You're Never Safe From The Rayboulds!

You can run, you can hide, you can even relocate yourself for a few weeks, to a different continent, but you just can't escape The Rayboulds!

Our friends, the Chalmers family, have a house reasonably near ours in France.  As it was the first time we were all in France at the same time for very many years, we spent Easter together.

How exciting it was to see them in their French house, which we had not previously visited.  They live in a small village, near Cahors, in the Lot.

On Easter Sunday, we had an Easter egg hunt.  Well, the children had one and they let me join in.  Oh stop it!  Do you honestly think I was going to sit there and watch, when there was free chocolate to be found?

Here I am with Sam Hannah and Ben, all of us clutching our bowls, though as there was only a small bowl left for me, you can see that I was none too happy!

 Having sharpened my elbows, I was ready for the scrum, but boy was I outmanoeuvred!  Years of Easter egg hunts (this was my first), had honed the kid's skills, and they moved with a speed and determination, only usually seen at a tourist buffet table.

An aside here.  The dog in the foreground isn't their dog.  He was owned by someone who used to live in the village, who abandoned the dog.  He has semi adopted the Chalmers, or maybe them him, but in any case, he slept on their doorstep and followed them around.  Now everyone knows about me and my 'love' of dogs (or indeed about me and any animal) and to me, this one was no exception.

I woke up very early the following day and saw the fog sitting across the valley.  It was so haunting and beautiful, I decided to go for a walk.  And Perdu decided to follow me.  He is called Perdu, which means lost in French.

At first I was none too happy about this, and made a few 'shoo!' sounds and movements, but the dog, being either blind or deluding himself that I was in fact playing, decided to walk with me.  Once I realised that he wasn't going to savage me, drag my body off into the woods and make me eat dog food, I quite got into having a companion.

I ended up doing this walk twice, as I decided to go back, get my camera and do the walk again, trying to capture some of the scenery.  Before I knew it, I was throwing sticks for Perdu and talking to him.  I really enjoyed myself.

Arriving back outside the Chalmer's house, and throwing the last few sticks for the dog and talking to him, I heard a noise.  I looked up to see everyone crowding the window, trying to get a look at 'dog hating Kim' playing with the dog, and were they laughing!

I admit I did think about how nice it would be to have the companion (Alan never manages to find the sticks), and maybe a dog would be nice.  Then I remembered the giant carrier bag, which accompanies every dog walk.  No way am I cleaning up dog poop.  No, I'll stay dog hating until the breed they dog that wipes his own bottom and cleans up after.  Ugh!

Back to the Easter egg hunt.  Here I am with what I think was my lone winnings!  I had to resort to begging for eggs from the kids, and when that didn't work, sneaking a few out of their bowls.

In this picture I am wearing John's jacket.  Let me tell you, I tried valiantly, to take that jacket with me when I left.  it was great!  I could get it on over multiple layers of clothes and it was warm.  Really John, you could have let me keep it!