Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day on this side of the Atlantic.  What a nice day I've had!  It started with a Skype Breakfast in Bed with my daughters... they had set their Dad up to bring me breakfast in bed along with the iPad so they could Skype me - how sweet is that?  After a lovely chat & lie-in, with hyper-terriers curled up beside me in non-hyper mode, it was time to haul myself out of bed...

It was a beautiful warm spring day and we decided to walk up to Reillanne market with the hyper-terriers.  There are lots of teeny-tiny flowers starting to appear everywhere - I think we are going to have a very verdant spring here after all the rain we've had, it should make for some nice photos.

After lunch (potato and jalapeno soup YUM, my favourite!) we went up to see the horses and gave them both a good scrub for a photo shoot.  Aero is moulting like mad, Flurry not so much, but it won't be long before he joins in as well.  Sneak preview of the photo shoot :

You'll find out more about this during the week!

Cinnamon had a go at horse-riding.  She had read the book and she knew that she should first introduce herself to the horse :

(by the way this is NOT my gobsmacked face)

Well, actually, it was more like Flurry saying :

HELLO!  YOU'RE VERY SMALL! CAN I EAT YOU?

and yeah, she snapped at him right after this photo.  He'll know not to try eating Small Brown Dog paw again...

Once I put her on his back, she was surprisingly not too petrified.

and I was even able to step away from her

I suspect if I was sitting on Flurry as well she'd be quite comfy, snuggled into me. I don't know that she'll ever match Frances Taylor's BeAnneDuvet, though!

After fun & games with the horses, we came home to find dinner had dried out, but fortunately it hadn't actually reached cremation point yet, so once I chucked a bit of hot water into it, it kind of reconstituted itself - duck cassoulet with lentils (and a glass of white wine..... ahhhh).

The weather has turned a corner and I reckon Spring is just a breath away.  No more excuses, it's time to get my saggy butt back in the saddle.  It WILL happen this week, and keep happening thereafter.

For those who have been waiting with bated breath (all two of you) here is The Gobsmacked Face :

Poor Aero thought I was going to assault him and ducked.  Bless.

(all photos in this post are courtesy of The LSH)

Not so bad, then!

I didn't like to say it - I was embarrassed for her.

But Cookie, despite making great strides recently off-leash, learning to come when called and learning to stay focussed on us, was VERY, VERY naughty.  Twice.

The first time was when I went for a walk in the woods above Reillanne - a familiar spot, one of my favourites.  I kept her on the leash until we got to the top and started to walk along the top of the ridge, then I let her loose and started throwing the ball.  She was good.  She was focussed on the ball and the treats that I gave her in exchange for the ball every time.  Then I got a text from the LSH.  Not an ordinary text, a Viber text, so it meant I had to go through a couple of extra steps to read it on my iPhone.  I took my mind off the dog while I pulled up the text, and WHAM! she was gone.  Not completely disappeared, never to be seen again sort of gone.  No, it was more a WHEE I'm free and I'm going to rampage through the woods, keeping an eye on you all the time but you're not going to catch me sort of gone.

I tried hiding from her, which used to work a treat with our Beardies years ago.  When she eventually found me, crouching behind a bush, she cocked an ear my way Oh there you are and galumphed merrily past me.

I tried feeding Cinnamon treats - jealousy has worked in the past, but not that day.

I tried throwing the ball, literally under her nose.  She couldn't have cared less, didn't even look at it.

I tried sitting down, hoping that she would come close and start sniffing at stuff nearby.  She seemed to feel that my staying still gave her license to roam further afield and completely disappeared into the woods, so deep that I could no longer hear her bell jingling.

At that stage, I thought the best thing to do was turn around and make my way back to the jeep, calling from time to time.  Eventually, she burst out of the trees far, far behind me on the trail and headed off IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.  I called, and she did a 180° turn and tore down the trail towards me, side-stepping neatly as she neared me and running past the proffered treat in my hand.

Eventually, by making a huge fuss of Cinny and stuffing her with treats, I managed to persuade Cookie to come close enough to grab her.  I made a fuss of her, although I wanted to throttle her, and she went back on the leash again.

A couple of days later, the LSH took her to the Watermeadows for a run.  I warned him. He said he'd leave her off anyway.

He unclipped the leash and she was gone like a snot from a sneeze.  The good thing about the Watermeadows, though, is that you can see where she is, most of the time.  She ran enormous loops, keeping the LSH roughly in the middle of her loops, but refused to come anywhere near him, not interested in the ball, not interested in treats.

