For some time now we have been referring to any excursion with the dogs as Doing The Thing.
This is because of Roger Poopy’s ever-improving command of English. Any suggestion of Going For A Walk, or Going To The Park, or any sentence at all with the word Dog in it, is instantly seized upon and we have a brainless, leaping, over-excited buffoon to deal with.
He even understands if we spell it. How he has worked out that a Double Yew Ay Ell Kay is anything to do with him I do not know, but he has. Even Mark, who is terrifically dyslexic, has to concentrate.
Hence we have been driven to telling one another that we are going to Do The Thing, as in Would you like me to Do The Thing before I go, that sort of sentence. Goodness alone knows what visitors must make of it.
Today he has finally rumbled it.
For some time now he has been looking up suspiciously when we have mentioned it, and tonight the light has at last dawned. I was just putting the finishing touches to the day’s labours, and asking Mark if he would be kind enough to Do The Thing for me, when joy burst forth at my feet.
We are going to have to think of something else. He eavesdrops on our conversations as enthusiastically as Google in the television, although at least he does not fill my Facebook with advertisements for new winter coats and other costly extravagances.
I am looking on eBay for a winter coat. Since it will only ever be used for Doing The Thing there is no point in spending much cash on one. I have seen one that I quite like and put a bid on it, we will have to wait and see what happens. It is not at all nice to be sharing a coat between us in February.
Mark has been outdoors all of today, so it is a good job that the storm turned into a damp squib in the Lake District. He took the dogs up to the farm this morning to fill his taxi with firewood for the house. The august Daily Telegraph has been going on about wood burning stoves a very great deal lately, and has concluded, loftily, that they are not a great economy because nobody actually uses them to keep their house warm, and they are merely a middle-class talking point, like having a book of photographs of Liverpool on the coffee table.
I am coming to think that really I cannot believe anything at all that I am reading in the newspapers, it is not even the Guardian.
When Mark had finished he went out to the camper to put the new brake bit in. I went out after a while to fill the van with everything we are going to need tomorrow, and to put my foot on the brake for him so that he could check that it was working, which it was.
I have occupied the entire day rushing around trying to make sure that my family will not starve to death tomorrow whilst I am having my class. I do not just need to feed them whilst I am otherwise occupied. Of course we will be departing for Scotland as soon as I have finished, and so we will need dinner to take with us.
I have made everybody’s dinner for two days, including Lucy’s because she will be driving back down to Kettering tomorrow. I have made things for everybody to eat on our various journeys, and some dinner for us when we arrive home on Monday night.
I have got another class on Monday night and so I will not be cooking anything then either. It does not sound complicated but I can assure you that it was. This for breakfast tomorrow, and this for breakfast on Monday. That will feed Oliver whilst we are driving, and these bits can just go in the dogs’ dishes. Mark does not like the chicken made our of soya beans and Oliver does not like the orange cheese. Mark does not like raw carrots, and nobody apart from me eats vegetables voluntarily. Mark will eat them if they are drenched in bacon fat, but Oliver and Lucy will just put them in the bin when they think I am not looking.
It is done. Everybody has a diet that they will condescend to eat, and the dogs are contentedly stuffed full of bones and fatty bits and anything that I sniffed and thought it might not last until Monday.
If they all starve to death it will not be my fault.
I have done all the cleaning, the washing and the ironing.
I can sit around being educated tomorrow with a completely clear conscience.
I am looking forward to it very much indeed.
