Alas, the poopy problem had not abated this morning.
Mark arrived home in the middle of the night, only to discover that the house was humming nastily.
I was not at all pleased with the dogs. I had gone to a lot of effort to make certain of a happy homecoming, and frankly, liquid dog accident left guiltily behind the kitchen worktop simply does not do the job.
We disinfected everywhere again, and booted the dogs out into the back yard, explaining in no uncertain terms that they were not popular, but clearly the message did not sink home and the problem had recurred this morning.
Mark had to throw his socks away.
I know you are not supposed to be cross with poor suffering sick animals, but I was.
Mark was cross as well. He is quite scary when he is cross, and it seemed to do the trick, because we have not had any accidents since then.
Rosie came out with me and Roger over the fells afterwards, where she pooed so much it was as if somebody had turned on a very nasty tap.
We have not fed them since. That is to say, obviously there is dog food in their bowls, we are not starving a poor desperate feeding mother, but it is the boring dog food in which they are not especially interested, and so they will not touch it. I am hoping that if they are thoroughly emptied they will become cured.
It is not their finest hour.
Mark buzzed off to the farm afterwards. Whilst he has been away I have burned my way through a very lot of our firewood. I have kept topping it up with the odd influx from the builders, and the occasional stolen pallet, and so it lasted for the whole time he was away, but things were getting a bit close, and I was very relieved to have him home again.
He spent the afternoon filling the trailer with firewood, whilst I stayed at home and cooked all of the stuff that he likes to eat. I filled the oven with sausages, and burgers, fried chicken, and lamb. I have piled it all on plates in the fridge and covered it with waxed cloths for those moments when he comes in starving and can’t possibly survive for long enough to make sushi or cottage cheese pancakes or any of the sort of food that civilised people eat.
He likes the sugarless cake, which is a surprise bonus.
After that I realised that I do not have enough waxed cloths to cover all of the newly-cooked stacks of high-protein culinary delights now that Mark is at home. When I go to work I wrap my dinners in these cloths because I have developed a late-life antagonism towards cling film. I don’t believe the popular modern newspaper witterings that warn that it is poisonous, because if it were I would probably be dead by now, having wrapped sandwiches in it for years, but it is horrid and scrunchy, and greasy when you throw it away, and I like the wonderful smoothly folded feeling of having a sliced apple or a piece of sugarless cake neatly wrapped, in a creamy piece of waxed old pillowcase that can be washed and neatly put back in the drawer.
I boil pillowcases before I wax them for cloths, just so you know.
We only had enough cloths left in the drawer for one of us to have apples or sugarless cake, and so this afternoon I dug out some almond oil and a slab of beeswax and made some more.
They turned out rather well. The last lot were a bit sticky, but these were perfect, and I felt very pleased with myself, although it is hardly a difficult task. I had a small conscience difficulty afterwards, because Make More Wax Cloths was not on my To Do List, and I wondered if I should write it on retrospectively and then cross it off. In the end I decided that this would not be necessary, because I would know I had done it and I ought to be able to enjoy the sense of achievement even without the List.
I think this is a sign that the List has become truly absorbed into my Inner Soul.
Also, Clean Up Dog Poo was not on the List either, and I have spent ages doing that this week, perhaps that is why it was so unrewarding.
I explained to Mark that now we could wrap up his sugarless cake and apples neatly for work, and I could see him trying to look delighted.
We are going to have a night off work tonight. It feels as though we have had a long time of not having a night off, and so tonight is going to be the night.
Abdul and his minibus can have the taxi rank to himself.
