Roger Poopy knocked coffee all over the duvet this morning.
Sometimes it is hard to remember that having dogs is an important part of a happy family life. Sometimes I think that a guinea pig might have been less trouble.
This is not actually true. We had a guinea pig once. It lived in the kitchen and used to squeak excitedly whenever anybody opened the fridge door, just in case they were getting out a lettuce, and might like to share.
It was a tiresome nuisance, and cost a fortune in lettuce.
It was called Stumpy, because of only having three legs. Its parents had been rather closely related.
We do not have guinea pigs now. We have got tiresome dogs and a lot of washing.
There was already a lot of washing, before the spilt coffee, because of having stripped the sheets and towels out of the camper van last night. We had washed some of it already, but it has not been good drying weather, and everything was hanging around the living room.
Fortunately today was dry.
The garden was full of Mark’s rebuilding clutter, and mined with holes in which he intends to locate footings for things.
When I pegged our sheets in the garden, they flapped against the cement mixer and had to be washed again.
This did not make me very happy at all.
I do not want to revisit the discussion which followed, but it addressed some issues that I have observed recently, like the mud which has somehow spread itself on to the carpets since the path has been removed, and which nobody, except me, seems to hoover up.
It was the sort of discussion that involved throwing things.
The outcome of the discussion was that Mark pegged the next lot of washing out, and then tidied the garden up. He moved the cement mixer and made everything look neat and organised.
I felt better after that.
I took Lucy for a driving lesson.
That is not to say that she drove and I instructed. This is not allowed in a taxi, and I am not sure that it would be a good idea even if it was. Mark might be better at it than I would be, because patiently teaching people to do things has never been one of my strong points.
I took her down the motorway to Carnforth to meet her proper driving instructor. She has got another driving test on Monday. I am not holding out any great hopes, given our current household success rate, but obviously it has got to be done. She asked how many driving tests she could take before we decided that she couldn’t do it, and I explained that failure was not an option, soldier. She will have to pass or carry on trying until they take her licence away when she is seventy.
I have found my own driving licence to be very useful.
She went for a lesson, and I went to Asda and spent all of last night’s takings on things like doughnuts and sausages and loo roll. I expect I will regret this when we have to pay the mortgage in the next day or two, but the children are at home and our small stores are diminishing very rapidly.
In the end we went to work, which is, of course, where we are now.
It is Number Two Daughter’s penultimate night at work. She leaves on Monday. We will not see her again for two years.
She is having a lovely night telling everybody what she thinks of them. I am hoping that the grumpy policeman who tells us all that he doesn’t like taxi drivers does not stop her tonight.
The picture is to illustrate Number One Daughter’s marvellousness. Number Two Daughter is just as marvellous but does not have a certificate to prove it.
