I have just come back from a very wet walk in the Library Gardens with the dogs. I am not going to bother going to work, because the last few nights have been such an appalling waste of time that frankly, it isn’t worth bothering. There is nobody in the Lake District.
I am not surprised that there is nobody in the Lake District. It is dreadfully cold, wet and unwelcoming. Nobody could possibly want to wait outside a pub in the pouring rain until one of its three socially-distanced tables became free, to be escorted in with a bag on one’s head in case of breathing, and then obliged to select and pay for a full dinner before even a small glass of house red is permitted. Then of course there are the regular visits from the police, who take people’s names and addresses, check what they are eating, and then pop back later to make sure that nobody has lingered over pudding.
Oh brave new world.
Compared to that, the wet trudge around the Library Gardens could be considered almost a festive event.
It was certainly lively. We have now got three dogs instead of our usual two, not counting Pepper. Number One Daughter is busy at work, and Number One Son-In-Law is on an oil rig, and so we have got Tonka for a week, since he is not allowed on an oil rig.
Roger Poopy and Pepper like Tonka very much, and they had a magnificent gallop around the park this morning. Roger Poopy’s father, who is of course also Tonka’s father, does not like either of them, and lies on the rug and growls if anybody has the temerity to trot past him.
Of course it is also Dog Christmas Chocolate season, and Tonka has very quickly learned that the place for dogs to hover around is of course, under the Christmas tree, waiting for any accidentally plummeting chocolate. The space under my desk is beginning to be littered with well-sucked wrappers, and this afternoon I thought that perhaps we people had better eat some chocolate before the dogs got the lot.
I took some from the tree.
It is quite astonishing how the presence of six imploring, betrayed eyes can spoil the pleasure in chocolate.
I trimmed Tonka’s fringe out of his eyes this morning. I did not single him out, I was doing our dogs mostly, because their hair grows over their eyes and occasionally pokes into them.
Tonka could barely see out from behind his fringe, so I cut it.
He cheered up quite remarkably when vision was restored, and there is only the small downside that now he looks utterly ridiculous.
I hope it grows back before we have to give him back. I do not think that Number One Daughter will be impressed by the argument that haircuts have scarcity value in these days of bat flu. I think she might be disgruntled.
Tonka is happy, though.
It has been something of a day for dogs. When I looked at my computer this morning there was a message from the Number Two Daughters, attached to a picture of a runty-looking cross-eyed dog. The dog, the blurb said, had been in a dogs’ home for years because nobody wanted him. He would be an adorable asset to a forever home, to belong with a loving family who would not mind that he was not house trained and attacked other dogs savagely on sight. Also probably better to keep him away from small children.
He was called Mr. Snuffles.
The Number Two Daughters begged me to write to the rescue centre and ask if we could adopt him, because of him being homeless and lonely at Christmas.
I looked at his lunatic stare, sighed, and wrote to the rescue centre.
Fortunately it appeared that three million other people had also written to the rescue centre, and so Mr. Snuffles was saved to go and wee on somebody else’s carpets.
How disappointed I was.
I wrote back to the Number Two Daughters and advised that it might be time for them to purchase a puppy of their own.
Then I went back down our stairs, tripping over a dog on practically every stair.
Have a picture.
