I have started writing my last assignment and so far it is rubbish.
I have given up on it and shoved it to the corner of the computer where I don’t need to think about it. The problem is that I have been a bit short of proper thinking time lately.
I usually think when I am having my walk over the fell. This is the best time of the day, full of birdsong and the smell of the hawthorn blossom, and pensive gazing out across the lake to the mountains.
This morning it did not go according to plan.
I was in a hurry because I had got to take my taxi for its MOT, which incidentally it failed, and Mark is outside fixing it even as I write.
The looming MOT meant that I did not have very long.
I considered cutting the walk short, and just going to one hilltop instead of two, but that did not seem very fair. It is not the dogs’ fault that I have got more important concerns than their happiness and well-being. They are not going to get very much exercise once we set off for Scotland anyway, and so I thought we would go and enjoy the bright morning whilst we could.
They were not in the least appreciative.
In fact they were a complete nuisance.
It did not start off very well when I paused to inspect the tadpole pond and saw a newt. We do not often see these, and I was fascinated. I was just about to take a photograph to show you, when there was a huge splash and a swirl of mud, and Rosie rushed into the pond to see what was so interesting. After that there was not a tadpole, newt or even insect to be seen anywhere.
Roger Poopy’s father was the worst. He dawdled and dragged his feet, and eventually when I shouted for him he looked up, saw me jumping about and yelling in the distance, and simply put his head down and ignored me.
I had to go back up the hill and get him.
The second time this happened I was very cross indeed.
I caught hold of his collar and rolled him over on to his back. Then I bellowed at him and told him he should jolly well come when he was called.
He sprang to his paws and belted off in terror, at colossal high-speed, in exactly the wrong direction.
I had to go after him again.
I rushed up the hill in his wake, panting and wheezing, and herded him in the direction we were supposed to go. He took one look at me and realised that I was very cross indeed, so he panicked and set off at full pelt for home.
Goodness me, he can move when he wants to.
I could not catch him at all.
I did not even get close.
I dashed after him, yelling and waving my arms, with the other dogs at my heels, but he had become so alarmed that he had completely lost his senses, and would not slow down at all. Of course it was a terrible crisis, because there are several roads between the fell and our house.
I must have run for more than a mile, which I managed because it was downhill, although even then I was scarlet-faced and gasping. Fortunately there was nothing on any of the roads, and we all dashed headlong across them, leaving people gawping and tutting in our wake.
I did not catch him until we got home, and I did not really catch him then, because he dived inside and hid under the table, breathless and trembling.
I would have liked to be very horrible indeed, but of course there was no point, and in any case I was breathless as well.
I told him that he had no friends and that nobody liked him any more, although I couldn’t help but think secretly that at least it had got us home quickly, and was rather pleased to have enough time to peg the sheets out in the garden before I went off to Kendal.
We have got another MOT tomorrow and so I won’t get much thinking time then either.
Perhaps I should leave the dogs at home.
