Several people have asked me questions about weather and politics

Weather – what’s the weather been like?

As Roland mentioned in his travelogue the weather has been very mild and dry.  It only rained a few days in November but nothing in December.  It does get cold at night but the days are often warm and bright – in the 60s for the most part.  We did visit Biarritz in the beginning of the month and it was around 70 degrees there.  We are heading there for New Years and it looks like it will be warm again there although it might rain a little.

Politics – what do the French think about Trump?

Well – only a few people have said anything about him – and they really can’t believe that he’s popular at all.  But they just had regional elections where the far-right ( Marine La Pen’s party – they hate all immigrants or basically anyone who looks a little different) actually did quite well.  In the end, they didn’t win any regional elections but they often came in second – either ahead of the liberal party (Holland’s) or the center right party (Sarkozy’s).  So the whole world is acting a little crazy…

Dogs – okay nobody asked me but I just have to tell you…

As many people mentioned the French are a little crazy about their dogs.  We have seen them in restaurants but it is completely up to the restaurant if they are allowed.  We haven’t seen any dogs in any grocery store (unlike in our Trader Joes in San Francisco) but we have seen them in our farmers market.  People aren’t very good about picking up their dog poop – which is pretty disgusting.  But since things have changed so much at home with “service dogs” – I’d say it is just about the same.  The one thing that is very different – is how they treat hunting dogs.  Oh my – it is terrible.  They leave them all the time in metal cages on cement – no cover for the rain except a small dog house.  They bark terribly when you walk by – and they aren’t all large dogs – each set of cages seems to have at least one small dog (a terrier perhaps) that barks like mad and jumps 3 to 4 feet off the ground.

The other day a hunting dog tried to have Roland rescue him.  We are sitting outside enjoying the lovely sunshine and a medium size dog (spaniel terrier mix) ran up to Roland and as soon as Roland said a kind word the dog crawled on his lap.  Just then a man drove up and asked us to hold his collar – then he got out of his car and came over to get him.  We knew it was a hunting dog so Roland asked the man what he hunts for (pheasant was his answer).  Then the man had to drag the dog back to his car.  The poor dog didn’t want to go – he wanted to stay with us.  It was so sad.  I’m telling you – we need to set-up a hunting dog rescue operation.

Sorry I haven’t been good about sending notes – we were traveling quite a bit for a while (looking at properties) and didn’t spend much time around our apartment. We are leaving in a week for Biarritz for a few days then the Dordogne for a few weeks to look at property around there.  We should have made a reality TV program about our property search – we’ve seen horse estates, Chateaux, 18^th century mansions, 12^th century farm houses, and 19^th century train stations all converted to Bed and Breakfasts.