Timor Mortis Conturbat Me - Again ...

Just recently I have discovered in myself a rather unexpected talent. Our friend José, the hunter who won't touch game, turned up one fine day with a plastic bag containing a large hare in the wild state - apart from being dead, that is. I managed to hide it in the fridge for a couple of days but this is not a situation which can go on indefinitely, so I eventually got out a few rubbish bags and what I thought to be the appropriate knives, resorted - as one will - to YouTube, and set to work.

It took me longer that it would have done for someone raised in the art, but I can now peel, empty and dismember a bunny. Might be a good party trick ... but still I find myself with a certain quantity of hare in the freezer. Shall have to organise a stew, or something.

Waily waily, all is wailies - for the bar has once more rolled down its shutters for the last time. Not, I feel, from any lack of custom, more because of Lionel and Magali's unwillingness to do the work. I do recall going in there once and asking how the day had been ... "Terrible, mon Trevor, absolument terrible ... rushed off our feet, not a moment to ourselves, we normally have eight to ten in for lunch and today we had over twenty." I'm sure that many would be happy to have such problems.

And whilst I'm all in favour of a chatty bartender, I do rather draw the line when said bartender natters away for five minutes with someone that happens to be propping up the bar, all the while studiously ignoring the queue of punters lining up for a drink, some of whom are obviously dying of thirst.

Now the mairie owns the bar and - more importantly - the licence, so they get to pick from those who want to try and make a go of it: according to Dominic - maire-adjoint - the deliberations should be ended before the end of the year and the lucky candidate(s) chosen. Which'd mean that the place could reopen sometime in January - OK, this is France so let's be honest, more like end of February. Old Jean-Claude - who pootles about on an elderly quad when he's not driving the Porsche, and who is also in with the mairie establishment, is somewhat less sanguine. "There are still" he said, "another three couples to be interviewé, and then there must be a décision made which is not likely before Noël - luckily, I no longer drink ..."

Fortunately the bar at Fontcouverte, which had been closed for years, reopened - as we discovered thanks to Nicole G. - mid-June. It's been nicely done up inside - although the déco is not really on a par with that of the Grand Café at Fabrézan, but never mind - and is rather nicely situated on the square, well-hidden from the main road.

And it has a terrace, with the inevitable plane trees. It also has the advantage of being only 4km from here, for while the bar at Siran is equally nice it is - sad to say - rather further away, and accessible only through some rather twisty, narrow roads.

Which doesn't stop me going there on a Widdlesday afternoon after puppy school if the weather's fine, for it is but a hop, skip and a jump from Azille, and of an afternoon the ditches have less of a tendency to leap out at one.

Although you still occasionally happen upon some hopped-up Polish driver at the wheel of an articulated lorry coming the other way, a situation which involves dextrous driving and decent sphincter control.

Whatever, we has found our backup solution and no longer have to play at our itinerant "Chez Réné" of a Friday night, which is good.

And speaking of puppy school, much to my surprise and pleasure Moses and I shall soon move up to the "advanced learners" stream. What exactly that involves I do not know, but I suppose I shall find out soon enough. Now if only I could get the little bugger to remember how to walk correctly on a leash ... (Also, tomorrow moaning I take him off to the vet to get his testicles ablated. I do hope that won't dent the rapport that we seem to have established between us too much.)

In other news, the garage has been more or less emptied of all the junk that came down with us from Savoie all those years ago: to celebrate we promptly filled one corner of it up with a one-tonne pallet of granulés for the stove, and Margo took delivery of her potter's wheel. The kiln is yet to come. So anyway, prospective visitors are duly warned: pottery may be performed. (Along with shoe-making, but that's another story.)

Anticipating a disastrous Brexit, our friends John and Ann decided to apply for French nationality a while back. They successfully navigated the administrative minefields and - on the fifth of October, coincidentally the day I'd chose to celebrate my bththda - actually became official Frog-persons! So now they're allowed to complain properly, along with all the other French.

About, for instance, the mairie having taken on four new employés municipaux. Let it be admitted that apart from the initial outlay it won't cost us too much: I don't think that they have a pension plan or anything along those lines, nor are they even paid. For Moux now has four municipal sheep, currently grazing on the sports ground and - I note - being fed baguette ends and other unhealthy shit: is a bit of a bitch, as I can no longer take Indra up there to run after the ball, as she is way too interested in the sheep. And let's face it, the sheep are very interested in her.

Still, when summer comes and there's no more grass for them to keep down, there's always an upside: I rather suspect that they'll wind up as a mechoui for July 14. Rather them than the actual human employees, most of whom are a bit too tubby to make pleasant eating ...

Finally, as weeks go the last one of October turned out to be complete and utter shite. Cash and Terry, friends and neighbours of ours, decided to sell their house and move back to the UK: I even went round there ten days before and helped load a lorry with most of their worldly goods. They were planning on following them a few days later. But before that could happen Terry got rushed to hospital with paralysis from the waist down: they had planned on operating but apparently the surgeon took a look at the scans and said that there seemed little point in it.

And while we're waiting for him to die, got the sad news that my old uni friend Ross had just gone and done so. Now given my lifestyle, which involves a diet of cigars, duck fat, and heroic (yah, I'm talking Norse sagas here) quantities of alcohol, I had rather expected to predecease just about everyone I know. This turns out not to be the case, which is kind of sad because I was actually rather looking forward to my wake. Not that I'll actually be there for it, but still ... a brown paper bag full of ashes in the middle of the table, surrounded by food, bottles of rosé and N° 5 Whisky paintstripper.

Cancer really is a bitch. Do not like.

On the other hand, found myself pointed to a little poem by Dorothy Parker, two verses of which I shall now reproduce (with permission - tacit, because she's long dead now):

"Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiousity, freckles, and doubt.

Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne."

Mind how you go, now.