Home Sweet Home

I’m back in Provence since Saturday morning. Hooray!

The horses greeted me in typical understated fashion :

Oh. It’s you. The flies are bad. Some spray, please. Ahhh that’s better…

Oh yes, and Aero had torn the ears off his fly mask and broken the straps on his fly rug. What on earth did he do?

The dogs? Well, Cinnamon was very strange. She went into cringing mode, grovelling back and forth on the ground in front of me, half-barking, half-yelping, baring her teeth in a super-submissive way all the time, but refusing point blank to touch me, or to let me touch her. Finally, when Rosie and Cookie had launched themselves at me at top speed, she joined in, and then switched to super-licky mode. What a weird dog!

We had a hectic celebratory weekend. Not to celebrate my return, mind you. No, we helped Alexandrine celebrate her 30th birthday on Saturday and, on Sunday, we celebrated La Rentrée with our English friends Mollie and David. La Rentrée translates as Back to School, but it also means most of the tourists have gone, so we have our quiet roads back again.

Hog-roast Chez Alexandrine :

The pig was roasted for more than four hours…

…beside this fire.

Surgery involving wire-cutters was necessary…

in order to take out the couscous stuffing.

It was absolutely delicious!

See his hairy leg? This was one of the ‘heritage’ breeds, as the Americans would say.

We had an English Garden Party the next day, Provençal style.

There was table-tennis and petanques…

…swimming in the pool and eating Scaramouche ice cream…

and just generally lounging around in the sun.

This week, I’m working 🙂

I’m the equine equivalent of a relief milker. I’ve been registered with the local Chambre d’Agricole and I’m providing cover for Alexandrine while she takes a well-earned break. So I’m back to mucking out stables and doing feeds and bringing horses in and out once again.

This morning, I got up early so that I could trim Aero’s feet before the flies and the heat get going. My plan was to be at the stables at 7am, so that he’d be finished and I could start the feeds at 8am. The rain started at 6.40am. Oh look!It’s going to rain all day… just so I don’t miss Ireland, I suppose.