Young love

Even before opening my eyes this morning, the very first thing I did was to move my head experimentally, just a little, on the pillow.

To my utter astonishment, no jolt of nauseous agony followed.

I tried again, cautiously, only to get the same joyous result. Then I poked Mark, and discovered, inexplicably, that neither of us was in the least hung over.

This was vastly more than we deserved. I have no idea how much I had to drink last night, but I know that it was a very lot, and worse, it was an unwholesome mixture of champagne and then different sorts of wines, all of which were very nice but probably not very good for me.

We sat and marvelled about this unexpected happiness over our coffee, and then had to hurry up to get dressed and organised before our visitors returned.

They were staying in a guest house at the other end of our road, our house being ill-equipped to entertain ten people comfortably overnight unless some of them slept underneath beds and in cupboards and things, which is what Ritalin Boy has to do when he visits.

Anyway, in consequence of this, they were at the mercy of the Irish landlady at the guest house, who wanted them to hurry up and get out from under her feet, presumably so that she could have time to clean the house before the next visitors and still have some day left for drinking whisky. I don’t suppose it needed much cleaning, since mostly they were carousing at our house, we should have sent a couple of poopies over there with them to get their money’s worth.

In the end everybody arrived for morning coffee and to admire poopies, and the littlest girl popped upstairs to admire Oliver. I confess to not ever having especially thought of Oliver as being potentially stuff of a young girl’s dreams, but I may have to reconsider my opinion.

The littlest girl, who was all of three, smiled at him with gentle brown eyes, and chuckled when he talked to her. Oliver kindly allowed her to sit on his bed and watch him killing zombies on his PlayStation, so he might have to refine his chat-up techniques before he gets to eighteen, but she seemed quite happy, and called him Obiler.

Her sister, who is a bit older, was more interested in the poopies. Lucy was seven when she had Scamp, who was half of her soul and the love of her life, and whose sad little untimely death broke everybody’s heart, and this little girl seemed like she might also be at a good age to have a poopy.

In fact she fell completely in love with a small black fluffy poopy with a white tuft on the end of its tail. She played with him, and hugged him and stroked him and carried him about, until in the end he burrowed his little nose blissfully into her lap and went to sleep.

She carried him out to the car with her when she left. He has still got a couple of weeks before he is old enough to leave home, so he has got to stay with us for a little bit longer, but of course she wanted to spend all the time that she could with him.

She cuddled him on her lap in the car whilst we all milled about saying our goodbyes. When I picked him up he most plainly did not want to leave her.

He waggled his little paws and fought to curl up on her knee again, and struggled to go back to her.

When we took it home the oddest thing happened. All of the others went to sleep, but the newly chosen poopy did not at all want to.

He was beside himself with excitement, and dashed about the living room, rolling over and bouncing on and off things and being happy. Mark said that he had found a girl all of his own, and I laughed, but secretly I thought that he was right, that the poopy was just as pleased and happy to have a girl to love as the girl was to have a poopy.

She thought she might call him Harry, and it has stuck, we have been calling him Harry Poopy ever since. It is the oddest thing, it is as if the poopy has suddenly come alive, he has become quite different and full of himself.

I am very pleased indeed for them both. It is a splendid thing to have found somebody who you can love.

It is the most peculiar thing. It is as if he knows.

Somewhere there is a little girl who loves him best.

Not long to wait.