Dogs, shorts and bluebottles

Our second-hand dog is settling down quite nicely.

She is thrilled beyond measure by the Library Gardens, and was delighted to discover that her daily routine appears to include a walk at midnight, another one at four, and another one at seven.

Clearly this doesn’t bear very much resemblance to any kind of routine with which she might be acquainted, and has spent most of the day waiting hopefully at the end of the garden for our next walk, whenever that might randomly happen, so it is just as well we didn’t have very much planned for the day.

The two dogs have not fallen in love with one another yet but there is no rush, we have explained to them that these things take time and that they need to get to know each other, and that it is hard work for everybody at first. Also the new dog has brought with her a dowry of a pink squeaky toy about which rights of possession are being fiercely disputed, and it is difficult to concentrate on emotional matters until all the formalities have been properly established.

It has been hot, and even now it is night it is still hot, which is glorious beyond words. There is nothing in the world nicer than wearing shorts and a T-shirt and not being chilly, although I am struggling with an unfamiliar awareness of my legs, which feel oddly exposed when not inside their normal tubes of Marks & Spencer Stretch Denim For The Fuller Figure.

This is the first time this year I have worn my shorts, and to my relief they have not shrunk at all since the last time I put them on in September, which occasionally happens and is always depressing, but they fit perfectly well and just to make life even nicer I have been able to remove both my jerseys. I was down to a single one by last weekend, but today I have hardly worn even that one at all.

I am writing this in my taxi and have just had a truly unspeakable experience even as I wrote, so I have stopped the presses in order to relay it to you, and this paragraph is genuine Live News.

I have just this very minute taken a reassuring mouthful of my lovely Earl Grey tea and found that there was a lump in it which turned out to be a drowned bluebottle.

I have tipped the remainder on the tea out on the pavement in an excess of revulsion and horror, and am trying to work out a method of somehow disinfecting my mouth. I have tried an Extra Strong Mint, which is helping, but it is not banishing the dreadful sensory memory of a horrible dead bluebottle on my tongue, which is going to haunt my  reflective moments for days to come.

Of course I did instantly spit the bluebottle out, which is how I know what it was. The difficulty is that I would very much like some more tea now but somehow my ability to think in terms of statistical risk, which would make it possible for me to get on a plane to Tunisia without a backward glance, appears to have deserted me, and if I drink some more tea you never know if it might happen again.

I have reminded myself several times that I have drunk bluebottle-free tea in my taxi every working night for the last twenty years, and therefore it is reasonable to assume that the chances of another bluebottle are roughly 1:7,000 against, but I an not convinced.

I bet it did a poo in my cup whilst it drowned as well.

I am very glad I am not a swallow or something similar that never ever eats rack of lamb or cheesecake or salmon pate but has got to live on horrible bluebottle the whole time.

I suppose that is the way I can come to terms with the trauma.

It is all very well for people to rhapsodise about being as free as birds, but given the ghastly unpalatability of almost everything they eat, on the whole I would far rather be earthbound and trapped than flapping round the sky having to eat slugs for breakfast every morning.

I had hot buttery fruit rolls for my breakfast this morning.

I suppose I can put up with one bluebottle every twenty years or so.