A walk on the wild (sea) side

I met up with fellow blogger Lucy yesterday to go for a walk on the icy estuary with our dogs. The meeting point was the SPA, (the French version of the RSPCA), at St Brieuc. I always have the vain hope that this will take a little of the bounce out of Porridge as we pass the plaintive cries of abandoned dogs, and that she might realise that this could be her fate if she doesn’t watch her step.


But of course it had no effect. Lucy was covered in paw prints in no time at all. I was worried that Molly the spaniel might not be robust enough to fight off the friendly attentions of Porridge, since she has recently been ill, but she held her own quite well for most of the time and firmly told Porridge where to get off. I was relieved that Molly was no longer wearing the bucket on her head that formed part of her recovery treatment, however. Porridge would have really liked to play with that, I am sure…


It was lovely to see Lucy again, now that that difficult first meeting was over, and we already knew that, surprisingly enough, we are both rather like the people we seemed to be on our blogs.
Armed with our cameras, we boldly trod through silt, sea water and sandy spit, and large quantities of ice, which we jumped upon like small children.(I am sorry Lucy, but someone must have seen us, so we might as well admit it). The sea was only just visible, the tide was so far out; the sky was clear, and every surface was sparkling.
Lucy was fastest at the draw when it came to getting her camera out but suffered from a technical failure, leaving the important task of recording the moment for posterity to me.
My failure was more artistic than technical, although I do like to blame the complex controls of the camera and my combined short and long sightedness, which make for an interesting juggling act between contact lenses and glasses. The fact that my pictures are rarely in focus simply reflects the fact that what I see is rarely in focus.

But here is the matching set of black and white dogs:

This happy interlude was followed by the usual teenage transport run, characterised by hanging about outside Lycée for those who had not remembered to charge the battery of their phone. I settled back remarkably quickly into my habitual bad temper, which was crowned by a "quick" visit to a supermarket. We fought for a place in the car park and battled through the teeming throng, all of them desperate to buy tinsel, or some such item without which life would have no meaning. My teenagers' vocabulary of expletives was once more extended.

Bah Humbug.

Across a crowded tearoom

With all the excitement of a teenager going on a blind date, I drove into town to meet another blogger for lunch. We met in a salon du thé, so I suppose that the risk of being dragged off by a white slaver was minimal, but still interesting to contemplate.

When you read someone's blog day after day, you get an idea of who they are, but how accurate is it? And how accurate is the impression of yourself given by your own blog? Is there not infinite opportunity for disappointment if neither of us measures up to preconceptions? And just because someone is capable of writing one word after another in a connected string with a full stop at the end, which was reasonably interesting to read, well, they had as long as they wanted to do it, didn't they ? It doesn't mean to say that they will be able to put words together on the hoof, and eat a tart at the same time.

And all this without wine, so as to give the incorrect impression that I don't drink much.

Did she notice that I am neurotic and self obssessed, and grabbed more than my allotted 50% of conversational air time?



Oh, I think it was OK... we both like Jane Austen and chocolate...