I am pleased to tell you that eBay is refunding Oliver’s earphone money.
The hours and hours spent explaining to various chat-line chappies were not in vain. This morning I had an email from them telling me that it was all done and the cash would be in his bank any minute now.
It isn’t, though, so I jolly well hope it turns up tomorrow because they are a tedious way to spend an afternoon, and if I had had any available cash it would have been costly as well, because of the Desirable Teapot. It was an extra large Lady Carlyle teapot. I will have one of these when I win the lottery, although they are so expensive probably I would need to. I do not need a teapot. I have got one. It would have been mere Excess, and probably wicked.
It was very beautiful, though.
Oliver is going to need all the cash he can rake together, so it is a good job they have given him some back. At the moment he thinks that he might like to be a skiing instructor when he grows up, and so he is contemplating methods of raking together the massive sum necessary to train for for such an endeavour. That will be two of my offspring occupying their time sliding down hills on planks for a living.
I have never been skiing. I am sure it is lovely.
I had no time for such fripperies today. Today has been Baking Day.
That was a delight in this weather, I can tell you. We were all baking, most especially the pies and me.
It had to happen, though, because we had run out of pies for Mark’s dinners. The worst thing about it was that I did not get around to doing the biscuits as well, so I am going to have to do it again tomorrow.
I am grumpy about this, not just because of the forty degree heat of having an oven on in the kitchen, but because I want to do other things. I have not heard back from any more agents and so I am going to have a look again to see if there are any more who might be interested in stories about dragons. I can’t do this whilst I am red-faced and up to my elbows in flour.
The pies seem to have turned out all right, though. I made some cheese and onion pies and some egg custard pies, because we had some milk and cream in the fridge which needed using up. Egg custard pies made with cream and nutmeg are very nice indeed.
They will keep Mark alive for another few days, even if I do not manage the biscuits.
I was just about to rush out to get some more onions, our own farm-grown ones having run out, when the phone rang, and it was Elspeth, needing somebody to look after the dog for an afternoon, because her husband John had had a minor disaster and was being stitched up in A and E.
It turned out that it was the dog’s fault, having got over excited on the lead, and tugged him off his feet.
When the dog arrived it was immediately obvious that he knew he had been guilty of some incomprehensible dog-wickedness, although possibly he had not worked out exactly what. He made a brief, fortunately unsuccessful, attempt to escape through the hole under the tree at the end of the yard, and then subsided into gloom in the shade in front of the gate.
He did not even thump his tail when we went past and said kindly things to him, although mostly we said Get Out Of The Way You Muppet. He lay in the cool shade and was glum.
Roger and Rosie sniffed him briefly and then ignored him, returning to their position in the hottest place they could find, being on the top of the sofa in the conservatory in the full sun.
In the end Elspeth’s daughter came to rescue him, and he wagged a little, hopeful that he might be forgiven and had not been abandoned for ever. Elspeth’s daughter told us gruesome tales of blood, about which she was quite cheery. She ought to be really, because she is going to be a doctor next year.
She took the dog away, who was utterly thrilled to be leaving us.
It was the second livestock-related misfortune of the day, because Lucy called this morning to tell us that one of her cats had fallen out of the window whilst she was at work. I imagine its sister pushed it, they are that sort of cats. Lucy lives in a second-floor flat, so it was not its finest hour, although it was miraculously unscathed. Probably it slid all the way down, hanging on by its claws. She wondered whether to take it to the vet, but since it wasn’t even limping, we decided that she had other things to do with a hundred quid, and she would not bother unless it suddenly developed a case of self-pity.
Poor kitty. Only eight lives left to go.
