I have written it.
I have absolutely and completely written it. I have written my assignment and also several pages of critical analysis, whereby I have demonstrated that I understand the structure, form and whatever else there is to understand about a piece of dramatic work.
It is ready to hand in, more or less. A crucial bit of handing something in is to leave it for a few days to rest, like a joint of meat out of the oven, so that I can come to it with a clear head and notice which bits are optimistic garbage. I do not have a few days, and so it is just going to have to wait until tomorrow morning, when I will re-read it, think: yeah, right, whatever, and press Send.
I have also had my formal offer from the MSt, which really translates as a demand for vast sums of cash. To my horror they have billed me as an overseas student, which doubles the price, you wouldn’t want to be studying at Cambridge if you were foreign, I can jolly well tell you, and so I have sent it back with a firm rejection until they sort their admin out. I expect they will, and if they don’t then they can get stuffed. You could purchase a couple of houses in Barrow-in-Furness for the price of a Master’s’s degree at Cambridge.
Apart from writing things, I have done almost nothing whatsoever. I went to the butcher’s, which was shut, and to the Post Office, and to take the dogs for a walk over the fell whilst I contemplated my creativity. This cheerful mode of reflection was brought to an abrupt halt when I realised that Roger Poopy’s father was nowhere to be seen.
I yelled and whistled, which I can’t do very well, and yelled a bit more, and eventually a couple coming down the path a little way behind me, told me that they had just seen him buzzing off at high speed in the wrong direction.
I was not pleased. I was in a hurry to get back and write my theatrical masterwork, and I had to rush almost half a mile back up the fell again before I found him.
One look at my face told him that he was in trouble, although clearly he did not have the first idea why, because he instantly set off as fast as his little legs would totter, this time in a different wrong direction.
I belted after him, and between me and Roger and Rosie we herded him back down the fell, except by now he was in such a panic that he fled into the distance, leaving us puffing and panting in his wake.
I captured him about a mile later, just as we reached the main road.
There were no words.
It is not done to express abusive behaviour towards a confused and elderly dog in a public place, and by the time nobody was looking he had clearly forgotten all about it.
He looked in puzzlement at my scowl as we strode back down the alley, and nudged my leg encouragingly.
I can promise you that in that moment I perfectly understood why people can be unkind to the weak and helpless among us. I wished I could remember what I had done with his electric shock collar, even though they are not supposed to be used for purposes of revenge.
I left him settling peacefully to sleep on his cushion, and went round to next-door-but-one, who had a nasty smell in his house. It is a holiday house, and his visitors had grumbled so much that he had given them their height-of-season money back for the entire week.
We sniffed around the house for ages.
It turned out to be a dead jackdaw in the drainpipe, which must have been one of the most expensive corpses in the history of holiday letting.
How lovely it is to live surrounded by God’s creatures.