Being better at throwing than me, he managed to throw a few treats right under her nose and got her attention that way.  He caught her in the end, but the two incidents gave us a fright and is making us rethink whether we'll ever be able to trust her 100%.

I went for a walk in the Watermeadows this morning with Gilla and Poppie.  This time, I reverted to our original policy of tying a long, light cord onto Cookie's harness.

I threw the ball, she tore after it, snatched it from under Poppie's nose and came galumphing past me, with her naughty can't catch me expression on her face.  I could, though.  I grabbed the trailing end of the cord and pulled her up short, and she came straight back to me, all happy and tail-waggy.

And that was the end of it.  We had a lovely walk.  Poppie and Cookie chased the ball and brought it back every time and got loads of treats.  Cinnamon chased moles (unsuccessfully).  They explored by the river and in the woods.  And Cookie kept coming back.

Maybe there's hope for her after all if we give it enough time.

Finally, good news on the Cinnamon front.  The vet rang this morning to say that her lumps are a benign kind of sebaceous gland tumour and are nothing to worry about.  Phew.

And REALLY finally, thanks everyone who voted for me in the ESMA awards - I didn't come anywhere (sniff!) but it was a huge honour just to be nominated.

Maybe I might share the Gobsmacked Face with you if I have enough glasses of wine some night.

How Many Cinnamons?

Sorry, I should have posted this earlier.
She was in six of the seven photos.
I hoped the ever-growing dot in these ones would give it away, and it seemed to work ok, most of you spotted her!

I think most people saw her in the bottom right corner of this one, but maybe not everyone :

and she wasn't in this one :

So well done to Dee, Grey Horse Matters, The Dancing Donkey and sort of well done to Nicola, who suspected me of being much more devious than I actually am.

And by the way, the purple bandage is still, miraculously, on her leg, and she only had to wear the Cone of Shame for one night.

She's in good form and enjoyed her walk in the snow today.

The Patient

The Patient arrived home this evening.

She's feeling a bit sorry for herself

but that didn't stop her enjoying a light supper.

Even Cookie was being nice to her

although she did steal her bed, forcing Cinny to take to the chair.

Unfortunately I found a second lump a couple of days ago, so that had to come off, too, hence the bandaged leg.  It's right on her knee, so she gives a little squeak every time she bends it.

Poor little pet.

How long before she rips that lovely purple bandage off?

Snow

It began yesterday afternoon, just before we took the dogs for a walk.  It was only the very lightest sprinkle - more like mist falling as snow - so we went off to the Watermeadows anyway and walked the dogs.  Then we went to our English friends' house to watch the rugby - Ireland v England.

They had very kindly decorated their house for the match...

and even offered us a flag to wave...

Now I regret not bringing a Tricolour to France with me.

Unfortunately the wrong team won - but enough about rugby, it's too difficult to think about it right now (sob!).

We had both enjoyed a few glasses of wine, so we left Jeepy parked in front of their house, donned our reflective tabards and head torches and walked home.  The snow was still falling, and was doing it quite a bit more seriously at this stage, leaving a good covering on the main road, but it was easy enough to walk in and we made it home in about twenty minutes.

The snow continued to fall all night, and we awoke to this:

I checked the weather forecast over breakfast and learned that we had a Vigilance Orange in our area, with the snow expected to continue throughout the day, followed by a sharp frost tonight.  The LSH decided he'd better go and get Jeepy sooner rather than later, and we also needed some essential food items, so he wrapped up well, donned the trusty reflective jacket and bravely headed out into the elements to pick up the jeep and go to Ceréste to stock up.

While he was slogging through the snow, I fed the dogs and took them out.  I put Cinny's little coat on her, much to her disgust, but she quickly got over her embarrassment and had a blast romping through the snow!

I played with my camera and took a few photos :

Snow-clad weed

Looking up at our house from below the garden

Our house from the field - I turned the flash on to highlight the falling snow

The same shot without the flash

Somebody bounding across the snow!

The summerhouse

The summerhouse again

Now we're going to play a little game... Out of the seven photos above, how many of them contain a Cinnamon?  It's the Small Brown Dog equivalent of Where's Waldo! Answers in the comment section below, please!

After walking back up through the garden, I remembered the Vet's dire warning about having Cinny out in very cold weather, so I figured she'd probably had enough fun anyway and brought her back to the house.  I hadn't had enough yet, though, and Cookie and I went out again, to explore the road towards Villemus.

The main road to Manosque had been ploughed, but was well covered once again.

The snowplough stopped here!

The view of the Alps was a little different today,

...they're there somewhere, I swear!

