Feral People!

Last night we held our latest board game evening up at Valérie's house, which is in the shadow of the Môle mountain. Her house is at 1,200 metres altitude so we knew it would be chillier up there, but although the sky was cloudy the peaceful bucolic atmosphere was just lovely. Her partner, Marc, had taken himself off hiking and was intending to camp overnight further up the mountain (they are both avid walkers/hikers) so it was just Valérie and one of her daughters - Marianne - who, it turns out, was an absolute blast!

Isabelle and I were asking Valérie how long it took to hike up the Môle and she said she could make it up to the Petit Môle in about 30 minutes, and the Grand Môle in about an hour - so you can probably double that for me then! Jordan and Jen live in St. Jeoire, which is on the other side of the Môle, and while it's not a particularly high mountain it's not the easiest of hikes, so if I'm thinking of going up there I'll need to get some practice in I should think. Anyway, once again there was waayyy too much food but we had a lovely evening, getting home at around 2 a.m. and with me getting to bed at 3 a.m.!

The Môle

I guess it's just as well we only do this occasionally, as I still had to be up this morning in order for me and André to go to the Mairie in my village to register him as living in France before the "Brexit" deadline expires on 31 December. Anyway, I made it to the Mairie on very little sleep and explained André's situation to her - that he was getting divorced and moving back in to France and we needed to register my home as his new place of residence for the time being. She was very nice and said she would do us both an attestation - my last one is now about six months old - but she would need a photocopy of André's ID. So he whips out his US passport! When I asked where his British passport was he said he thought he must have forgotten it at Jordan and Jen's!!! So the upshot was she asked him to email her a copy of his British passport and she would prepare the attestations and drop them in my mailbox since it was on her way home! Isn't that nice - it's definitely one of the benefits of living in a small village!

So we came back to my place for lunch and I went through his budget with him so he could get a better handle on how things will work out financially both before and after he gets his own place. It's not that he's stupid but he always left "all that" to Lily - which is always a big mistake, I think, for only one person to know what's going on with the finances. Then he was rummaging though the mess of papers in his backpack while we were writing out a list of "next moves" and he pulled out a photocopy of his British passport saying he'd have to give that to the Mairie in Switzerland when he informed them he was moving out! So I said "oh the British passport you didn't have one hour ago to give to the lady at the French Mairie"? and he went "oh crap" and dashed back off there just in time to give her a copy before closing! Kids!!! Still, at that point I'd already put together a folder for him with different tabs so he should find it easier to work his way through all this now that his papers are in order. I don't actually think he's thick - I think it's just that he's finding it a bit overwhelming at the moment. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

In other news, my friend and her sister are off to Spain on Monday house-hunting. Her sister had been married to an American (now divorced) and living in New Hampshire these past 20-odd years. Having just been made redundant (as a Spanish teacher) and with her last child now enlisted in the US Air Force, she decided now was the time to move back to Europe as she had always wanted to go back to Spain to live. Then of course, Brexit intervened, followed by bloody covid, so instead of flying out to Spain in March she has been stuck here in France with my friend for the last seven months. Anyway, as they are heading to Spain on Monday so that she can establish residence before 31 December, I went over to pick up my friend's house keys as our local commune is replacing all our water meters on Tuesday. Can you believe it, her sister brought her beloved labrador dog over with her from the States, he survived the flight and has been having a whale of a time walking in the mountains while they've been blocked here. But, three days ago the dog became really lethargic and suddenly developed lumps on his haunches so they took him to the vet in town and it turns out pup had a cancerous tumour on his spleen which had burst, and they could give him no hope! Bloody hell, he was only seven so I think it has come as a tremendous shock for them both having to have the dog put down two days ago - especially after all he'd just been through!

And I don't know if you remember one (or several) of my previous posts about my going walking and there being a nasty dog further up the mountain on one of my walks that had me really spooked. He wasn't fenced in so I always assumed there was an electric collar involved, but either way I did not like that dog and indeed stopped walking round that area. Well anyway, my Jehovah's Witness neighbours with the arthritic old dog that used to crap in my garden - remember them? - well while I dislike shit-shovelling in my back garden for someone else's dog, the dog was actually quite sweet. It turns out that the husband was walking this dog up at the back of our houses and the nasty dog must have found a way past the electric wiring (or his collar became "uncharged"), because it came charging at my neighbour and savaged the elderly arthritic dog so badly that she also had to be put down, despite the best attempts of my neighbour to fend the other dog off. He and his wife were obviously distraught and when the husband went back to speak to the "evil" dog's owner he told him to get the f... off his land or the dog would kill him too!!!!! I don't know what happened after that but "evil dog" has disappeared (most likely put down) but seriously??? I know it's not usually the dogs that are evil, it's the owners, but some people are just unbelievable, all the more so when you see the picture of that poor little lad who got mauled in the States recently defending his sister against another out-of-control dog! Just like some people shouldn't be allowed to breed, some people shouldn't be allowed to keep dogs don't you think!

Brave six-year-old Bridger Walker