Mark has been busily constructing the new kitchen today.
After all of my grumbling about not having had enough sleep, and feeling tired and aching, we actually woke up at eight this morning. This was a shocking waste of potential being-in-bed time, considering that we did not need to get up for anything at all, and could easily have stayed there until lunchtime.
We did get up in the end, not least because Roger Poopy heard us stirring and got very excited about the new day. This meant that somebody had got to get up and let him out, because if he gets too excited he might have an accident. He gets upset if we are cross with him, and the day starts off badly for all concerned.
His day turned out to be very exciting indeed.
I gave them a bath.
They have not had a bath since their ready-for-Christmas ablutions. These were some time ago, and since then, quite apart from our usual excursions up and down the Lake District fells, they have had a few days in kennels, a Christmas stuffed with bad-for-them thefts of chocolate and walnuts, and winding up with a holiday in the Orkney Islands.
They hummed.
They were practically a symphony.
I had come to realise that it was becoming greasily unpleasant to stroke them.
Once Mark had brought them back from their emptying constitutional, I dragged them upstairs and dumped them in the bath one at a time.
They knew what was coming as soon as I shouted for them, and Roger Poopy came up the stairs as slowly as he possibly could. This was so that he was still blamelessly doing what he was told, but nevertheless extending the possibility that I might forget or change my mind, and a last-minute reprieve present itself.
His nerve failed, and he almost made a bolt for it at the bathroom door, and I caught hold of his tail in the nick of time.
He knew his fate was sealed then, and surrendered, miserably.
I don’t actually bath them. I stand them in the bath and hose them down with the shower and scrub them down with shampoo. This is perfectly warm and acceptable. I do it to myself every single night, and I finish off with an ice cold splash, which I do not do to the dogs. Hence I was not very sympathetic, and poor Roger Poopy stood there whilst I scrubbed, looking as woebegone as it is possible for a dog to look, whilst his father waited equally forlornly, for his turn.
Obviously I got completely soaked.
Every now and again Roger shook himself vigorously, which is not an ace idea whilst you are in the shower. Then he wagged about and fidgeted whilst I was washing him, and knocked against the shower head, which I had dumped in the bottom of the bath. This spun around unexpectedly, and water sprayed everywhere.
When I had finished, I wrapped him in his towel, but he shook it off as fast as he could, and belted off down the stairs, shaking droplets of water around him like a halo. He rolled about on Mark’s sawdusty carpets whilst I bathed his father, trying to repair the damage, but it was in vain. He was clean.
It did not even stop there.
Once I had finished washing his father, I got out the Dog Brush.
They hate this as well.
They had dreadlocks.
I brushed them all out.
Their extra Orkney wool came out in big fluffy chunks. I could have stuffed a small pillow with it. They lay wetly on my knee and felt very sorry for themselves.
Finally I got the scissors and trimmed their eyebrows out of their eyes. They look ridiculous now, but they can see where they are going.
Once the trauma was over they had clearly got Stockholm Syndrome, and loved me very much. Roger Poopy bounced around my feet adoringly, and even his father, who does not do feelings, wagged his tail grudgingly.
They had become miraculously soft and fluffy.
They were almost like cuddly loveable dogs.
After that I had to clean the bathroom.
A horrible slick of muddy dog-debris filled the bottom of the bath, and all the shelves were flooded.
I was wet through already, so it did not matter.
I scrubbed and polished until it gleamed.
I have got a shiny bathroom and some shiny dogs.
The picture was before the bath.
