I am sorry to learn that the Chancellor with the unpronounceable name has gone. I liked him. I thought it was a good idea to attract lots of rich people to the country to get them to spend their money here. The Cumbria Tourist Board has occasional attempts to do that, without much success, all of our current visitors seem to be impoverished Reduced Price weekenders from Liverpool and Glasgow.
I have nothing against Liverpool and Glasgow, actually that might not be exactly true, but it must be acknowledged that they are not exactly glorious hubs for the jet-setting international super-rich.
In the meantime the jet-setting super-rich have gone somewhere else and are likely to stay there, and I have been on the taxi rank for ages now. I have eaten nearly all of my picnic and read everything of any interest on my computer but have not had a customer yet.
Poor naughty Rosie was finally forgiven when we got up this morning. She would have liked to come and join us on the bed whilst we had morning coffee, but when Mark opened the conservatory door, the smell of sour butter mingled with the aroma of windy dog was so overwhelming that he closed it again, and she had to stay there until she had had a walk, followed by a bath.
She was entirely penitent then, and some dog re-education followed.
She likes eating very much, and I am sorry to say that we have not done much to curb her passion. Today she was not allowed anything to eat until she had first obediently Sat Down and waited to be told that she was a Good Dog, and rewarded with whatever it was.
Cavorting about barking and whimpering with longing was definitely not all right. Stealing food right out of the mouth of Roger Poopy’s ancient and somewhat befuddled father was even worse. Sitting patiently and waiting was the Right Thing, and must be mastered.
By the end of the day I could leave cheese on the floor and she did not even look at it. We told her she was a Very Good Dog indeed, and she was reinstated to everybody’s affections, except possibly Roger Poopy’s elderly father, who sighed, and growled, and ignored her, even though she was so relieved to be re-admitted that she was hardly being irritating at all.
It is nice to have Oliver home, although he will be gone again by tomorrow lunchtime. He has spent the day wandering about rather vaguely, packing his things and trying to be helpful. I am unused to having an assistant, and could not think of very much he could do, which of course I regretted as soon as he had disappeared back upstairs, when I realised that there were dozens of things that I needed to do and had run out of time.
We head a trip to the orthodontist this afternoon, who screwed his teeth back another inch or two, whilst Mark did some long-ignored repairs to the kitchen. He screwed some plates on the plug sockets and repaired a broken handle, and filled in some annoying holes in the tile grouting. I was very pleased about all of this. It is lovely that he has got some time that is not full of central heating.
You will, however, be pleased to hear that the house was wonderfully, radiantly warm, which was just as well because mostly it was full of half-term washing.
I am going to leave you now and get on with my knitting. I will not see you tomorrow, because of it being Saturday, and because I think I am unlikely to feel much like writing anything at all when we have spent the entire day driving to the airport and back.
Oliver is off to Italy with Lucy tomorrow.
I hope they have a lovely time.
