We have got some noisy neighbours.
They are in the house with the hot tub in the garden and they are playing loud music and laughing. This would not matter if it was still winter and they were in their house, but it is spring, and they are out of doors in their back yard.
I am trying not to be grumpy about it because they are on holiday and are perfectly allowed to have a lovely time, but it keeps making the dogs bark.
The dogs are used to a life of bucolic tranquillity at home, and raucous outdoor laughter at Liverpudlian jokes is causing them some alarm.
It was too warm to close the door and so I had to put up with it. I was busy in the kitchen, where I could not hear the activity further up the alley. I was listening to Stephen Fry telling me something erudite and getting picnics ready, and the dogs were in the conservatory. Every now and again there would be a fresh outburst of melody and merriment, and the dogs would leap into attitudes of domestic defence, raising their hackles and barking savagely at the intruders who were, after all, only three back yards away.
This was startling every time, and on the third occasion, when I was slicing carrots and almost cut my finger off, I got cross, with the dogs not the happy holidaymakers. I yelled at them to shut up, probably loudly enough to be heard in the back alley, even over the music, and they sloped off to hide under the table.
I was not sorry when the sun began to slide downwards and it became cool enough to close the doors and windows.
I do not wish to spoil anybody’s lovely holiday, but all the same I can’t help hoping that they are not staying very long, either that or that tomorrow they have got hangovers or it rains or something.
I think I should add here that I am not being horrid, because it doesn’t at all matter what I hope. I can hope absolutely anything I like. and it won’t make the smallest difference to the actual events. I have evidence of this left over from lots of days when I have hoped for sunshine and a brisk wind because of it being Clean Sheets Day. Making wishes about weather is complete waste of wishes.
Also hoping that they have hangovers won’t make any difference either. There have been lots of times when I have hoped not to have a hangover and been disappointed. Therefore I can hope absolutely anything I like about anything. I could hope that they all fell in the lake if I liked.
Obviously I had better not hope that. I would not like to be personally responsible for the sinking of the steamer boat.
It is lovely to be home, although it has felt very odd not once to have fallen over Oliver’s tuck box all day. It was lovely to walk up the fells this morning. I have not been for ages, because of the tourists and then rushing to Scotland, and this morning I trotted up there in great excitement, longing to see all of the changes.
It has been quite astonishing. The world has become green in my absence. The apple blossom is out, and the blackthorn is out. The hawthorns and the horse chestnuts are in full leaf already, and the mossy stream banks are dappled with yellow pools of celandines. I went dashing up to the little pool by the gate to see how the fat tadpoles were getting along, but it has been too long, and I was too late, and they were all gone. Water boatmen skimmed along the surface, but there was not a tadpole nor even a tiny frog to be seen anywhere, not even in the dark shade under the clumps of overhanging grass.
Roger Poopy charged about and made little dashes after squirrels, and his father tottered after us at his own, frustratingly slow pace. He dawdled all the way round, making us hopelessly late. I yelled and yelled at him, but he refused to pick up speed at all until a pretty lady dog approached from the opposite direction, at which point he caught us up, overtook us, and set off at high speed to introduce himself.
Sometimes it is hard to be an animal lover.
