Le retour

The last time we journeyed home from France the passenger door on our then van decided not to shut. Which meant holding onto it. With some 600 miles still to go. Nice. So how refreshing to have the use of both hands this time, to sit back and relax and drink coffee while scoffing Kitkats. It helped pass the 24 hour epic journey (sleep included) and we were pleased to get home and find all was as we had left it. It was not without a tinge of regret that we left the space and tranquillity of the Aude. Our last day had been highly enjoyable with a morning visit to friends and their amazing eco-house (cue large amounts of envious and somewhat unedifying drooling at the 180 degree panoramic view towards the Pyrenees) and then dinner with them that evening at the rather wonderful Domaine Gayda. It may look like something out of the High Chaparral but the food, ambience, service and wine was absolutely cracking. Even easily pleased me was ultra pleased. I couldn’t help but notice that A lapped up not just his filet de bouef and his rosti but also did a fair old demolishing act on the mange tout. You never eat my mange tout at home, challenged I. Yes, but these ones aren’t gritty like yours, jousted he. Luckily he was sitting near enough to receive a hefty wallop on the shin. Gritty, indeed.

When we got home after our meal, we were just about to go to bed when I noticed that the patio was awash with blood. Murder most foul? No, stupid bloody greyhounds who must be the most copious bleeders ever. Somehow, in his last-pee-wanderings, Arthur had ripped off the outside claw of his left front paw. Well, I say ripped off, it’s still hanging in there awaiting a trundle down to the vet’s tomorrow. Thankfully I’d had the foresight to pack some flexible bandages so we attempted to bind his paw up so that he could at least travel without leaving blood spatter all the way up the A20. Now of all my lot, Arthur is the biggest wuss in the whole wide world. Come within a foot of an injury and he screams like a girl. Keep at it and he might just take a chunk out of your arm. I survived unscathed and the binding lasted until we were back – job done. He’s now chewed it off but as the paw’s not bleeding, I’m letting him go au naturel until we get to the vets. They can have the pleasure of treating him, preferably under heavy sedation if they value their fingers. At the moment, he’s putting this ridiculous act on, playing for sympathy with pathetic hops around the living room. Shame he forgets the tripod act whenever there’s a hint of a sausage on offer. If there was an Olympic event for canine shystering, Arthur would take gold, no problem.