Half Winter.

Okay.  I have had enough of The Rotten Little Swine pissing on the floor because it’s a bit wet and a bit dark out there.

I shall now proceed to put his nose into it.   I heard of this solution a long time ago, but couldn’t quite see the point,  and never actually had to.   All of my other dogs pissed in the garden.

But enough is enough.  He seriously doesn’t understand.  And I feel for him, poor little soul.

From now on, every time he pees in the house he is going to get his nose stuffed into it, no matter how many hours ago he actually peed.

One tends to think that if you didn’t actually catch them at it then it is too late, but don’t you believe it.  O’Conner is about to get a nasty lesson  of, No, I am not having this.  Pee still smells the same, even after several hours.

I am really sorry about this.  I love the rotten little horror story half to death, but something has got to give.  I honestly don’t want o rub his nose in pee, but I can’t think of anything else to do.

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The Twenty First Century Hits Lann Georges.

A very nice lady knocked on my door today and asked how long I had lived here.  Its been a long time.  And then she inquired as to whether or not I am a permanent resident.  Yes I am.  My first thought was Brexit, but it wasn’t that.

She then explained about the new recycling bins and gave me a swipe card which you need to open the bins.  Yes, I do recycle but only because I have to put it somewhere.

You are allowed 50 Litres Free on any one occasion.  Any more and you have to pay.  This was getting better by the minute.  Robin Dominic will no longer be able to put off getting rid of his beer bottles for weeks on end because he has something better to do, like drinking beer.  And I won’t have to negotiate my way around them.  Besides, three or four large plastic bags full of beer bottles does absolutely nothing for my OCD.  It isn’t possible to make then look tidy.  I have tried.

Paper and Plastic are another thing, and they don’t help my equilibrium either, although we don’t accumulate quite so much of those.

So do me a favour.  Bring on The Twenty First Century.  There is nothing else even remotely modern around here.  For which I am largely thankful.

 

The Rotten Little Swine.

Three Rubber Door Mats in pieces, all over the garden.  I don’t care about The Mats, only about the pieces that The Rotten Little Swine might have ingested.  And I seriously cannot afford another Vet’s Bill for 460 Euros.  It took me bloody ages to pick up the bits while O’Connor thought that this was another game, and ran off with whatever he could grab.

Something has gone wrong here.  I have inadvertently turned his wrecking into a game.  So now I am back to my fail safe.  If he pukes up, starve him for 24 hours and then feed him soggy bread.

It worked on Romulus who once consumed eight plastic covered Bird Balls.  Rom threw up the lot.  Although it wasn’t much fun counting the plastic covers in amongst the vomit.  Don’t ask me how it works because I don’t know.

Rom’s foray into Rat Poison was a bit more difficult.  He got into a cupboard.  I don’t actually leave Rat Poison lying around.   That cost me 99 Euros, but he did survive, Vitamin E injections not withstanding.  And it was a long time ago, in so far as the cost was concerned.  The Rat Poison is on the top shelf these days.  And No, I don’t have a lot of Rats.  The Cat takes care of those.

So I suppose that O’Connor isn’t alone in this.

O’Connor is now an even longer streak of Pelican Shit, with a Snake Head and beautiful Snake Eyes.  He is fully grown now with lovely markings.  The only Short Haired Dachshund from the entire litter.  So there’s a throw back.

My garden is like a cratered Luna Landscape.  The Septique Tank is already half dug up, should Brussels decide to give me a really hard time over their Directives.  And all is well in The Land of Nod, to where I retire when I don’t want to know.

O’Connor hasn’t found any Badgers yet.  Only one very small Hedgehog, which is no doubt perfectly capable of defending itself.

 

Brexit.

Okay.  I give in.  Although exactly what I am going to say is still a mystery.  It will have to be Off the Cuff.

It has been difficult for me because I love France,  Brittany actually, to be exact.  I don’t know a lot about the rest of France, and my one trip Down South to Vichy Country wasn’t much of a success.  You can still smell the treachery.

Anyhow, this doesn’t have much to do with why I so wanted Brexit For Britain.  I left England 27 years ago because I was almost terminally tired of trying to make a living while coping with the fear of what was going on around me, and watching Britain go down the pan.  It has only got worse since then.  I never go there anymore.  And I still don’t feel obliged to lock my doors here.  Mind you, The Rotten Little Swine can’t half bark.  He sounds like a Rottweiler.  I caught him barking at a poor little Hedgehog at 3am this morning.  So that’s about the limit of my worries of intrusion.  Hedgehog Fleas ain’t funny.

