Animal Farm

I’ve never read the book Animal Farm but I know the story and I think it’s happening here. The animals seem to be taking over.

Shadow is in and out of the house every five minutes, likewise the cats, and they don’t half make a noise if the doors aren’t opened within seconds to let them onto the terrace when they want out.

The stag has been spotted by Guy in the newly cleared terraces and he’s even been in the space between our house and Tan and Angie’s (the stag, not Guy), wrecking my hedge which I’m trying to grow to give some privacy to both families. I reckon it’s the rutting season and he’s practicing on my Leylandii – whatever he’s doing, he’s making a real mess.

The dreaded magpies are becoming brave again, venturing within shooting range and shouting at me as some sort of gang warfare cry but they now know the click of my air rifle and despite being maybe 100 yards away, they hear that familiar 'click' and off they fly. Safe for another day to come and cover my terrace with purple bird poo.

The buzzards seem to be breeding like welfare recipients in England (sorry not very PC – just watching the UK news) and they fly over the house every day now, screeching their harsh song. It used to be that you never saw them for weeks but there’s now so many of them, it’s not an unusual sight to see several of the young ones tracking the hang gliders on a sunny day.

And talking about poo, last week and there was a strange set of droppings on the terrace beside Shadow’s food bowl. I thought it was a badger but not being an expert on animal droppings (apart from donkey’s), I wasn’t sure. We don’t see many badgers here – only twice in ten years – so I was quite excited that we had one of these quite rare beasts visiting us.

And then last night I wandered into the kitchen and there was a furry shape eating out of Shadow’s bowl. I thought at first that it was Coco (the cat) but on closer inspection it was a magnificent fox. I wasn’t too surprised however as Angie had spotted it on her terrace a few weeks ago but I was surprised that even when I went right up to the window, it continued eating Shadow’s biscuits.

It was big for a fox with a wonderful white and red tail, not one of these scrawny urban animals you see and it just looked at me and then continued to eat the food in the bowl. I rushed off to get my camera and even then it seemed to sense that if I took a flash picture, the flash would just rebound from the patio windows and the picture would be of me taking a picture of myself. I switched off the kitchen lights and went to open the doors but it dashed off.

I closed the doors and back it came. And then I had a brainwave – maybe I could bond with it. I went and put on J’s new fox fur coat and went back into the kitchen. It was so sad – foxy looked at me with tears in its little eyes and I’m sure, uttered the word ‘mummy’. And then he/she left. Aaaaaah.      

Suing The Company

The Law Courts where Lawsuits are Heard

I read an article the other day about an Irish Mining executive who successfully sued his company for €10 million.On a business trip to Mozambique, he, it was alleged by a company press release, engaged in an act of somnambulism (sleepwalking) when naked and entered the room of the female Company Secretary who was also on the trip.

It seems that the guy was a known sleepwalker and whether his intentions were unconscious or not, I’ve no idea what possessed the company to issue a press release giving out this information. Anyway, he’s successfully sued them in the Irish courts who seem to be awarding excessive payouts in these sorts of cases.

It prompted me to think back about when I could have sued my employers for mega-bucks.

Rose Street Edinburgh - my client's favourite place

There were my early days in sales when my biggest and most influential client would grab me on a Friday (our offices were about 100 yards apart) and simply tell me to ‘phone your wife Tom, we’re off to Edinburgh for the weekend.’ And that was that. I suppose I could have refused but my management were quite happy with the amount of money the company spent with us and were even happier when signing off my expenses and saw how much money I’d lavished on the client.

I could have sued them for millions for actively encouraging me to spend weekends away from my family by promising me large bonuses!

There was the time in another of my employers (I really only worked for two companies so it’s easy to work out who they were) when my Director who was leaving to work for another organisation, insisted that I organise his ‘leaving party’ and that it should be a ‘tour of London’s lap-dancing clubs’.  I obliged of course and left nothing to chance by meticulously planning a trip round London’s best establishments. However, upon finding out that my Director had invited the female Head of HR along, I felt duty bound to warn her about the sort of places we would be going to. Undaunted, she came along and it was during the first dance in the first club when she turned to me and said, ‘Tom, this is shocking. I’m afraid it will be going on your file.’

Metropolis Club - London

I suppose I could have sued them for mega-bucks for insisting I did something which probably affected my career.

And what about the time HR told me I needed intensive counselling because I had the temerity to inform one of my employees that he “wasn’t cut out for sales and should consider another department”. Apparently, employee career development wasn’t supposed to be that honest or direct. The thought of me attending counselling sessions could have thrown me into shock and my career could have suffered. I could have sued them for millions.

