Ian Moore: Rescuing pets in France

Having rescued countless animals in France over the years, Ian Moore is determined to stand his ground..

“Can you turn the music down please?” my wife said, a not unusual request in the car, but I turned the music down. She turned it back up. “You just turned the music back up?” I said. She’d never turned the music back up before.

“You turned it down to 17.” she said quietly, “I can’t have it on an odd number.” Throughout that long car journey, I was admonished on a number of occasions
for having the volume wrong, that’s to say on an odd-numbered level. I was also told off regularly for the speed I was driving: not that I going too fast which she normally tells me off for, but because I was driving at 87kph, for example, or at 109. “Odd numbers,” she said. “Don’t do it.” And the journey became an accelerator pedal balancing act while I tried to stay on an even speed so as not to send my wife into full-blown ‘doo-lally-tattism’.

“I’ve been dreaming about animals a lot recently,” she said wistfully. “Do you think we should get another puppy?”

I read somewhere that people who are stressed or show signs of mental ‘fatigue’ should be humoured; generally agree with them, try to keep them calm. “No, I bloody do not!” I responded forcefully, causing my foot to slip and the speed to reach a disquieting 117. “Well I’m feeling broody.” I let it lie, hoping it might go away, but knowing deep down and from tiring experience that just wouldn’t be the case. “Do you know,” she continued, “that since June, 30,000 animals have been abandoned in France? Thirty thousand!”

This is traditionally dangerous conversational territory for us and has to be played right. “Well, at least it’s an even number,” I offered pathetically. This is obviously a truly staggering figure and a deeply unpleasant thought, but while I sympathise with any abandoned creature, I really feel we’ve done our bit. In fact, I feel we’ve done more than our bit. Over the years, we’ve rescued two horses, three goats, dozens of cats and hens, a fair few dogs and a short-lived rabbit. A bit dramatic I know, but most of the time it’s me that needs rescuing.

“You can’t rescue all of them,” I said, trying to be gentle and knowing that this kind of thing really upsets her. “It’s dreadful, I know, but we can’t take on anymore especially if you’re back to full-time teaching.

It’s not just puppies though, puppies and cats are all over social media. Click-baiting the unwary into signing up to newsletters, emails and so on. I know this because the emails started to arrive while I was away at work last week. One of them had the title ‘How can you resist Ellie?” Ellie was, is, I suppose, a pretty little kitten, who bears a striking resemblance to Vespa, the cat who went missing years ago. Still, the question ‘How can you resist Ellie?” was to my mind a simple one. ‘Very easily, thank you very much.’ Ellie is currently being fostered somewhere in the Drome department, which is a stunning coincidence as Natalie and the boys are this week on holiday somewhere in the Drôme department.

I waved them all off on Sunday afternoon. “Drive safely,” I said as I kissed them all goodbye. “Don’t let the speed sit on an odd number. Keep the music at a sane level.” “You never know,” Natalie said as she was about to drive through the gate. “We may come back with a new cat.”

I had been expecting this and was prepared. “If you do that,” I began, a little too cockily it has to be said, like an overconfident courtroom barrister summing up, “we’ll have 11 animals. No good that. Odd number.” She paused. “We’ll get two then.” Oh she’s good.

lan Moore is a comedian, writer, chutney-maker and mod who lives with his family in the Loire Valley. His latest book is Vive le Chaos (£9.99, amazon.co.uk)

ianmoore.info

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