I saw Brexit as a means for Britain to regain her pride, and I still don’t care if this affects me perversely, although I very much doubt that it will.  The Bretons are kind people and France has been vey good to me, which Britain never was.  I am a Celt, as are The Bretons, which might have something to do with it.

Will The EU suffer from the lack of Britain’s financial input?  I don’t care about that either.  France will survive.  France is a law unto itself these days.  And Germany can go whistle.  I can deal with Francs just as well as The Euro.  Germany has far more to worry about.  Germany thought that it could rule The World economically.  They got that wrong as well.  It’s all down hill from now on.  Britain beat them the last time, and will again.  I hope.

No, I don’t know what will happen in 60 odd days.  Personally, I think that The EU will cave in, but I don’t care if it doesn’t.  This ridiculous Back Stop is basically irrelevant.  So save the 39 Billion.  The NHS could certainly do with it.

I want Britain to be a little bit Great again, but I am becoming weary.  If Britain can be beaten by a bunch of home grown Dictators who don’t give a fuck for Democracy then all is lost anyway.  I do hope that it isn’t.

Up Dates.

Charlotte The Pug.

As some of you will remember, after months of agonising, I decided to have Charlotte put down.  At which point the mad, French Artist up the road rescued her from me.

Four weeks later, Marie decided that I wasn’t wrong after all and took Charlotte to The Vet to have her put down.

The Vet decided that Charlotte was worth rescuing, and the last I heard Charlotte was living with The Vet.  Best place for her.  I couldn’t have dreamed that one up.  She was never what you could call ill, just comatosed most of the time, when not stuffing her face and peeing in the house.  So, Long Live Charlotte.

Turmeric and Circumin.

All was going really well, until I went to Carnac to have a proper look at The Stones.  This involved rattling around on a Tourist Train for several hours, which thoroughly put paid to my neck.  I am in agony again and back to creeping around and popping far too many pain killers once more.

The Stones are just Grave Stones, as I have long suspected, albeit impressive.  Some bright sparks have tried to prove otherwise, and failed miserably.  They have tried digging them up, but just found artefacts.  Glass beads and other such items.  No Bones, but apparently the acidic soil in Brittany took care of those.  It was a very long time ago.  BC something or another, like about 6,000 years before.

They now graze Sheep and Goats to keep the grass down, which seems like a good idea to me.  Worth a visit, but beware of that Train.

The Little Swine.

O’Connor is over a year old now, and still a Little Swine.  I sometimes wonder how he has managed to survive this long.  I sometimes wonder how I have managed to survive this long.

He is still a very beautiful Snake Eye and still very sweet.  My God gave him something by which to survive the slings and arrows of his outrageous fortune.

Heart Beat.

I have now watched all of the Eighteen Series of this glorious show.  Such delight that I cannot begin to explain.  Some really good memories, and some regrets.  I do still wish that I had visited other parts of Yorkshire apart from Leeds, although Leeds wasn’t half bad.  You can’t know what you missed if you never saw Mucky Hunslet.  It’s gone now, but it was a Community and the people were kind to a smart arsed Londoner.  Leeds can only be the poorer.

And then there was Belle Isle.  I used to walk up the hill between Wakefield and Leeds and look down on the factory chimneys and the coal mines, all belching smoke, but with a beauty all of their own.  Quite stunning to a twenty year old Londoner who had never seen anything like that, or imagined that a chimney could have it’s own beauty.

Thanks to a friend, I am now watching Where The Heart Is.  Not quite so good, but with a charm of its own.

 

Lease Holders.

Sorry, just letting off steam.

I have owned The FreeHold of a four storie block of very nice flats in Plymouth for nearly fifty years now.  They could only be sold Lease Hold.  The Ground Rent in total is 250 Pounds a year and The Lease is excellent, in which it protects us all.

However, it has been a total pain in the arse for most of that time, although the problems come and go.

It has just kicked off again, albeit the same old same old.  There is always one in any decade that thinks I have just come up The Clyde on a water biscuit.  This one is the ex wife of the last dickhead that I got the better of ten years ago.  I think she’s hoping that I have gone a bit doo lally in the last ten years.  No chance.

