I have spent absolutely every spare minute of today writing my story.
It was a difficult thing to do. I did not at all want to get started on it this afternoon, and faffed about for ages doing all sorts of unimportant things instead, until I realised that renewing my library books was every bit as dull as writing stories, and conceivably could be considered duller, and so I turned to my keyboard and got on with it.
I have promised myself that I will finish it by the day after tomorrow, and if it were not the weekend then it is quite possible that I might, although I don’t suppose I will really because of late nights and renewing library books and other things generally interposing themselves on my attention.
I started the day with the long walk, of course, although I was not feeling especially kindly disposed towards the dogs. Rosie found a disgusting bit of bone in the Library Gardens after I had finished work last night, and carried it home in triumph. It was an enormous bit of bone, the knuckle of a dead dinosaur or something, probably with sweet and sour sauce. She was very pleased with it indeed, and fought off Roger Poopy’s determined attempts to filch it with grim resolve.
I suppose really I should have taken it away from her and hoofed it into the dustbin on the way past, but she was so very pleased, not least because of all the attention she was getting from Roger, and she waved it under his nose with every ounce of her energy. Also they were so busy growling at one another and tugging at it that it quite kept them out from under my feet whilst I was washing up and filling the fire up, and so I decided to be merciful.
I regretted it this morning.
The dogs have taken to sleeping on Mark’s armchair at nights. They are not allowed into the living room, not unless they are given special permission and are under close supervision, but Roger Poopy was is so mournfully bereft when he goes away, and buries his nose in the ghost-scent of Mark with such forlorn passion that I turned a blind eye, and eventually Rosie, who does not like to be left out of anything, joined him.
This morning there was no bone anywhere.
Instead there was a small but revolting pile of bone-fragment-filled dog sick on the cushion, which fortunately had been left on Mark’s chair and had stopped any sick leaking down the edges.
I was very cross.
I showed them the cushion, and they both looked miserably guilty, so I told them that they were the least loveable dogs that anybody had ever had, and that I was considering putting them on eBay and getting some new ones.
They hung their heads in shame.
I had to scrape the sick off into the compost heap before I put the cushion cover into the washing machine.
I have pulled the coffee table across the entrance to the living room. Their days of grief-stricken armchair occupation are well and truly over.
In any case it probably smells of dog sick by now, not of Mark’s bottom any more.
They were not in the least subdued when we went on our walk, but bounded about all over the place, charging over the fells and barking at the places where rabbits used to be.
It was a glorious morning, bright and sunny with enough icy wind to keep all but the most determined dog walkers off the fells, and we were glowing by the time we made it back home.
I did not at all feel like spending the rest of the day writing about my tedious heroine, but I did.
She is almost home now.
Long may she stay there.
