COLUMN JOIE DE VIVRE
A high Kipper is a calm Kipper”
Despite fl ying solo with a menagerie of animals as well as B&B guests, today is a good day for Ian Moore
F
inally there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Well, I say tunnel, it
was a fi re grate, and the light was actual fi re but as anyone with a real fi re will tell you, if the thing is still alight when you get up in the morning, the day has already started with a win. I’m all for a bit of old-
fashioned hunter-gatherer, me-man me-make fi re type stuff , but when it’s been raining for a week, and blowing a gale, that morning trudge to the wood store for logs and kindling is a heavy tread, I can tell you. The alarm had gone off at 6, meaning it was time to do breakfasts for the 10 B&B guests. I sloped begrudgingly into the kitchen, separated Kipper from whatever cat was playing chicken with him, and noticed the embers in the fi re. Today would be a good day.
It would have been a good day anyway though, because after a week away, Natalie and the boys were fi nally coming home. It had been a long week.
Ultime, our horse, is quite the madame. She wears an expression of permanent suspicion on her long face but this time it was vindicated. There was no way I would have enough hay to feed her and the goats for the full week. Obviously, I could just order more but that wasn’t the problem, the problem was that hay delivery is a two-man job because Ultime wants to get dangerously involved.
doesn’t work. I’m all for dog training, it’s important, especially for Kipper, but I’m not going to be the only one there with an upside-down dog, dragging him around the course like he’s a sled. But like I say, he’d found his own path to enlightenment. There’s a toad that
lives on the terrace and Kipper doesn’t know how to deal with
it. He’s either barking at it, jumping up and down in its face or just generally making a nuisance of himself. Then one night, he licked it. Clearly this is something to be discouraged but a
high Kipper is a calm Kipper, and since then he’s been a delight all
week, like a slightly stoned
There was no way I could, or was prepared to, wrestle with Ultime and deal with the gates and the farmer’s tractor all at the same time. So I started ‘cutting’ her hay, like some, cheap chiselling drug dealer trying to enhance profi ts, and started giving her one part straw for every two parts hay. By day two she was wise to
it and literally started kicking out, eyeing me like a wild-eyed addict with a horsey “this stuff ain’t clean man!”. Gigi and Kipper were at the fence barking at her wildly too, which may very well have been the canine equivalent of “leave
it Ultime, it ain’t worth it”,
but unsurprisingly did nothing to calm her down. Kipper soon found his own
calming routine. The week for the two us began on the back foot when his new ‘no-pull’ harness arrived and I took him down the road for a walk. He pulled, so I pulled back, and the harness fl ipped him over leaving him looking like a struggling beetle. One of Natalie’s fi nal instructions had been that, if I get the chance (yeah, right), I should take Kipper to dog training. I will, I said, but only if the harness works. Well, the harness
harmless mate, just lollopping around and constantly having the munchies. So it’s been an up and down
week and on this fi nal day I have a choice: tidy and clean the house to the standards that Natalie would expect or just fi nd that toad and spend the afternoon on the sofa in front of the fi re instead… toad wins this time, I think. ■
Ian Moore Comedian, writer, chutney-maker and mod who lives with his family in the Loire Valley. His latest book in Playing the Martyr (£8.99,
amazon.co.uk)
ianmoore.info
lapausevaldeloire.com
FRENCH PROPERTY NEWS: January/February 2024 103
© RITA EVANS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148
