NotSheep

We had a really difficult telephone call with Barney today

He looks happy in the photos, and he says things are fine 75% of the time, but there are still issues, some of which I suspect are due to how different he is from Henry. Barney is not a very demonstrative person, and tends to be more of an observer, and I think perhaps that makes Henry’s parents feel he isn’t trying to join in as much as he could. It sounds as though there are also some problems with the relationship between the two boys, and that’s making things hard too, especially now they have finished school for the summer. It sounds like the low times are very low, and he cried quite a lot on the phone. He doesn’t feel able to tell his French parents how he feels, so he’s holding it all in. The person who runs the exchange organisation says that if he had met Barney prior to the exchange, he would have matched him with someone different - I think this was the first time he arranged an exchange without meeting everyone involved, and he feels that was the wrong thing to do. It’s not that the exchange is a disaster, just that Barney might have been happier with a boy more like himself. We sent an application for George a few weeks ago - just for a one-way exchange, with a French child coming here - and I know we said that about Barney, but there was no possibility of George going anywhere for six months - but he has not been matched with anyone this year, I think partly because of the organiser’s feelings that it would have been better to meet Barney beforehand. Unfortunately the organisers didn’t come here this year, and between Cub Camps and various other commitments, we weren’t able to fit a trip to England on the weekend when they were there. George is disappointed, but perhaps next year or the year after something will work for him.

Now I really am counting down the days until Barney’s return - about 76 of them left, which is about 75 more than I’d like

Apart from the phone-call…today was busy. In the morning I went to collect a pup who was part of the same litter as our two - not for us, but for friends who have been looking for a dog. This one needed to be re-homed, and when I telephoned them about her, it took about three seconds for them to say “Yes!” They are the friends who have the caravan we stayed in last week, and they are up there for the weekend, so we said we’d collect and deliver So before lunch we went back with C and A to visit their mum - whose owner was awestruck at the size of C - and after lunch we loaded up the car - two adults, four children, three four-month-old puppies - and headed north. My friend J and her eight-year-old son M were there - M didn’t know about the pup until we arrived, and it took about five minutes of us all saying “She’s yours, you get to keep her!” before it finally sank in, and then there was a lot of grinning His eleven-year-old brother knew, because he’d been listening in the telephone conversation this morning, but K (husband/dad) hadn’t been told…he was working on a residential programme about half an hour away. We had a walk on the beach, during which both Freddy and Jack walked into the ocean fully-clothed (don’t ask, I don’t know), but we juggled what clothing remained available and borrowed a bit more from our friends. After dinner we all headed over to K’s residential, to introduce his new family member - he was delighted, as we’d known he would be, since a) they’d been looking for a pup and b) he’s rather keen on ours It was very amusing to watch him walking towards us; we could see him mentally counting dogs as he approached

They’re staying in the caravan until Tuesday evening and have offered us the use of it from then until Friday. I’m very tempted…