Nailed it

How we have tootled about.

We have done all sorts of small need-to-be-done things.

I bathed the dogs. This is remarkably quick and easy when they are bald. They barely even protested, having become, I think, resigned to the slings and arrows of their outrageous fortunes at the moment, so I took advantage of their misery and cut their claws as well.

I hate doing this. It is very easy to get it wrong and hurt them, because their claws have got a little bit of toe inside them, which you should try not to cut off. The dog does not like it when you do this, even by mistake, and you may get bitten.

I had to cut them anyway, because although most of their claws wear down when we go out for walks, they also have back claws which do not touch the pavement, and these have to be cut. If you do not keep these short on a dog, they grow around in a circle and poke themselves painfully into the dog’s paw. All of these had started to grow into circles, and so they had to be cut before they inadvertently stabbed themselves.

It was very horrible. We have got a little clip thing especially for cutting dog claws, but I do not even like cutting my own nails, never mind anybody else’s.

This has been true for all of my life. I loathe and detest the feeling of metal pressing into the nail. It makes me shudder with horror just to think about it. I can just about manage to cut my toenails, after a hot shower when they are soft, and preferably after a glass of wine as well. This is a good thing, because they are too far away to be bitten.

I have to bite my fingernails. Not so that they are short and stubby, the way people do when they are nervous about things. I do not like doing it, because I do not like teeth pressing on fingernails either, but the alternative is to have horrid long useless fingernails, and I do not want those.

One of the girls in the bank has got long fingernails. It means that she finds it very difficult to pick pennies up off the counter. I try not to watch her doing it because it makes me squeamishly uncomfortable.

Nails are difficult things.

Anyway, today I had to cut the dogs nails.

They do not like having their nails cut either.

It does not matter how sympathetic I feel about this, it still has to be done. I considered asking Mark, but he was busy, and so I just had to grit my teeth.

It was not at all nice, and they fought valiantly. I had to ask Mark to come and help restrain Roger Poopy in the end, but we did it without bloodshed, and nobody got bitten. I think probably they have forgiven me, and I gave them a bit of my biscuit when we had our cup of tea later, by way of an apology.

Mark was fixing Oliver’s computer.

The new screen arrived this morning, and so the next couple of hours were occupied by hushed voices and surgical precision whilst he tried hard not to lose tiny screws and work out which micro-connections went where.

It almost went badly wrong because he discovered halfway through that the screen was stuck down by a special sort of double-sided stretchy tape. Obviously we did not have any of this.

He rushed round to the computer-mending shop in the village, and the man there said that they never bothered with all of that expensive faffing about, and they just stuck theirs in with double sided sticky tape from the ironmonger’s across the road, so he did that instead.

It worked perfectly. There was a dreadful moment at the end where he got it all back together and switched it on, and the screen just stayed utterly, uselessly black. This was scary until we realised that the battery was flat. When we plugged it in to charge it all worked beautifully.

Mending computers looks jolly difficult. You have to have a tool called a Spludger, or something, which sounds like a rugby manoeuvre. To my surprise it turned out that we had one, in a box of broken mobile phones that he has been saving, because one day when he gets some time he is going to take them all apart and see how they work.

Fortunately, that day was not today.

We have hung up the pan rack as well.

Have a picture of the computer-repair workshop.