We are in Scotland, and after yesterday’s tribulations, today has not actually been a great improvement.
We started off with coffee, properly, in bed, this morning, which was beginning to be a period of Rest And Recuperation, when everything went horribly, terribly wrong.
The dogs are allowed on the bed for our coffee. We spread an enormous Dog Towel over the quilt, and they are allowed to lie on it, at the end of the bed. This is one of their very favourite things, and they are very gloomy on days when they are in some sort of disgrace.
We do not stop them from getting up on those days, but they know that sharing a bed is for Good Dogs Only, and so if they have been wicked they do not even hope to get up. On those mornings they do not stand hopefully at the end of the bed, waiting for the all-important permission in Roger Poopy’s case, or for the leg-up in his arthritic father’s case. On Disgrace mornings they visit the back yard whilst Mark makes coffee, and then slink sorrowfully back to their cushions.
Mostly they are not in disgrace, and they were not this morning, and they sprawled blissfully on their towel in hedonistic joy.
We were halfway down our coffee when Roger Poopy’s father suddenly stood up and stared at me.
He held my gaze for an agonising second, and just as we managed to translate the problem and began to spring out of bed, it became too late.
He was sick everywhere.
There must have been about two gallons of it, easily twice his body weight, and he had been eating the leftover curry.
We bellowed in aghast horror, and leaped out of bed.
We stripped all of the sheets off and Mark pulled his clothes on and took them outside to the back alley, where he hurled bucket after bucket of water over them to swill the disgusting stuff away.
I stayed in the house and scrubbed the quilt with bleach.
We shoved it all in the washing machine.
The dogs hid under the table and shivered.
We retreated back to finish our coffee. The dogs were not only refused access to be bed, they were refused access out of the conservatory, where they were condemned to isolation.
I have a gloomy suspicion that Roger Poopy’s father might be entering his last days. He is not doing very well, and is starting to become a bit frail.
Also it all took an awful lot of clearing up.
We rushed about frantically, because we had got to take Oliver to the orthodontist and then dash off to school.
We did not finish everything that should have been done before we set off, and we are going to come back to Disorder. Mark says that this does not matter, but I think it does.
Obviously we were almost late but not quite, and Mark took the camper van off to blow up the tyres whilst Oliver and I went to the orthodontist.
The orthodontist fitted another brace, most of which seems to have fallen off already, this one to his bottom teeth, and the receptionist was grumpy because none of Oliver’s next holidays seemed to coincide with the visit of the consultant. This was not surprising since it appears the consultant only turns up once a month.
In the end it was over and we were off.
There was nothing more to be done, simply to travel. I can hardly tell you what a relief this was.
Mark has attached a thing that he has invented to the axle which might make the fuel work better. We do not know yet if it has worked but he thinks that the engine is running more smoothly.
In any case we have made it. We are parked in the woods between school and the sea. It is a nice place to be.
I am hoping that by tomorrow I will have regained my tranquillity once more.
