When Rick has gone

 

My  husband is in Geneva for two days. While he is gone, walking Sherlock becomes my job. 

Normally I read in bed while Rick is walking our little boy. We're lucky that the dog likes to sleep in sometimes as late as nine or nine thirty but this morning he was looking at me a little before eight with a where-is-he and if-he-can't-take-me-out-you'll-have-to stare.

There were no cats. Sherlock has a I'll-ignore-these-but-I'll-chase-the-calico one relationships with the neighborhood tabbies. Most ignore him. He does need to be reminded to NOT eat any food left for them. Also we repeatedly need to say "Pas là" not there, when he wants to pee on merchandise or café furniture and signs. 

 

 

Our street (see photo at the top of this blog) was quiet as we headed toward the church. Shops were just opening up as Sherlock wanted to go to the train station where he made a donation so far into the bushes, I couldn't retrieve it in my green plastic bag.

 

He then headed toward Nelson's, a black French bull dog, where Sherlock left a p-mail. Sometimes he is jealous of Nelson when we give him biscuits, even though we give them to Sherlock too. 

 

The pit bull next door said some nasty things as we walked by. Sherlock increased his speed by the fence-in house as the dog owner's told him to be quiet.

 

Back in the village, I decided to eat petit dej at Mille et Une. All the interns were there today and the only young male brought me my chocolatine (pain au chocolate), jus de pomme et Earl Grey Tea. 

 

Even after the owner left to go to the post, the interns continues to straighten any chairs that needed straightening. The young woman intern, who is very friendly and mega cute, noticed that one of the gift box's labels for Mille et Une was coming off. She stood on a stool to removed the box, went to a drawer to find more labels and replaced the label on the box before returning it to the shelf in perfect display position.

 

Between  reading the local Independent which reported the French government's problems* with momentary prime ministers and feuding political parties, a memorial to the man who helped end the death penalty and my waiter spinning a tray on one finger, I watched Sonia bring out the fruits and veggies that she will sell. There were no customers, YET. Give it a half hour and she will have a line.

 

The man who works at the Retirada Musée came in for orange juice. He's probably in his late forties, full white hair and beard, slim and looking fit in jeans and a sweater. Over the years he has answered my many questions about January 1939, when over 100,000 people, fleeing across the nearby Spanish border from Franco's civil war ,ended up in a concentration camp on the freezing beach.

 

The owner's twin daughters were off to school with their backpacks. 

 

A woman across from me spoke to me in English. It's not always my bad accent that makes people speak to me in native tongue, but more that they want to use their English. In some cases it is our common language if they are visiting from other countries.

 

Sherlock felt he should sit in my lap as I drank my tea. 

 

I needed to go home (around the corner) because GiGi is coming to continue the work on the patio wall. There's much writing I want to do today, and of course make sure Sherlock does not miss Rick's lap by cuddling in mine.

 

This is the life in my village. I love the pace, the personal contacts wherever I go, I can get almost everything I need without having to get in the car including the movie theater, doctor, restaurants, shops where I have a personal relationship with the owners, banks, etc. It leaves me so much energy to write, read, cook and just be. 

 

*That the French government and others also have problems doesn't eliminate our worry that my birth country is being run by a madman and his billionaire buddies, but it changes the concentration that allows me to go on to other things.