side of his heart is clearly beetling along at 268 beats per minute - far too fast

and the other side seems to be poodling along at 53 beats per minute. The words out of sync would not seem to be inappropriate.

He then decided to do an ECG to be sure of the electrical activity going on, but was using a new piece of kit, for which he couldn't find the instructions, and which did not seem to do what he wanted it to do. Flash was hating all this - a strange man first pressing hard on his side with the ultrasound scanner then clipping wires onto him and holding him still.

We eventually had some good traces, of which a brief extract is below, which confirmed that poor old Flash is suffering from atrial fibrillation.


According to the vet, a human with these symptoms would have a bit of defibrillation followed by a pacemaker and drugs. What is available to Flash is the drugs.

The vet gave us a prescription that he said had to be fulfilled at a pharmacy, not a vet's surgery, he also gave us a couple of reports, the traces and ultrasound images and told us to go back to our usual vet on Saturday morning (which we had been planning to do anyway). He said he would call our vet to explain everything.

We left his office just before 8pm. Ulysse had been in the car for more than two and a half hours. When we got to the car, he awoke, stretched, wagged what would have been his tail had he not been relieved of it as a pup, and jumped out to greet us. No mess, no damage, no nothing. In fairness though, after relieving himself on the vet's lawn, he did seem a little reluctant to get back in the car.

To any difficulties you may imagine we had on the drive down, you could now add darkness, fog and sub-zero temperatures. Not the best drive home we have ever had, but we made it.

One of the effects of the imbalance of his heart is that the flow of blood to his back end is impaired which results, amongst other things, in a reduction of power in the back legs. This explains why, for some weeks, Flash has needed help getting into the back of the car. During Friday night Flash stood up for some reason; his back legs gave out under him, and he evacuated his bladder.

We took the dogs to our normal vet on Saturday morning. When we got out of the car, Flash's back legs slipped on ice and gave out under him, down went Flash and out came the contents of his bladder. Flash is a timid soul at the best of times, and that kind of episode scares him silly. I had to carry him into the vet's office. Once in there, we looked out for Elise, who has been looking after Flash and knows his history. We couldn't see her, but she may have been coming in later or busy in one of the side rooms.

Whilst we were waiting, a phone call came in - as it turns out, from Dr Planeix, the vet in Clermont - and we heard the receptionist tell him that Elise was off sick. We eventually saw the senior vet whom Elise had consulted about the x-ray, and who had taken the call from Dr Planeix. He explained pretty much what Dr Planeix had explained the previous evening, and stressed that we should get the prescription made up straight away, and start Flash on one tablet each morning and a half tablet each evening.

The pharmacy we use in Pionsat made up the prescription and we now have the tablets. They are digitalis, which he has to take in concert with the heart tablets we were given last week. Flash now has to take four lots of pills, one of them twice per day. He doesn't like it, but will take them when suitably disguised. This is his regime. Left to right, digitalis, heart tablets, arthritis tablets and anti-depressants.

The digitalis seemed to have an immediate effect, noticeably reducing the speed of his heart. We shall see how well they do over time - we have to get Flash back to the vet on Tuesday for a follow up.

Now, if only we can get him to eat a little more - I would like to get him back to 25Kg, which he had been for a long time - at the moment he is 22.3Kg and slowly losing.


Spare a thought for the poor old chap.

The back garden is still four to six inches deep in snow. When Ulysse runs around in it he has to bound like a polecat to clear it - most of his legs are lost in the snow.

Visitors arriving today; Andy and his boys for a week, Grandma until she has had enough of our frenetic lifestyle.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

Roll on spring

... we might have something to talk about.

This has not been a week that lends itself to a lot of analysis. In other words, nothing much happened!

We had a couple of short periods of snow, although nothing to speak of when compared with what much of the UK had. It is interesting to see how many of the people who apparently welcomed the snow initially are now fed up with it and want to get back to normal. That will be the British five-day syndrome. Any unbroken period of five days without a change in weather seems to be more than people are able or willing to tolerate without moaning. Whether it is five days' continuous rain, winds, snow, low temperatures, high temperatures or sun, the boredom threshold seems to be five days. Funnily enough, when on holiday, especially abroad, the rule is suspended for sunshine.