I am supposed to pay for everything outside of the building, including the Communal Road, Gardens and Pavement, despite what The Lease says.  Although what makes them think my excellent solicitor would have lumped that on me on 250 Pounds a year remains a mystery.  This is a Private Terrace, by the way.

I do have a very good Managing Agent, again.  The Leasholders got rid of the last one, at which point everything  descended into chaos during which nothing was done, and least of all was my Ground Rent paid.  Not that this was important.  I was never going to get rich on 250 Pounds a year

But it ain’t happening again.  I have a responsibility to these people whether they like it or not.  Noblesse Oblige, or some such nonsense, and I have that in spades, being a hard core Celt.  Celts never did concern themselves much with money.  It’s The Land that is the thing.

The problem seems to be that none of them actually read The Lease before they sign it.  Or perhaps they don’t understand half decent English.  But I understand what “Easement” means, even if they don’t.  It’s in The Dictionary.

Or mayhap they resent some person owning the land on which they live.  So why buy a Lease in the first place when there was no other way in which to buy one of these really lovely flats?

The original Lease was for 132 years, my solicitor knowing what he was doing, with No Increase on Ground Rent during that time.  So as you can all see I am never personally going to benefit from that.  And God knows how many Great Greats I will have when The Leases do finally run out.  Somedebody is going to have some fun with that.

But for a while Eleanor Mitchell has owned one small parcel of land of which she is very proud.  An East End Cockney, Irish, Welsh Celt, and they don’t come tougher than that.

Turmeric and Circumin.

Bad Shoulder.  Weeks, Months, Years even.  And then I read this half arsed article in The Daily Mail.  The answer to all aches and pains, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Not exactly cheap, but it wasn’t going to break the bank.  Five weeks later I was still suffering and still popping pain killers by the score.  Pain killers are not something I like doing, and it was also beginning to get really expensive.  “Phfft”,  I thought,  “But I  might as well finish the bottle.”

I am now into my seventh week and haven’t had even a twinge for the last few days.  The aching shoulder suddenly disappeared.  Is this a miracle?  If so then Thank You, God.  You do come across now and again.

Teeth.

0KAY,  The last of my two front teeth just fell out.  Thank God for that.  It was getting a bit painful.

So now I have to keep my mouth shut all of the time.  Try that one for size.  Not funny when you have got an awful gap

However, this was never going to shut me up.

PS.  I can’t go to the Dentist because I am psychotic about Dentists.

Les Pompiers de Bieuzy. 56.

Went to a Bar B Que at Bieuzy Fire Station last weekend, and met all of my son’s team mates and there wives, husbands and other assorted others.  They were all sober at this point, and so was I.

The old Fire Chief was there with his wife.  Their eldest son is now The Fire Chief and his brother is a Fire Fighter.  It is all very family orientated.  And there are quite a lot of women Fire Fighters as well.

I bailed out at about 4pm because I thought I had consumed more than enough.  My son ran me home in our car, and The Fire Chief picked up Robin Dominic to take him back so he wouldn’t be able to drive home drunk.  God knows who drove him home at 2am, or how drunk the driver might have been.  This bunch are hard core.

Apparently there were a few complaints from near neighbours about the karaoke, but I don’t suppose they complained too vociferously.  Who knows when their own house might catch fire?

They are all quite mad, of course, but I suspect they have to be to do the job.

Heart Beat,

I have just found it.  Oh Joy.  370 odd episodes. Set in the 1960s, It was first shown in 1993 just as I left Britain, and I didn’t know it even existed.

It is a delightful walk down memory lane for me when I was a bit of a hippy and besotted with The Beatles and Folk Songs, among so many other lovely old songs.  These songs are played throughout every episode, although never obtrusively.

The story lines are excellent, lots of young actors who are knocking on a bit now, but still good.  A view of Yorkshire that I never saw, despite being married to a Yorkshire Man, which I now regret, and have done for sometime.  Not seeing The Yorkshire Dales I mean.  Being married wasn’t actually as bad as it sometimes seemed.  But that’s another tale which I almost certainly won’t tell.

So the whole rolling viewing is absolute joy.  Watch it if you haven’t seen it.  And watch it again if you have.