Gnomes

So, Friday morning….one week until the big day. The house is starting to look quite bare, and there seems to be a constant stream of people arriving to buy various things (I hope I'm not on the list of things for sale!?) Anne and Marc are very busy every day, what with the visits to the library for an internet connection, and trips to the tip with yet another carload of things to throw away. They seem to spend a lot of time looking for someone called Alan Key – I don’t know who this is, but there seems to be more than one of them (big Alan Key, medium Alan Key  and small Alan Key) Whichever one they find never seems to be the right one. They must be important though, because they are definitely coming in the car with us on the big day.

Evenings however are  another matter. Much Scrabble has been played, and honours are more or less even (should anyone be keeping a tally). The evening meal is followed by a roaring log fire and some DVDs. The Killing and Spiral were immensely enjoyable, and I thought Hugo was a lovely film. The last couple of evenings’ fare have been a bit darker – Inglorious Basterds was rather gory, and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was really sad – I have to be careful not to shed a tear as I rust very easily.

They've acquired these wretched gnomes from somewhere and we definitely haven’t got off to a happy start – so far,Mr Green is the most suspicious, constantly taunting me when their backs are turned. His three friends (Mr Black, Mr Yellow and Mr Red) always deny seeing or hearing anything, and now I can’t get ”stuck in the middle with you” out of my head. Thank goodness I don’t have any actual ears to worry about. 

A moving story

Hi everyone, I’m Larry and I have been co-opted by my owners, Anne and Marc, to write this blog for them. A couple of years ago I was leading a peaceful, if somewhat dull, existence in a gallery in Kennebunkport, when I was bought by the d’Abovilles and repatriated to the UK. London -  bright lights, big city – how exciting, I loved it there.  But last year I could tell that big changes were afoot. Lots of conversations began with “Wouldn’t it be nice if……” or “Just imagine………….” They kept mentioning something called sunshine – not something that there was a lot of in 2012 in the UK. Then all of a sudden the house was sold and everything was being put in boxes – many, many boxes. At the end of November we arrived safely at the holiday house in Normandy. I have been here before (oh the stories I could tell!) and settled happily into my favourite spot near the fire. Christmas was approaching and I even got my own little Santa hat to wear. The family arrived and a very festive time was had by all. In fairy tales, this would be the point at which we all lived happily ever after, but I was beginning to realise that this was no fairy tale………….. (not yet anyway).

It turns out that Normandy is just a temporary stopover and that in a few weeks we will be moving *again* to the South West of France . Anne and Marc have bought somewhere called Le Domaine de Chasselas and we will all be living there and running a small business providing holiday accommodation in the form of gites, camping, caravan and B&B. So, not only is everything from the London house packed away in boxes, everything in this house is also having to be packed up/sold/got rid of – it’s like deja-vu all over again. My role will be to write this blog, and I have been reassured that, unlike here, there will be internet access (luxury!) so I won’t need to visit the library every day to get a connection. Apparently,  someone who seems to be known by the code name “Orange” will be sorting this out for when we arrive - I just hope it doesn’t turn into some sort of Reservoir Dogs re-enactment.

It is snowing as I type this and, pretty though it is, I find myself looking forward to the prospect of some sun and a house without boxes.