Frog Dog meets frog

Another exciting summer thing happened today. The cover was removed from my 42,000 litre drinking bowl, otherwise known as the pool. This was to enable dad, with my help of course, to do some necessary maintenance work prior to opening it up officially. Now apparently it is always quite interesting to see what you are going to find floating around in the somewhat green and gunky water after six months under cover, and this year was no exception. Amongst all the usual spiders and millipeedy things - no lizards this year - imagine my delight when a lovely green frog appeared and started hopping about on the step. Frog Dog gets to meet his first frog, and very nice it was too! I was quite captivated and spent ages watching it until dad rescued it and popped it somewhere safe in the garden (safe - that means I did not see where he put it!).

Dog removes a rockery

For those of you that have visited our abode, you will remember there is/was a rockery in front of the conservatory. Now, despite the best endeavours of Uncle Brian, this rockery is/was only ever a thing of beauty for a few weeks of the year, due mainly to the long hot summers we have here.

So it had to go! Today, gardener dog Django, capably assisted by his dad and Uncle Stu, set about demolishing said pile of stones and earth. As a dog, I am not much good with the big heavy stones, but I am a mean shifter of earth! While the two men set about relocating the rocks to the back of the pool, I set to at moving as much earth as I could in the shortest possible time. As I was at no stage admonished for this furious activity (unlike normal) I must assume that my efforts were appreciated.






So what is going to be replacing this horticultural edifice I hear you ask? Well, I understand that some sort of "cobbled" path/area will extend from the main steps right round to the side of the front deck. I can't really visualise it myself but if it stops my paws from getting all muddy on a wet winter's night comfort break, it is fine by me. Will keep you all posted on developments as and when they occur.

With all this digging my front legs ache and my paws are a little tender so will have to go now and rest them. Speak to you all again soon.

Easter update

Just thought I would bring you all up to date with what has been going on since Toques et Clochers (see my last blog). Last weekend it was the Antugnac Easter Egg hunt which involved shipping cart loads of kids off to the field to hunt for the 300 bags of chocolates secreted amongst the vines whilst the adults got down to some serious omelette and grillade food eating and of course loads of bottle stuff - well it was held in a wine cave. Now I did not get personally involved in either the egg hunt or the meal but I did a fair bit of socialising both before and after the lunch, meeting up with loads of old friends like Uncle Martin and Auntie Val and even my lovely vet, Marie Christine. I also met lots of new people and a horse too!





Other than that it has been a quiet week but at least the weather seems to be finally getting a bit summery. The mud is going fast and I can now get back in the vineyards for my walks.


I've had a bit of a dodgey ear too. The other week when Lily came over she tried towing me round the garden by my ear which resulted in a small chunk of my ear parting company with the rest. This week the scab fell off and I started bleeding all over the place. At one point our kitchen looked like it had hosted the Texas chain saw massacre! However, all is now well as mum is applying liberal doses of Savlon on a regular basis.

All this good weather recently has resulted in a burst of garden activity and I just love to help with that. Dad had dug a big hole and planted a new plant so I dug it up again just to show how good I am. He was not impressed.

These long warm early summer days spent lounging around the garden fair take it out of a young dog so now I am off to my bed for a good night's kip.