Hurrah! 1000 hits reached today

This is a day for great celebration both in Frogland - it is Bastille day - and in Frog Dog Land where I have just received the wonderful news that today my blog reached a total of 1000 hits. As you can see below, I am ecstatically pleased about this.



Not at all bad for an obscure blog written by a French Pyrennean Pointer about his day to day exploits in the South of France. And all of this has been achieved in just over 16 months since I was a mere pup in arms. I have had hits from over 50 countries from all corners of the world with some of the more unusual ones being Belarus, Vietnam, Bulgaria, and Brazil. The top three are much as expected with France at number 1 (well I am French), United Kingdom at number 2, and the good old USA at number 3.

I have a lovely collection of regular readers including Lise in Provence, Bilo in Morocco,and the Russian Institute of Molecular Biology! And furthermore, there are lots of people who visit me via Auntie Vanilla's wonderful blog of gossip from a small French town, Tilling-sur-Aude (http://tilling-sur-aude.blogspot.com/).

So can I finally post (sic!) a big thank you to you all for being interested and I hope I can continue to inform and amuse for years to come.

DIY with Safety First

Now regular readers will be fully aware that I just love a bit of DIY or Bricolage as they call it here in France, so when Uncle Martin came round to ask dad for a bit of help with some DIY, it was only natural that I should offer to help.



All was going well, but then it was necessary to bring out some fairly serious power tools, so dad said I could only stick around if I wore the appropriate safety equipment. Well never let it be said that I was not an enthusiastic supporter of 'elf and Safety, so I immedately donned the required equipment and continued in my supporting role. In fact, I have to say I think they quite suit me!



The added benefit of Uncle Martin's visit was that he brought the lovely Lily with him, so once my duties were complete, we both had a mad half hour around the garden.

I'm not sure if it is the heat or the fact that I am not as young as I used to be, but I find myself this evening one well pooped pup. That calls for a good kip. Speak to you all again soon.

Medical emergencies, holidays, and parties.

OK - I'm sorry! I know it has been a while since we last chatted, but to be quite honest there has been so much going on in the last few weeks that I simply have not had the time (or the energy) to sit down and update my blog. But here I am again, so lets get started.

I must start with some very sad news. My lovely Uncle Taff who was due to come and visit us for ten days this month, died suddenly whilst on a visit to friends in Scotland. He was a super man who loved dogs and he and I always had a great time together.



Then there was my rather dramatic medical emergency just a couple of weeks ago. There I was, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, rolling around on the lawn as I do, when something must have bitten me on the lower lip. I don't know what - it could have been a wasp or a bee or something more exotic - but within the space of a few minutes my whole face had swollen up in a series of lumps and bumps so that I looked like a Shar Pei. It irritated like mad and was causing me a lot of grief. Being Saturday afternoon my normal vets was closed so we had to rush off to Limoux to the emergency vet. He took one look at me, rushed me to the head of the queue, and pumped me full of some drug or other. It made me throw up but apparently that was good as it meant it was working. Well, after about five minutes I started to deflate and by that evening all was well again, but apparently it could have been quite serious if I had been bitten nearer my throat.

Fortunately, a couple of days later we set of on holiday to the French Alps, so it was an ideal chance for some recuperation. Sadly it rained a lot when we were there but we did have one great walk around the stunning mountainsides. I even found a bit of snow left over from the winter. Because of the rain we all came home early so it turned out to be only a short break rather than the weeks holiday it should have been.







No sooner were we back than we had to start getting ready for our annual summer party. Like all such events, it requires a great deal of preparation and I did my fair share to try and help with this. Mind you, my contributions were, for some reason, not always appreciated. However, the event itself was great fun. Uncle Martin was there and he and I had a good old chat.





My mate Boudie came with his mum and dad and later on my girlfriend Lily turned up. I was a bit disturbed to find a load of people with their feet in my giant drinking bowl but I forgave them.



It went on until 11pm by which time I was totally shattered. The next day was spent mainly asleep in my dads chair. By all accounts, Boudie was in the same state too!



A bit like War and Peace I know but here ends the latest blog. Speak to you all again soon - promise!

Bottle stuff and consequences

I often mention in my ramblings that the people are off doing that bottle stuff. Now only being a young man (a teenager in people years) I have abstemiously stayed away from the stuff myself, but I felt that, for my readers sake at least, I should really know what I was talking about. So when the opportunity arose the other afternoon, I gritted my teeth, wrapped my tongue around the neck of a bottle of fine rosé, and sampled the contents within.


OK, I admit it - pleasantly surprised was not the reaction I was expecting, but I am slowly beginning to see why these people spend so much time with it. Not that you will find me partaking on a regular basis, unlike some I could mention. No, the occassional sip or slurp will do me just fine.

There is one disadvantage, so I am told, in that it tends to make one feel a bit sleepy after consumption. In light of this, although unaffected immediately, I felt the need to find a suitable place to relax just in case I came over all dozey. Mum and dad's bed seemed like the ideal place!

Of pools and plongeurs

This weekend has been really interesting and great fun too. First of all it was time to formally open up the pool for swimming. Now this involved quite a lot of hard work on both dad's and my part as it needed a really good clean, filter, and top up. My role was to regularly taste the water to see that it complied with European standards as we are very hot on that kind of thing here in France!

No sooner than it was open but who should arrive - Auntie Mary and Uncle Tim together with my great mate Fig. Well, as you regular readers can imagine, the people got straight down to that bottle stuff whilst Fig and I got in some serious chasing and wrestling. Then, to everyone's surprise, Uncle Tim declared that he was going for a swim.


The water was at 21 degrees so it was not too bad, and he complied fully with the reulation for the Premier Plongeur 2010 competition by diving in. Normally this competition is open to allcomers but I am afraid Uncle Tim beat them all to it this year and was duly presented with the bottle of fizzy stuff by mum and I.



Then it was back to socialising with dad and Uncle Tim trying out the newly completed BBQ area for size but without any glasses in their hands!



After several hours of us tearing about in the sunshine, Fig and I decided a bit of R&R was called for so we joined the adults who were also taking it easy. I must say by the time Fig and his mum and dad left, I was completely shattered and not much was heard from me that evening (or the next day come to that).

My Very Exciting day

After a busy social evening yesterday when Uncle Martin and Auntie Jane came round to dinner, today was even busier as I went to my first VE Day celebration in the village square. Apparently VE stands for Victory in Europe, but as far as I am concerned it was a Very Exciting day. There were lots of my favourite people there and I got to meet the wife of the mayor and lots of other new friends incuding some nice Aussies. We all had to stand around listening to some speeches and then they played some music called Le Marseillaise. Next everyone rapidly moved about 10 metres up the road were they all started doing that bottle stuff that people do with some vigor.





Whilst we we there we met up again with Mr Planel, the owner of an old pal of mine called Aude who is one of my sort of "Aunties" - she came from the same place and is about the same age as my mother so I guess that is about right. Now Aude and I know each other of old and have run around the vineyards together, so we were invited back to meet her once again. She and I had an all too brief play before I was whisked off home.



I have to say that all this socialising is great fun but it fair takes it out of you so I have spent the rest of the day recovering in my bed in the conservatory.



Just as a footnote (pun fully intended), apparently I stood on mum's toe the other day and badly bruised it, so I thought you might like to see a photo of the damaged digit!

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!).