It seems sometimes that my life is becoming increasingly governed by the whims of our dog (cue heavenly pre-pubescent choir: Oh for the whims, for the whims of a dog...). Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile. Admittedly, the morning walk – or bike ride – is good for my constitution too, nevertheless she should be more grateful that I'm prepared to take her out before breakfast, when the day is but young. Yet, there are days when she just looks at me and refuses to budge, no matter how much I cajole and beg. And there are other days when we get to the top of our track and I head left in the customary manner, only to find that she's not there beside me. When I double-back to see what the matter is, she's sitting by the roadside at the top of the track because she fancies going right rather than left on that particular morning.
I wonder whether this behaviour has anything to do with her change of diet. We've recently bought some croquettes with protein derived from insects rather than animal by-products. It's a recognition of the future, I suppose, when we'll all be chomping on insects. It's our ever-so-'umble equivalent of owning an electric or hydrogen-fuelled car. After first sniffing suspiciously at her new food, she seems now to be a fan of pulped larvae and maggots. The Good Wife performed a taste-test the other day: in one hand, a croquette from her customary supply; in the other, a new-fangled crunchy treat from the insect world. Reader, she went for the latter. Since she has a talent for taking out flies and wasps in mid air, she clearly has an innate taste for such irritating creatures.
Maybe this helps to explain her annoying whims, although really who can blame her for a little canine caprice? There's not a lot of excitement in a routine of sleep, eat, walk, sleep, bark, play, eat, play, walk, bark, sleep. I tell her that she's much luckier than the vast majority of dogs in this benighted world of ours – in the same way that our mother used to remind us of the unfortunate children in Hong Kong and Biafra when trying to get us to eat our yummy overcooked vegetables and fatty mince. The latter I could understand, given the hideous civil war that raged in Nigeria at the time, but I never really got the hang of Hong Kong. It seemed to me that children there, no doubt engaged in the manufacture of the cheap plastic toys that derived then from that bastion of Empire, probably had just about enough to eat. And at least they didn't have to eat overcooked veg and fatty mince.
Anyway, one good thing about turning right rather than left at the top is that it forces me to climb the steep, slippery chemin that leads up to Monsieur Delpy's sheep sheds. A decade or so back, I used to do it more often to test my physical mettle. These days, with everything else in inexorable decline – eyes, ears, back et cetera – I'm a little more reticent. However, thanks to the whims of our dog, I discovered that I can still do it. Still get to the top of a very steep and awkward gradient on my bike without having to get off. On reporting this revelation to the women of the household, I was asked how it made me feel. 'Puffed but chuffed,' I revealed.
It got me thinking about how lucky I was to be born in a country where they speak English: the universal Esperanto. How much more difficult life might be to be saddled with a language that no one else in the world can speak, like Finnish or Hungarian. Even French is only mainly understood in north and west Africa. And the thing about French is that you generally need so many more words to express a simple sentiment like 'puffed but chuffed'. Consider its wonderful simplicity. So much is revealed in those three words. Had I been born a French speaker, I would have struggled to pack so much meaning into so pithy a phrase. It might come out as the equivalent of 'I feel quite contented despite the difficulty of respiration.'
Once at the top, the rest of my anti-clockwise morning constitutional is a piece of piss. Another glorious expression. Un morceau d'urine means nothing at all and I know of no equivalent other than fastoche, which is argot for facile or easy. Which is fine, of course, if a little prosaic and much less colourful.
Daphne understands English, but not French. When I explain this to locals, they find it curious. Surely we should be talking to her in the prevalent language. But whenever we've tried it, she thinks something's up and makes a bee-line for the door in order to bark at whatever's wrong. Yet, give her a word like 'walkies?' or 'supper?' or even a whole sentence, such as 'put the ball down please' or 'no, you stay here and look after the house', and she knows exactly what's expected of her and responds accordingly.
Given the fact that there are as many etymological similarities as there are differences between the two languages, it's surprising that the English and the French have never understood each other. We are at war once again. This time the post-Brexit fall-out is at the root of the travel turmoil. There doesn't seem to be any other reason why the U.K. should put France on its red or amber or whatever other colour the list is that keeps pesky French travellers out of their green and pleasant land. And just to compound matters and further obfuscate potential travellers, Boritz & co. change the rules from one day to the next. Had the friends who returned early from France to avoid pay-back for their stay here waited a while, they would have found that there's now no obligation to self-isolate for however long it is – or was. When spoken by persons in office, the English language can be very confusing.
Certainly the Good Wife and I are not yet thinking of travel, despite the needs of our surviving ageing Ps, as Dickens called them. My mother-in-law's needs are much more pressing than my father's, whose social calendar is far fuller than my own. Debs does her mother's shopping for her online and ensures that the poor old isolated dear has enough gin to keep her going until the day when she can go and relieve Mafeking. That may not be far away. There's still the issue of obligatory and very costly tests, but at least the prospect of self-isolation in a claustrophobic and worryingly unhygienic house seems to have diminished.
Some friends of hers in Brive got back from Bordeaux recently and brought the Delta variant with them. With the passeport sanitaire coming into effect, we both feel tempted to go and visit the friends in order to catch the disease – in much the same way that our parents' generation would send their children to parties to catch measles so that they could get it all over and done with and build their immunity for the future. The only thing that's stopping me is that, for all my faith in my immune system, nurtured steadily over the last two decades or so of clean-living, there's a niggling fear that it might lead to my demise. Despite the daily assault of dire news from all around the world, I don't wish to push up daisies just yet. Another fine phrase you've got me into! How could you translate that one into French in less than 10 words?
I'll leave you with the conundrum. Right now, there's weeding to be done. And while pulling rather than pushing things out of the ground, I shall be debating whether to opt for that 20% off the price of a pizza or whatever other inducement is on offer and submit to the needle. Anything for a quiet life.
No comments:
Post a Comment