As heatwaves go, it is not a very hot one.
It was perfect weather for running up and down the fell this morning, though. There was mild sunshine and birdsong and a cool breeze and sparkling dew on the grass.
I had not gone very far on my way when I realised that I had forgotten to put the Taser collars on the dogs.
They have been wearing these for a week or so now, and they have worked brilliantly. After the first horrible moment of realising that something dreadful happened whenever he wickedly rushed off over the playing fields, barking his head off and getting into fights, Roger Poopy has improved his rascally conduct to the point where I have not actually needed to electrocute him for ages. He comes back when I shout him, and has even managed not to hurl himself on his nemesis, the black spaniel with the cross lady on the lead, for ages.
In consequence of this I thought that I would not bother going back to collect them, and we continued puffing up and out of the village.
When we got out onto the open fell I realised that some farmer had been busy.
There were sheep everywhere.
I had two dogs with me who did not have a collar between them, never mind a lead.
I almost turned back, but the thought of failing to reach the summit, small achievement as that might be, made me decide that I would give it a go. I told the dogs to come to heel, in my best growly Pack Leader voice, and we set off.
They behaved absolutely impeccably.
To my absolute astonishment, they trotted obediently at my heels all the way up to the top. Roger Poopy had to try very hard indeed not to look at the sheep, because they were very excitingly large and woolly, but he managed it. I did not have to turn round and bellow at him even once.
We looked like a picture out of some textbook about how to have perfect dogs. I jogged along breathlessly and they jogged behind me, keeping step together.
I could not have been more impressed.
When we got to the top I rewarded them with Good Dog Sausages. Roger Poopy was so joyously proud of himself that he almost knocked me off the edge.
We ran down in the same perfectly virtuous formation.
I was jolly impressed with them, and told them so. I might actually have well-behaved dogs, which is a happy surprise.
I think I might remember their collars tomorrow, though. Just in case.
I had intended to cook a pan of dinners for the freezer, but it was so sunny and lovely that I didn’t. I brought the wardrobe door downstairs and propped it up next to the wide open French windows and sat in the sunshine painting.
This was a very pleasing way to spend an afternoon. The dogs lay on the floor next to me, snoring contentedly. I listened to The Archers and an incomprehensible play about a psychic, and got paint all over my T-shirt.
Obviously Mark came home early. He only ever does this if I am squandering my time on something frivolous, never if I am labouring hard at some domestic project. We walked around the Library Gardens in the last of the sunshine, and then he built me a box to put in the camper van whilst I made our picnic.
I need a box to keep things in, and also to stand on whilst I am making the beds, because of being short. I am very pleased to have this. It will make life nicer, and I can paint pictures on it.
All in all it has been a satisfactory kind of day.
Life is very lovely when the sun shines.
