What season is this???

The weather here has gone mad!  In my last post I included pictures of Danny and I with our visitors enjoying the sunshine and we've continued having some lovely warm and sunny weather.  In fact I took this picture of our Camelia shrub in all its glory, on 27th March...

 

Two days later, we awoke to this scene instead...

It only lasted a few hours and we got rain again (I can't believe there's any more rain left to fall!).  Then we've gone back to Spring weather again.... until today when it's been freezing cold again, due to the very cold wind (didn't we used to get March winds and April showers??)

Anyway, enough of the weather - after all, there's nothing we can do about it after all!

Other news from the Cleavely household is that we have fallen for another hard luck story and have rescued a beautiful English Setter dog called Bertie.  Isn't he cute?

He'll be 10 years old in May and he was left at a pound run by the French equivalent of the RSPCA.  There was no explanation; he was just abandoned with his vaccination card (which was up to date to 2012).  People go along to choose and rescue a dog - like at Battersea for example - but it's not easy to be picked when you're an old dog.  Bertie became so depressed he hardly ate and wouldn't come to the front of his pen, even when people came to look.  We have a charity organisation here which tries to help abandoned animals - click here to read all about it - and they figured Bertie's best hope was with them.  He was put with wonderful foster parents who have worked wonders with him.  But he needed a "forever home" and when we saw his photo we knew that we could give him a wonderful home for the rest of his days.

His foster parents brought him over to us last Sunday to see how he got along with Finn, Liam and the cats.  He and the cats ignored each other but Finn and Liam were very happy to play and run with Bertie.  How they'll react when they realise he's moving in, remains to be seen!!

Here are some pictures from that afternoon....

 As you can see, Bertie has made himself pretty much at home.... and has given Finn a run for his money!!




 (By the way, we'll be getting Bertie when we return from our trip to the UK later this month)




Talking of the cats and dogs, most of the time they ignore each other.  Finn and Liam obviously play together and are often found lying around together.  And the same goes for the kittens Mo and Cali.  But you might be surprised to learn that Finn and our cat Whisper (who's around 12 years old) are very fond of each other and often have what Danny and I call a 'love fest'!  The other evening, Finn was on the couch and Whisper jumped up to sit with him.  Finn then proceeded to wash her and she clearly loved every minute of it!  We tried to get a video clip of it but we weren't quick enough.  Hopefully, you'll see what we mean from these pictures....

 

 

And finally, a shoulder update!  I saw the orthopaedic surgeon yesterday and he confirmed that I need an operation to repair the ruptured tendon.  He said it wasn't urgent and he could do it June/July time.  Well, it might not be urgent to him but I really want it over and done with so I asked if he could do it sooner.  He got his diary out of his pocket, flicked through it and said, "Well, I can do it on 14th May..".  It felt like I was making a hairdresser appointment!  Anyway, we booked it there and then!  I'll be in hospital for two days; the operation will be keyhole surgery but I'll be having both a general and a local anaesthetic.  The worst bit?  I have to have another one of those ghastly arthrography scans after the operation (I guess to check that the tendon is fixed).  The second worst thing was that I had to ring the hospital this morning to make my own appointment with the anaesthetist.  As I've said before, using the telephone is the hardest bit when your French is limited but I have to say, I managed it okay and will be seeing him on 3rd May. 

 

Well, we are off to the UK next Tuesday for just over a week.  It's never long enough to see everyone that I'd like to see but hopefully I will be able to catch up with some of my readers!  And of course, we are always happy to have visitors here!  It's unlikely that I'll be updating the blog for a couple of weeks but you never know so watch this space!!!

 

Keep warm everyone and bye for now!