One of the things we can still moan about on holiday is the exchange rate. For those coming into Euroland, the exchange rate hit a new low in January. Then, if you bought Euros in a travel agency, the Post Office or a bank, you would have been very lucky indeed, after commissions etc., to receive anything like 100 € for each £100 exchanged. Things are looking a bit better now, I'm happy to say. When the official rate was down to 1.05 or thereabouts, those of us who regularly use Foreign Exchange companies (which should be everyone who lives in Euroland and is paid in Sterling) would have been very lucky to get 103 € for each £100 exchanged. As at this weekend, the official rate is a little over 1.14, which means we should get about 112 € for each £100 exchanged. Two and a half years ago we were getting 146 € for each £100 exchanged.

I still ask myself the same question. If the Darling/Brown pair have it so right, are so clever at what they are doing to get Britain out of the slump; if their policies are so envied by the rest of the world and even likely to be copied by them; if Britain is, uniquely, so well prepared to ride the economic storm - why is the pound so weak against almost all other currencies, including those of countries like the US and Japan, whose economies are said by the British government to be so much weaker?

I found out this week that my attempt to register for auto-entrepreneur (self-employed) status failed at the first attempt. I was aware that some of what I am trying to register is classed as professions libérales, the effect of which is that the contributions, as far as pension goes, are payable to a different organisation to that to which they would be paid were it classed as commercial services. What I didn't appreciate, is that the said organisation had not, at the time of my application, signed up to the régime. I and thousands of others are in limbo. We cannot legally start our activities until registered, but we cannot register. Many people (not we) had invested a lot of time and money into getting their businesses ready to start.

I was told by my adviser at the Chamber of Commerce that I should reapply through a different web site - the form is the same, but it will go to the right people. Whether he right people are now signed up to the régime I have not yet ascertained. The current statement on lautoentrepreneur.fr is:

"Aujourd'hui, le statut d'auto-entrepreneur n'est pas ouvert aux professions libérales sauf celles relevant du Régime Social des Indépendants pour leur assurance vieillesse. Toutefois, un texte est actuellement en discussion au Parlement visant à ouvrir en février 2009 ce statut aux professions libérales relevant de la Caisse Interprofessionnelle de Prévoyance et d'Assurance Vieillesse (CIPAV)."

This translates as

The status of self-employed is not currently available to the professions except those falling under RSI for their old-age insurance. However, a bill is currently under discussion in Parliament to open this status to professions covered by CIPAV in February 2009.

Sounds hopeful, doesn't it?

A friend called around to see us on Thursday. She had come to meet up with Clare and they went off for French class. Whilst she was here, I had noticed that she was looking rather interestedly through the back door, but thought nothing of it as we have a varied bird population very close to the house, as well as visiting cats, the occasional rodent and the odd alleged Barn Owl.

She suddenly announced that she was watching a Buzzard. Nothing surprising there; we can often see them wheeling above the field. Clare went over to the door for a look and apparently frightened off an Buzzard that had apparently been sat on the balustrade on the side of the terrace, less then five metres from the door! I, of course, didn't see it - it had flown off before I could get into a position from where it would be visible to me.

We remain vigilant. I shall try to photograph it, if it comes again.

Speaking of photographs of birds of prey (did you notice the smooth transition?), judging of the 2008 Hawk Conservancy Trust Photographic competition finished in the week and the results were published here. It was a good competition, yielding some excellent photographs.

I think about the only other thing I have to mention is poor Ulysse suffered what appeared to be a fit on Friday evening. To my mind, it looked like a mild epileptic seizure with no after-effects. This breed is genetically predisposed to epilepsy and we shall need to get him checked out at the vets if he has another one. There are horror stories on the web from people whose dogs suffer repeated fits, although between episodes they seem to be well and happy - as, indeed, do their dogs.

We are looking at ways of celebrating my 60th in June. We had been hoping that Adam and Marie could come over from Florida, but that isn't going to be possible. We have been looking at the cost involved of getting ourselves across to Florida for a week. The air fares are not too bad (although it is galling to see a nett fare of £310 London/Orlando return, of which £215 is taxes and charges) but, by the time you add on the cost of getting to London from here, and accommodation, travel and expenses in Florida, it is just not doable. One possibility is a week in Spain - we can take the dogs with us in the car - Flash is quite a good traveller, and Ulysse, typical of his breed, loves it.

