The picture is hideously gruesome.
It is poor Number Two Daughter, who has been attacked by a dog.
She has had nine stitches and although she is all right, she is feeling sore and troubled by the world, mostly because she was supposed to start a new job on Monday and now she can’t. Worse, they were going to go away this weekend to stay in a nice hotel, because they are not in prison in Canada, and go on a cooking course. She does not think that she will be able to do that either.
They were walking past a dog on a lead, when without any warning or growling or anything, it jumped up and bit her. It tore her hand, and would not let go.
She did not want to report it because of course she knows that that will mean the end of the dog, but she knows that she must, and she is feeling very sad about it, because she likes dogs very much.
It is a dreadful sad thing, because it is awful to have to shoot a dog, but sometimes it has got to happen. You cannot have savage animals loose in playgrounds and parks, or even just in fields or woods, because you must be able to trust your dog.
Fortunately it was Number Two Daughter and not a six-year-old, whose face would have been at that height, and even more fortunately, it has not damaged any of the tendons. She can still move all of her poor sore fingers.
I am very glad she is all right and wish that she was closer to us.
Actually that is not true. I wish that we were closer to her. Canada sounds as though it might be a good place to be at the moment, and I am going to retire there as soon as they can afford to keep me in luxury and idleness.
Apart from poor Number Two Daughter’s misadventures, I have had a day positively stuffed to the seams with adventures.
It has been very exciting indeed, because I have Been Out.
I can’t tell you how daring and different it felt.
I went to Kendal, to buy some coffee, and walked around the town centre, looking at the closed library, and the silent coffee shops, and the empty market place, the sad dark shop fronts and deserted squares.
There was nobody there, and it was just like in the zombie apocalypse films at the moment when the hero is wondering what on earth has gone so terribly wrong, just before the first rotting corpse leaps out at him from behind the war memorial. You know that this is going to happen because of the worrying music, bit it makes you jump anyway.
There was no worrying music in Kendal, although there was a very upset man wandering around the marketplace shouting a long and rambling monologue at the absent crowds. I thought it best not to interrupt him.
After that I took the taxi for an MOT. This was a bit of a tiresome chore, because I am not allowed to earn money in it, so it makes me feel cross to think that I am still supposed to keep it clean and free from rust. I felt as though under the circumstances I ought to be allowed to let it crumble to bits if I liked.
We had got up early and cleaned it for the occasion. It did not need any repairs doing to it because it has hardly been anywhere since its last MOT, although somehow in the intervening time it had become revoltingly dirty. This happens with taxis. The driver’s seat looked as though a children’s playgroup had been using it for Milk And Biscuits for a week or two, without Now We Wash Our Hands in between.
The MOT was nice, though. I sat peacefully for a whole hour in the waiting room, warm and comfortable, reading a book with no guilt whatsoever.
I am reading Tom Bower’s superbly informative book about Boris Johnson, and I can recommend it. He does not like Boris Johnson very much but the book is scrupulously fair, and has made me astonished at the chap’s general achievements and determination. If you are at all interested in politics, which I am trying not to be, but I have run out of reading matter about hobbits and Narnia and rebellious seagulls, it is well worth a read. It has even made me forgive Boris a bit, although he has still got some way to go before I let him off, which seems to be the way his wife felt for the first few times.
I passed a very tranquil afternoon, with the added bonus that the taxi passed the MOT, after which I went to Asda to brave the queues and the shortages.
It didn’t matter about the shortages because we don’t have any money these days anyway.
It was dark when I finished, but I went to the farm for some more firewood before I went home. We are using a very lot of this at the moment.
It made a mess of the clean taxi, but this does not matter, because there are no customers.
The MOT hoop has been jumped.
Spare a thought for Number Two Daughter.
