Walls

Now here’s something you don’t get asked every day: ‘Can you give me your dogs’ vital statistics, please?’ Have you ever tried to get an accurate idea of an animal’s height, length and width while it’s alternately tying itself in knots to try to get at the tape measure in your hand or desperately backing away into a corner ? I can tell you it was highly amusing, I never knew Tiggy could walk backwards at such a speed. I ended up pinning her to the wall and drawing pencil marks on it so I could let her scuttle off while I measured them instead. That made the job much easier, though I was a bit peeved about drawing on the walls as I had just spent half a day scrubbing them to relieve them of 4 years of finger marks, snot paintings and other assorted stains in a bid to keep my landlord happy since he’s been visiting regularly lately with a string of potential tenants. Not that he seemed that bothered at first, until someone expressed the opinion that the place was filthy and although she did want to rent it he’d have to repaint it all first. When he relayed those comments to me by phone (in French) I have to say my brain tuned out after hearing ‘bad state of the paintwork’ as my house-pride kicked in with a big dose of ‘how very dare she?!’ So I didn’t catch every word of what he said next apart from ‘coming tomorrow to visit’ as I hastily sought out the bucket and the Jif and set to work like a woman possessed. I never really noticed how many doorways we have until I decided to scour ingrained grime off them all evening, but there was no way anyone was going to accuse me of keeping a mucky house, let alone waltz back in with the landlord to point it all out to him.

When he turned up the next day I was all prepared. The walls were (mostly) white once more, the skirting boards, doors and frames were all free of scuffs and fingerprints. I was ready for the snotty cow to take another look around and have to eat her words. She looked slightly different when she walked in, not quite as I remembered her from the first visit. Rather more friendly and smiley than I had expected too. And her baby had changed sex … Der, it was someone else completely seeing the house for the first time. Had I concentrated harder during the phone call I would have heard that Mrs Snotty was planning to come back on Saturday to discuss the ‘state of the paintwork’, and that in any case my landlord heartily disagreed with her opinion and had no intention of painting anything so he was still showing the place to other people. And this one liked the place so much she paid the deposit there and then, blowing Mrs Snotty out of the running and rendering all my knee-busting, knuckle-crunching cleaning totally unnecessary! Oh well. At least I can appreciate it myself for a few weeks, dog sized pencil markings and all. I would have loved to have seen that woman’s face though!

Anyway I can console myself with the knowledge that I got right up someone else’s nose instead the next day, with the help of my four-legged friend (who is 90cm from nose to tail by the way.) I was treated, along with four friends, to a corker of a French tantrum - a full-on finger wagging, foot stomping, raving lunatic performance. It was a thing to behold; they love a good rant over here, and never more so than on the roads. Strictly speaking this one wasn’t actually on the roads as she sped into the school car park and my brainless dog wandered in front of her car, but the result was the same. Apparently I am highly irresponsible for letting my dog roam free amidst friends in an enclosed car park when there are no children around (apart from one who is perfectly happy with dogs). She didn’t appreciate it when we countered en masse that perhaps her driving or eyesight were at fault rather than the large, easy-to-see animal who couldn’t care less about giving way to metal boxes on wheels when there are interesting wee-wee smells to sniff in the middle of the thoroughfare. So she turned on my friend who had a 2 year old with her and berated her for not ‘holding the child’s hand while there are cars about’, even though the child was right beside her leg and all the cars around them were stationary till Mrs Speedy arrived! You never saw anything like it. She was deranged; clearly gunning for a fight before my crazy dog even crossed her path and self-righteously at ease taking on five women at once, although she did keep her Renault Clio between us the entire time before flouncing off into the building.

Vive la France! You know, I am really gonna miss this place…!