In the meantime, we are expecting visitors next weekend and the weekend after. I have already mentioned that Clare's brother Andy will arrive next Sunday with his boys and Grandma, who will stay with us until she has had enough of our hectic lifestyle. Tania will be coming the following weekend. It seems we are a handy staging point for sking, being only an hour or so from Mont Dore and Superbesse. No matter, we like to se these folk.

Have a good week.

À la prochaine

A few more hats

For some reason, when this winter season came on, our central heating timer decided not to restart. Not a serious problem, as we don't use it much and, on the rare occasions it was wanted, we can override on each radiator. It did mean though, that there would be no warmth downstairs until the fire was lit and producing decent heat. Not a worry to me, as I start each day in the second floor study, where the heat generated by three or four PCs takes the edge off the cold, in addition to which all the heat is trapped up there and it is seldom cold. At the time of writing this, the outside temperature is 10.8°C and, without any heating, inside the study is 22.9°C!

Nonetheless, we do need to be able to have the heating on programme, as not all of our visitors are as accustomed to lower temperatures as are we. Examination of the control unit (pictured) showed that a splined rod that engages with the main controlling electronic thing inside (I want to call it a potentiometer, but that's probably more because it's a word I know, than because that's what it is) doesn't. The chances of finding a replacement component for a unit like this are, I would venture, somewhat remote.


So I ended up doing a search for a replacement, and found a supplier in France whose web site showed a picture and details of the exact model, with a note that it has been superseded. This I would normally take to mean that there is limited support or limited availability. In fact, they sent the model that had superseded it!


It has to be said, in the interests of fairness, that it is the same width as its predecessor. It is less tall, and the fixing holes in the backplate don't match up. Its connecting block is on the opposite side to that on the older model and somewhat smaller. It was, therefore, not a simple replacement, but, in hardware terms, a restart. I clearly needed an electrician's hat for that job.

However, it is in and working, and we can now control the radiators as we could before. In fact there is a modicum of added functionality which, like much of the functionality of the old unit, we shall probably never use. A hundred and twenty five quid well spent!

Whilst taking Ulysse


for a walk


a few days ago, we came across a lot of economic activity in the area of forest management. The French use the word exploitation which, whilst accurate, does have unpleasant connotations when rendered in English.

What they are doing is managing the pine forests for constructional/manufacturing timber. The first evidence is, as one would expect, aural. Put bluntly, it isn't a job that can be done quietly. The trees have to be felled, cut, and transported


to one of a significant number of stacking points close to the road, for onward transport to where they will be processed.


Walking past these piles of cut trees is very pleasant - there is, as one would expect, a strong smell of pine resin.

All of which serves to remind me that I have to decide what to do with our larger trees - whether I need to do some lopping now, or whether I should leave them to grow naturally, removing only dead wood. Leave that one with me for a while. I don't yet have a tree surgeon's hat.

You may recall that, some weeks ago, I remarked that Clare had seen a Barn Owl on our terrace but that, each time I joined her to see it, it had flown away. On Monday, Clare told me that there was a Buzzard on our electricity cable, and that she could see it from the window half way down the stairs.

I grabbed my camera, trotted down the stairs to find that it had just flown away. At this point I begin to wonder ...

However, on Wednesday, she called again, and I turned up with my pocket camera, expecting nothing, but


it was true after all. I thought I could get a better picture through the open window, but the bird was obviously startled by the window opening, albeit as gently as I could manage, and it flew off.

Maybe next time.

Back with my other hats on, the Trust site is progressing well - the updates of vulture movements now take place twice daily; the build of the Réseau site is going very slowly, as is most of my own work. My application for self-employed status is still in the same state - the powers that be have said that it should be possible to do something before the end of February. My TESOL study is struggling to find time and impetus to keep going, although I am making every effort to keep it on track, and my violin hasn't come out of its case since before Christmas.

Maybe I need a time management hat!

Have a good week.

À la prochaine