Honda is on heat - official notification of the fact from the nice (?Belgian) vet yesterday, to whom I managed to explain both that I didn't know the word for 'in season' and that I also didn't know whether Honda was, as she was, it turns out, 'en chaleur'.
Anyway, the result is that Honda's social life, already limited to the long lead, is now firmly limited to the short lead. As the vet said (I recall someone in the chemist saying something similar to me in my more fertile days), things can happen very quickly.
I have to say, Honda has been very discreet about her 'condition', no sign of bleeding in the form of marks left on the sofa etc., although she did have a momentous fight with Nelson just now, which I had to separate (I am sure that if I had been in England the Neighbours would have been round by now, but I think in France they are more discreet, thank God).
Talking of neighbours, I had them (in the form of grandparents, Marie Therese and Francois, and parents (of three) Patrique and ?Juliette) to tea this afternoon, for which I expended much effort in baking British afternoon tea sweetmeats (see www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/afternoon-tea) with a varying degree of success, owing partly to lack of skill and partly (I am sure) to difference in French flour, which I am sure is much lighter and softer than the British variety (why doesn't globalization mean that we can all have the same rubbish food?).
Anyway, they ate them quite happily, MT having checked that I had indeed baked them. (May be I feel it is some test of authentic womanhood to show that one can bake, which I must pass having failed to produce offspring?) However, I found the whole business quite stressful, I was given the feeling that they were doing me a favour, that they were only coming to see l'anglaise out of politeness, a blip in their busy lives. As a foreigner, you can feel very much the outsider.
I woke that morning feeling stressed and odd about having spent (comparatively) so much time on my own. The feeling continued throughout the morning and intensified in the afternoon, and I started to feel very differently about being in France. No longer did I experience the sheer joy of being here in this lovely house (as I read George East, I realise how lucky I am to have been able to buy this lovely conversion, apparently so many are just so badly done). Instead I started to feel a sense of alienation and anomie, and to miss things about England. This is what I miss:
My friends
Having good friends close by
Newspapers
My support network, especially for the dogs - so easy when I am going out for a long time just to get someone to dog walk or let them out
The punctuation of my days by my regular commitments, such as French, art history, visiting the Old people's home with my dogs
I don't miss the snottiness of my neighbours, the way the English have spoilt the countryside, or the constant pressing presence of too many people, cars etc. But I do realise that I have done what many people do when they move (or half move in my case) to another country, which is to create a romantic fiction about the other place as an escape from everything one dislikes about one's present life. So in my case, France was somewhere where everyone was welcoming, where there were endless stretches of beautiful countryside, and far fewer cars.
In fact, a lot of the above is true: many of the French I have met in St Germain have been very friendly
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