When we got up this morning, the sun was shining, and I thought that the best thing I could do with the day would be to get my diary written early, so that I would not have to try and squeeze frantic writing in between customers on the taxi rank.
Obviously this is not a sensible idea. There is no point at all in trying to write a diary until you have actually done something, and I hadn’t. Even my most loyally patient of readers does not want to hear that so far I have had a cup of coffee and accidentally cleaned my teeth with the wrong toothpaste.
I have two sorts of toothpaste, one for morning, one for evening. It is easy to get them confused.
The dog enlivened things by being sick, but I don’t suppose you want to hear about that either.
I am still cross with the dog about this. I cleaned it all up and scrubbed the carpet, but there is a wet patch exactly in the spot where I put my feet when I get out of bed. Despite astronomically high temperatures today, by Lake District standards at least, somehow it has not dried and I have trodden on it several times since. Each time I imagine that I can still smell horrible dog food vomit, although I know that the enzyme soap has got rid of it really. The smell has lingered in my soul and made me grumpy with the dog.
Obviously I did not get out of bed and write my diary, for all of the above reasons. It was lunchtime by everybody else’s standards, and we went for a baking amble round the Library Gardens and felt pleased that at least the poor dogs had had a haircut.
I don’t know if they appreciated it. They collapsed in the kitchen when we got home and lay there, gasping in the shade until I started to organise our picnic. After that they stopped being too weak to move when they were shouted at for being in somebody’s way. Suddenly they were alert and interested at my feet in the hope of chicken bones and bits of chocolate.
They were in luck on both counts, because it was the end of the chicken, and there was a tub of biscuit crumbs which I emptied into their dishes. I think that if you are too virtuous a pet owner to allow your dogs chicken bones and chocolate then you should never eat them in front of the dog. Imagine having a sensitive nose alert to every tiny nuance of smell, and somebody eating glorious feasts right in front of you and never sharing. No wonder they chew your shoes and poo on your carpets.
Mark went outside and replaced the brake pads on Lucy’s car, accompanied by the children in the alley, who very kindly talked to him for the whole time so that he would not feel lonely.
This needed doing quickly, because we have got to MOT the poor camper van next week, and so we won’t have any more time to do it. This is always a worrying project when it comes round. Fortunately it is thirty eight years old and will only need to pass two more.
When the government made this legal they explained that anybody who was managing to keep a forty year old vehicle on the road must be looking after it pretty well anyway. I am not exactly sure that this is true, but I appreciate their thoughtfulness. Every little helps.
I am now on the taxi rank, writing frantically in between customers, because the sunshine makes everybody think that it would be a lovely idea to go and sit in a beer garden in the Lake District, until they are drunk enough to need a taxi home.
I do not know why this is, I think it would be horrible. Bowness is noisy and full of people. It has not rained, so everywhere is sticky, and smells of spilled beer. Some bits, after last night, smell not unlike the carpet beside my bed.
I am going to go, because we are busy, and I do not want to have to finish this at six in the morning when I am longing to go to bed.
The picture is Mark, and the brake pads and the children.
