Strange "goings on" at Le Tardis

Ok, so I am now beginning to believe in this carbon footprint stuff. Granted the weather in England has been effective S@*t  of late, and has tampered with, or utterly cancelled our favourite shows(& training) and, save to say, we have been forced to get used to being wet and cold, even if its technically half way through the year !!….We have to face it, 2012 was a washout,and 2013 isn't so far doing much better, but good old reliable “Belle France” now that’s a different story…..or WAS.

Having purchased Le Tardis in 2004,and having spent frequent, regularly timed breaks over here during the last nine years, you KNOW what you are going to get, hot, sometimes too hot,(there I said it!!)sunny Springs, leading to blisteringly hot Summers and Autumns. Virtually six months of solid heat. Or so I thought.

Imagine my horror, upon my return, discovering due to the continuous rain(gulp)recently, the garden which can be left for 6 months, and can take up to two days to clear, managed to grow twice as high/thick in three months, and is still showing signs of resistance a week later!!!  It had to be brush cut, then the whole area strimmed, and finally mown, our lawnmower and its operator are accusing me of trying to finish them off.  The forecast was rain and more rain, so imagine Lesley’s joy at reporting her Wye Valley show was enjoying glorious heat. Yeah love…..whatever !!!

I decided to take a break from watching Richard garden…(I DID help really) and go and have a chat to my French agility club acquaintances, and get some French conversational skills dusted off, plus introduce them to Kif, who will be my agility playmate for a few weeks. I should have known I had slipped into an alternative reality when I arrived, to find one of my fellow club members soaked to the skin, as she had just had to dive in to save her Bull Terrier from drowning in the swollen river !! Good start, although I did remember what “Do you have a change of clothes" was, in French........ Result !

Now to discover that once the complete membership had arrived,that training was “OFF”, due to the fact that the grass in the agility area had not been mown, or a goat had not been ushered onto it, one presumes. Taking a look at it, I can only imagine this had been a problem for more than a couple of sessions, would it be done for Wednesday’s scheduled session. Peut-être (maybe) I was told. Great, so we will all turn up then and just SEE, shall we ??Or shall we use modern contraptions like,say,mobile phones or e-mails ,to let each other know beforehand !!!!!

What I hadn’t bargained for however, was the hour we spent discussing the lack of available agility training, this however, gave me a chance to get Kif out, and introduce him to everybody, and in true Kif style, he crept around all the people, and played with all the dogs in his patented semi-autistic “I am not worthy” style of submissiveness, although watching him try to get down on his shoulders, to be lower in rank than a Chihuahua, was hysterical to the extreme. Poor-mall adjusted Kifler.

Anyway, I am glad to say, that after two nights of burning logs, the temperature control over the Poitou-Charante was finally creeping back up to normal. The forecast was getting brighter and this only meant one thing…..down tools in the garden, and head off to the river for a spot of fishing. All sounds perfectly reasonable and the first day I couldn’t keep the little blighters off my line, much to Richard’s disgust, as he was trying to christen a new rod. On the second day, it was more of the same, although Richard was beginning to pull even in the fishy stakes.

Day three, now this is where you can all have a laugh at my expense. We have several preferred spots to fish but not all of them are accessible at all times of the year, due to crops etc. So, I decided to go down to the river via “Pooh corner” a tributary stream off the main river, that doesn’t fish well when the river is moving fast, which it was at the time, so, just past there is an adjoining lane going down to the Charante, which we have taken many times. “I’ll go that way” I said, “no dear, due to the recent rain it might be muddy”replied my other half. ……Taking the lane irrespective of his comment, and at the VERY moment I announced “Anyway this Doblo is REALLY good in mud it never gets stuck”……. It DID just that, GOT STUCK !!!

Long story short, we spent 2 hours trying to, “think outside the box” jacked the spinning wheel up (twice) and placed rocks,vet bed etc etc underneath it. We moved countless bags of hardcore (broken up French roof tiles) from a small stash just up the road and actually moved the car four feet forward, but nevertheless it was still stuck. It was at that point I admitted defeat (Bear Grylls would’ve freed it no doubt) and phoned my brother in law, oh the shame, and embarrassment………. I’m not going to live that one down in a hurry…. But we STILL went fishing and caught loads.