Idiot

I got up too early.

I had worked late last night, all by myself because Mark was mending the car. When I got home he was snoring so profoundly he did not hear me collapsing into bed next to him, even though I was cold and his back was conveniently warm.

We had to get up early this morning because of fixing the stupid thing. It turned out that in the process of smashing the clutch to bits, it seems to have bent and torn and bashed several other bits as well. He showed these to me but I don’t know what they were. There was a steel tube, and a bit that he described as a fork, which was nothing whatsoever like any fork I have ever seen, and various other necessary items, most of which seemed to be composed of oil and rust.

He rang the scrapyard, and then dashed off to go and collect them, leaving me emptying the dogs and yawning.

The dogs were idiots in the Library Gardens, especially Roger Poopy, who is behaving as if he was snorting cocaine along with the ecstatic gasps of everybody else’s wee all around the gateposts. He was in the mood to play, and  bounded up to everybody else’s dog, charging into them and barking his head off. Obviously this is the dog equivalent of buzzing around on a scooter and snatching people’s mobile phones, because everybody else’s dog was very upset about it, and I had to apologise, and try to kick him surreptitiously when nobody humane was looking.

He was so naughty yesterday that Mark put him on a lead for his last walk, by way of punishment for his wickedness. We never put either of them on leads, because they can usually be trusted to do what they are told, like walking to heel in traffic. This is because Mark, who has been a farmer for most of his life, thinks that if you cannot completely trust your dog then you should shoot it, and that you only need a lead if your dog is not properly under control.

It appeared that Roger Poopy had not been properly under control. When I got in from work at four in the morning, he was so ashamed that he was still hiding under the coffee table. I told him he was an idiot, and he crept upstairs to their bed, but by this morning he had forgotten all about it, and was a clown again.

I bellowed at him, and he came to heel, reluctantly and with his eyes rolling, and slunk along next to me all the way home. We are going to have to do some serious behaving-yourself practice, he is a bonehead.

When I got home I spent the day cooking.

This was because I had been hoping that we might be able to go away in the camper van for the night tonight. It is the middle of the week, and it is a bit too wet for building the conservatory, and I had thought that perhaps we could have a holiday. I cooked all sorts of things just in case, like spiced chicken on skewers, and buttered potatoes with bacon, and chocolate biscuits, and strawberry chocolate with chilli, but in the end Mark is still putting my car back together even as I write, and it has got too late, we will have to eat it all as picnics at work.

I had thought that I would go to the gym, but in the end I just wasn’t virtuous enough. I am still yawning, and do not think that I would be able to cycle very far at all. I only managed eight kilometres last night. This is jolly good by last year’s standards, when I was very fat and slothful, but rubbish if you are moderately fat and slothful but trying to be sleek and lean and fit to go to a ball in three weeks.

Mark said that it would be less trouble to get a new dress, and probably cheaper than the gym membership.

Get thee behind me.