Taupes

How are you on Taupes? Taupe is French for 'MOLE'. Our lawn is lifting with the beggars. Duncan, the old Rottweiler used to love digging huge craters to pursue them and Pippy the terrier used to love helping him. I stick to mole traps, but French mole traps are pretty much a waste of space, though I did see a bright idea in the garden centre. You dug into a run and set the trap. The mole would come frolicking down the tunnel and go through the trap (and this is where it gets fiendishly clever): as it went through the trap it set off a thing like a 4.10 cartridge, the theory was that the resulting explosion terminated the mole With Extreme Prejudice, by spreading it all over its underground system - quite a good theory really, but remember it is a French idea and the fell machine was built in France. Anything designed and built in France is going to have a BUT in it somewhere. I was sitting in my office one day, when I heard a bang from the lawn. I went out to look and saw a scattered crater of earth. Then I was met by a 'Lucas Terrier' carrying a foreleg and complaining piteously. He had obviously set out to dig for a mole and triggered off an explosive device. He was not best suited and required a little T.L.C. Well that was it and no great harm was done, but ever since then, Pip has shown absolutely no enthusiasm for mole digging.
I often hear the 'noises’ of the Night Bird (a Tawny Owl). I like owls and have done since the days of the '100 acre Wood'. I once met a man who kept owls and I asked him about their reputation for wisdom - "Attention span of about 3 seconds" he said. Well, that buggered that one, but I still liked them and I was pleased when I found that the hen owl had a successful nest under the roof in the garage - successful that is until I began picking up dead fledglings, apparently unharmed. However a closer look showed that she had built her nest in the roof ridge of a corrugated iron roof and with the fierce heat we have had, the poor little buggers had just roasted. When I picked up the sad little corpses, mother would fly by and scold me. I don’t blame her for being cross but as Mr Jeanes used to say - "what's born, must die" and if it is up under an iron roof in 40 degree heat it is very likely going to.
Kind people keep asking me when we are flitting - the answer is "at the end of July" and I hope that the weather will have cooled down a bit. Other kind people ask for our new address - 'Need to know' is what I apply here, but I will tell you that it is near Cherbourg. There, that'll do you won't it ? Addresses can be a problem. I remember once receiving a letter from the USA addressed to WILLY POOLE, THE CHEVIOT HILLS, ENGLAND