We walked as far as the little tumbledown shed which I used for Sunday Stills "Barns" a while back.  I tried a few different shots, including sepia and high-contrast monochrome, but this is my favourite :

I felt sorry for Cookie, she would have loved to be off-leash, but with our neighbours' free-ranging cats and chickens, it's too big a risk, so she had to content herself with bounding around at the end of the leash and snuffling in the snow at my side.

I think she had fun, all the same.

I took lots and lots of snow-scene photos, here's some of the best.

In the garden :

 On the walk :

I can't decide if I like this affect or not

Back in Les Granons :

While I was having all this fun, the LSH had retrieved Jeepy and was en route to Ceréste.  The road was pretty bad, it hadn't been cleared even though it's a major thoroughfare, but everyone was driving very slowly and carefully.  He bought our bits and pieces and started to make his way homewards, to find traffic at a standstill on a slightly hilly bit.

There were a lot of trucks stuck, unable to make it up the hill, but insisting on trying anyway, plus a few cars who couldn't make it either.  He waited his turn, and cruised past them easily with 4WD engaged.  Then it turned out that the Manosque road was closed - there had been an accident on the high part near Montfuron, and the Gendarmes were diverting everyone away.  He had to roll down the window and produce his best French accent to tell the Gendarme that he was just going to Les Granons, 100 metres up the road.

He eventually stomped through the door, two hours after leaving home, laden down with shopping bags, to be greeted with

    "Is this a bad time to tell you we're out of firelighters?"

Doggy Tales

Last year in Poppy's house

Our old friend Poppy has come to stay with us for a week.

Cookie greeted her with a most unfriendly snarl, but within minutes they were playing rough and tumble around the house like they'd never been apart, while Cinnamon watched from a distance and gave grown-up growly warnings every so often : "Someone's going to get hurt"  "It'll end in tears"  "Don't come crying to me when you get hurt"



Poppy settled in quickly, even though I don't think she's ever been here before.  She slept in Cookie & Cinny's little bedroom last night and came for a 5km walk with us in the woods this morning, which she thoroughly enjoyed.  She loves the big picture window, and when she wasn't wrestling with Cookie today, she sat and looked out at the wolrd going by.  Evenings are sprawl-on-the-couch-watching-telly time...
although she does tend to hog the TV remote!


Cinnamon had her vet appointment this afternoon.  It's not awful news but it's not great news either.

On full alert in the waiting room

First of all, there's the little lump on her side.

It's grown a bit since I first noticed it in early December.  I was hoping it was something trivial like a blocked pore, but unfortunately the Vet thinks it's some sort of tumour.  The only thing to do is to remove it, do a biopsy to see what it is and then see what course of treatment is best (hopefully no treatment!)  She's booked in for Feb 14th - Valentine's day - and he will scale her teeth while she is anaesthetised too.

What I found worrying, though, was what he had to say about her heart murmur.  I've been a bit concerned about her because she's been wheezing and coughing every so often in the evenings.  When the heart isn't functioning properly, the lungs also don't work efficiently and can fill up with fluid, causing wheezing and a chronic cough - I was worried that what we were seeing was an indication that her heart was getting weaker.

I came away reassured on that front - he said the sort of wheezing and coughing we're looking out for is something that happens every day and goes on for ages - so we're definitely not there yet, and if/when we get there, we can adjust her medication to help.  Well, that much was good.

The rest of what he had to say was not so good.  He advised me to take the following precautions with her :

No big long hikes - five hours was the number he picked (does that mean 4.5 hours is ok?)

Don't take her hiking in the mountains - he specifically mentioned Mont Ventoux, but also said nothing over 2,000 metres

Be very careful with her in the summer, keep her indoors and cool, and only exercise her early in the morning or late in the evening when it's cool

In the winter, don't exercise her when it's very cold (she's kinda told us that herself, actually!)

Don't let her get hyper and excited - he told me a cautionary tale of a dog with a similar heart murmur who died after playing happily in its owners garden for the afternoon.

Which begs the question - is it better to mind her carefully and restrict what she does or should we allow her to enjoy a full, active life and die a little younger?

I think I could not, with a clear conscience, take her on long treks with the horses, which is something we've been hoping to do.  This is quite a blow - of the two dogs we have, she is the one who I know will follow faithfully beside us, no matter what we meet, whereas there is a good chance that Cookie will someday disappear in the wake of a cat/rabbit/goat/sheep on the side of a mountain.

We are going to have to rethink our plans and shape our treks to suit our dogs as well as our horses.