Maurice the Toad

Maurice is our pet toad. ('crapaud' in Maurice's native tongue-'how unfortunate' I tell him). Maurice lives periodically in our garage and chose to pose for this photo whilst sitting in M's sander. Maurice has been keen to learn a little English and since I am always keen to improve my French, we have been discussing our lives from time to time in a kind of Franglais toadish patois. Maurice regards himself basically as being on the centre right, (although not a fan of Sarkozy) he still smokes, and he has 84 grandchildren. His wife died last Summer. He feels they were a good partnership but, since her death (perhaps toads are a little more prosaic than us about such matters) he has found himself reminiscing about the past. When he was a young toad of just two summers, he met another lady toad, Marianne, at the annual spawning. He was utterly bowled over by the pattern of her warts, the articulation of her gait, and the hoarseness of her croak (she, too, was a smoker whereas this was a habit he always had to conceal from his wife). They linked hands, they sat next to one another by the pond in the moonlight, and Maurice felt his heart grow so big in his chest that he was unable to croak despite the beauty of the evening. They made their vows, and their agreed to meet again each and every year and raise a family together. Well Maurice returned to the pond at each spawning (as a toad surely must) for a full five years before he accepted that Marianne was not returning. He never found out what happened to her. He can't say that his his life was ruined, but he felt he would never experience the same kind of love for another toad again-and he hasn't. He tells his grandchildren about the importance of living for the moment, and acting on your strongest feelings but of course they don't listen-they're young, and too busy waddling round puffing theemselves up. m
Maurice lifts his hands upwards beside his face and shrugs-it is the classic gallic gesture 'What can you do?' he asks the garden spider who has been eavesdropping. 'We were all the same when we were young. We thought we had all the time in the world..."