It is Friday, and once again the working week is grinding into gear. I am not especially looking forward to this, and wish that I had won the lottery, which I haven’t for the usual reason of not having bought a ticket, which saves a great deal of suspense.
I have spent most of the afternoon making things for weekend picnics. The sushi would not go right because of not being sticky enough, perhaps not enough water. It tastes fine, because I added the stock out of yesterday’s chicken, but I am uncomfortably aware that it might turn into rather a crumbly mess in the front seat of the taxi.
Not to worry. I will face that difficulty when it comes, and Mark does not even know about it, which also saves him some suspense. It will be Collapsing Sushi Surprise.
Of course we walked over the fell again this morning, because I am still thinking about stories. I did not think very much this morning because of being cross with Roger Poopy’s father, who was being a tiresome nuisance.
He does not like to walk in front of me. He likes to trail along behind me at a safe distance. This is so that he can dawdle about and sniff things at his leisure without getting an unexpected boot in his behind. If he is half a mile to the rear then he will probably notice me coming back to be cross with him and have time to slope off before I get there.
This week I have become very fed up with his dawdling. Today I got very cross when he lost us on the cricket field. I had to go back and get him, because he could not hear me bellowing, and had set off in the wrong direction. After that I obliged him to walk ahead. He did not like this at all and kept trying to find ways of circling around me so that he could carry on strolling along at his top speed of about half a mile an hour and dribbling ecstatically into everybody else’s patches of wee.
The problem was that he made a detour into the road. This didn’t matter because there was nothing coming, but it horrified me. I was crosser than ever then, after which he wouldn’t come anywhere near me.
Mark took him to the farm later and said that he was just as bad there. He says that he is going to have to go on a lead if he will not do as he is told.
He has almost never been on a lead, and would hate it. He likes having the freedom to amble along at his own doddery pace, but you cannot allow a dog to do this if he will not come back when you call him.
I do not know what to do and will keep you posted.
I had got home and was irritably messing about with the crumbly sushi when both dogs went into a frenzy of excited barking, because there was somebody at the door.
It was a taxi driver who had once worked for us and whose son was Number Two Daughter’s best friend at school. I have not seen him for ages, and dumped the unsticky sushi in favour of tea and gossip for half an hour.
Better still, he had brought some wine as a belated Christmas present.
I was sorry then that we had got to work tonight, although I suppose it will keep perfectly well until Tuesday.
After he had gone I realised that I had been dawdling as much as the dog, and had a scramble to catch up with myself. Worse, Mark came home early to find me in the middle of a mess of sushi, which had inexplicably become very sticky indeed once it hit the worktop, and salad, and half-finished biscuit mix.
Of course I finished it all in the end, apart from the biscuits, which are still in the oven, but actually I was not at all sorry to see the back of it all, and have just had the inspiring thought that it will be quiet at work and I will have a golden opportunity just to sit down and read my book.
Hurrah.
I will go and do exactly that.