And then there was the time when my management gave me two main accounts to work on, one a major bank and the other a large brewer. I used to have to spend time in each company on alternate days and the guy in the bank insisted we drank glasses of scotch when we did our reviews whilst, when I finally travelled up the M1 to get to the brewer and was dying for a coffee, all I was offered were cans of lager!

Maybe that’s why I like a drink or three - another reason to have sued them for millions. 

Unfortunately, I was never the unwilling recipient of any sexual harassment in the office so that avenue for a lawsuit wasn't an option! Oh yes I was - God I've just remembered!!!!! 

J and the Isaiah Trust

I could use the fact that my HP Laptop has failed once more (please – never, ever buy an HP) as an excuse not to do my blog but as J has kindly allowed me to use her machine I thought it only fair to return the complement and print an article that’s been running out here about her work in Kenya.

She’s due to fly out on Saturday and this article will give you an idea of what’s happening with the Isaiah Trust and the work they do out there.

http://www.fr2day.com/rendezvous/meet-julie-hellon-and-her-friends-in-the-isaiah-trust

Tricky Transactions

Not Sam's Car but a Similar 'Dog'

I wasn’t looking forward to Monday. I had three things to do in ‘shops’ and they would all be difficult.

I had to try and find some replacement fuel pipes for Sam’s Land Rover Freelander car which had failed its MOT last Thursday, I had to go to the vets and finally, I had to fix the car and then get it re-tested and in all cases, I would be asking for favours – not the easiest thing in France when you don’t speak the lingo particularly well.

I’d actually gone to the biggest motor factors (motor spares) shop in the area on Saturday to get the fuel pipes. Predictably, on the busiest day of its week, it was closed. I say ‘predictably’ because there’s no logic to French opening hours, or so it seems and I wasn’t to be disappointed – they were doing a stock check – on the only day when many motorists can get down there. Was I mad?

And so the car sat in the drive until Monday morning when I had a brainwave. I couldn’t be bothered going all the way over to Grasse to find the motor shop closed again (I think I would have burned it down or had a fit of ‘shop rage’) so I stopped at the little garage not far from us. He only sells staple motoring items such as batteries, tyres and windscreen wipers but he has a repair workshop and I reckoned he must use fuel piping so I wandered into the office where he was sitting at his computer screen.

“S’il vous plait blah blah blah." Why do we have to start a sentence when you’re asking for something with ‘please’?  It makes it sound like you’re begging, which I was. Anyway, I asked if he would sell me some fuel pipe and showed him the faulty ones I had with me. Predictably, he didn’t look up from his screen but continued to tap away. I continued with, ‘the car has failed its MOT and I urgently need some fuel pipe.’

Finally, he looked up, looked at the faulty pipes and from the look on his face wasn’t too interested. I placed Sam’s last bill at his garage in front of him making sure he saw the total of €4,500. At that there was a guilty look on his face and off he went into his workshop, returning with enough pipe to make four new ones. He charged me €5 which was about right. I thanked him profusely (grovel, grovel) and headed for the vets. This was going to be even trickier.

Shadow is now on doggy medication for the rest of his life. It costs €46 a month from Dr Jasmine but only £16 in England but they’d refused to sell it to me (in England) because I didn’t have a prescription (I didn’t know there were such things as doggy prescriptions but there you go). The current bottle was nearly empty so I bought a new one (at €46) and then said to Dr Jasmine, ‘look – I’m really embarrassed about this but you sell this stuff for €46 when I can get it in England for €18 (£16), would you be kind enough to give me a prescription?’

She looked a bit concerned and asked me if I was sure it was the same stuff and where could I get it. I told a bit of a porky about the source (my son works at a swan sanctuary and they get it wholesale – that was the porky – I didn’t want to say I just get it off the internet), whereupon she took out her pad and wrote me a prescription there and then and added just as I was leaving her surgery – ‘if you can get it at that price can you get me some too.’

Back home I fixed Sam’s car, tested it and headed back to the MOT station where there was a queue of cars waiting to be tested. I caught the guy who’d failed it last week, dragged him over to the car, opened the bonnet and showed him the repair. ‘Superb’ was what I wanted to hear and that’s what I got but then he disappeared off to test his queue of cars.

I went into the office and just stood at the desk with my €5 (the retest fee). “I’m sorry – you’ll have to wait until he re-tests your car’, the lady said. ‘But he’s just done it.’ ‘Ah but he needs to come in here and do all the paperwork’, she countered.

