Bear Scares

They say dogs reduce stress in your life and so help you live longer. This doesn’t seem to apply to my hoard of miscreants. Whilst the wheelies plus Evee and Gizmo have a large fenced area to move around in, the others pretty much have a wilderness in which to roam. Having said that, they rarely go out of sight for long, even Simi has managed to curtail her wandering spirit, so this mornings near heart attack was not what my new life called for. Yogi Bear went missing. Unbeknownst to me, my little bear decided to follow Max, my nephew, who had gone out on a bike ride. Both houses were searched and I managed to cover the entire property in a time even Usain Bolt would be proud of. No Bear anywhere. My incredible mum even got in the car to check the local area but came back empty-handed. Thank God for the kindness of strangers and my new dog tags. I got a phone call from a lovely gentleman to say he had found a ‘petit chien’ down in the local village and had kindly taken him to the address on his tag. That being the new house address which was 5 minutes down the road in a different village from where he rang me. Bear collected and no worse for wear except thirsty, I am one extremely grateful Mum.

Apart from the adventures of Yogi Bear, the others have seemed to settle quite easily into the French lifestyle. They have already learnt that running around after 9 a.m is just not the done thing under the blazing sun, snoozing on cool floor tiles is the native way of passing the day. Except for Arry of course, he spends more time in the river than out of it. On the plus side, I get a totally exhausted German Shepherd every night, albeit a wet one.

Despite the constant shepherding of the woofers, I think I’m beginning to relax a bit. I do need to sort a few things next week such as a French car, a French bank account and a French phone. I hate not being independent and I can hardly pop to the local supermarket in the Mothership. Speaking of the great white bus, I have decided that she should return to the UK and be sold. Unfortunately there really isn’t anywhere to park her at the new house in Rouffiac so the wonderful Natalie and Ian (of Surrey fame) will come down and drive her back at some stage. Of course, she will need to have some minor repairs, the mud guard incident not forgotten but with less than 6000 miles on the clock she is worth selling now. I am off to find a new set of wheels so I can feel like a local even if I haven’t got the confidence to speak quite like one yet. At least bears can communicate in any language and thanks to the kindness of a stranger, get themselves home….

“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart” (Winnie the Pooh)