I got my iPhone out, switched on Talksport at the top volume and just stood at the counter. I think she got the message. Off she went , dragged the mechanic in, the paperwork was done and I was off.

A great day and you can’t say that very often when you’re dealing with French commerce!  

         

Easy Come, Easy Go

Where's my coat ?

I was shaken awake at 4.30am and asked if I wanted a cup of tea. ‘I’d prefer some more sleep please’, was my response. Why does she do that, I was thinking as I set my electric blanket at ‘2’ and pulled the duvet up to my chin.

I resurfaced at about 9am and the house was in perfect peace. Guy and Kitty had gone off to school and J had disappeared off to Italy with her pals. It was idyllic. The sun was even shining.

I read the papers on the internet, gave Shadow his medicine and before I knew it, it was 10am and the postman was outside beeping his horn which means a parcel is about to be unloaded. The previous day it had been a Marks and Spencer ‘relief’ parcel – you know – knickers, polo shirts, jeans, Xmas cards, creams, potions etc, etc. But today it was clearly a mop. You could tell from the shape. Either that or it was a single crutch – the Long John Silver type!  I was sure it was a mop though. J had bought one in Spain a couple of years ago and it had transformed the cleaning of our  ceramic floor tiles which cover the house but unfortunately, as with most things these days, it had started to fall apart and despite looking everywhere we just couldn’t find a replacement. J wanted to arrange a two week holiday in Spain so she could get another but being the sensible type, I suggested she just look on Amazon and hey presto – there it was!

Along with the mop, the postie handed me a pile of envelopes. I feared the worst. Our local resident’s tax (Taxe d’Habitation) was overdue and sure enough, the tell-tale stamps on the outside of the envelope confirmed that it had finally arrived.

I put the envelope down on the coffee table and looked at it. The tax people had taken a few years to work out we’d built a new house and our tax had been going up and down as they calculated what we should pay and reclaimed the back tax. I’d budgeted €3,000 for this year but it could be anything – well anything from €3,000 to €5,000. Eventually I ripped open the envelope – result - €2,700! I was €300 to the good and whilst it’s not a life-changing sum, as they say every five minutes on the telly – ‘every little helps’.

It was too early to celebrate by having a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau so I kissed Shadow and hopped, skipped and jumped outside to work on Sam’s car. I’d taken it for its 2-yearly check on the Thursday and it had failed, not surprisingly as it had been lying unused in her drive for 6 months and was a Range Rover Freelander – a dog of a car if ever there was one. Sam’s ex had bought the Freelander at the same time we had bought the Honda and over the last ten years, we’ve not paid out a single penny in mechanical related faults whilst the Freelander has soaked up thousands and thousands. A true dog of a car!

The car had failed because of a faulty headlamp (which I  thought I’d checked) and a dangerous fuel leak which had not been apparent the previous day when we’d taken it to La Gaude, but the mechanic showed me the dripping fuel and issued a ‘fail’ notice. This was going to be a long, horrible repair job.

Straight away, I found a replacement headlamp bulb in the boot (trunk for some of you) and within thirty minutes of taking bits of the engine off, I’d discovered the source of the fuel leak – some perished pipes. I was ecstatic. The pipes would cost next to nothing and it would take five minutes to fit them. Two ‘results’ in one day. Life was indeed good.

The sun was still shining after a nice lunch on the terrace and it didn’t seem long before the kids arrived home from school. Then J’s car, the ever reliable Honda, roared into the drive scattering my beautifully raked gravel everywhere – why does she do this?

As soon as she appeared with a grin like a Cheshire cat on her face, and rushed up and kissed me, I knew something was wrong. ‘Oh darling  - thank you for my beautiful birthday present’, she gushed.

‘Birthday present? I thought we’d agreed this year that birthday presents were out? I didn’t get one in February’, I complained.

‘But I couldn’t resist it. It’s real fox fur and it only cost – guess darling – what do you think it cost?’

‘Oh I don’t know - €1200 euros?’

‘Don’t be silly darling – it’s a used one.’

‘Used by a fox at one time no doubt,’ was my rather sarcastic reply. ‘OK – I’ll say €200.’

‘Nearly. He wanted €450 but I managed to get him down to €300.’

Working out that my tax saving had disappeared in a flash, a minute later I was on the terrace with a large glass of Beaujolais Nouveau and a cigarette thinking – why does she do that?