Well, I have done it.
At any rate, I have done quite a bit of it.
I have watered the conservatory, which is a good start.
We went out on our walk this morning, ignoring the vet’s instructions about rest, which indeed Roger Poopy seemed to feel no need for in any case, and belted up and down the hillsides barking at Rosie until they were both quite exhausted. I felt mildly guilty about such blatant disobedience, and kept a wary eye open for the vet’s mother, whom I quite often meet on my walks, but fortunately she was doing something more productive than ambling about in the mud this morning, and we remained undetected.
I have given him his antibiotics. It says on the packet that they are palatable, which is a complete fib, they should be reported to the Trades Descriptions Act, because Roger Poopy can detect them and spit them out even if they are served wrapped in chicken, and I had to force his reluctant jaws open and poke the tablet down his throat with my finger. They must be pretty ghastly, because Roger Poopy is a creature who will voluntarily eat cow dung. There are enough to last six days. He does not at all like being compelled to take them, and I am going to be very fortunate to have any fingers left by the end of the week.
When we got back I was determined not to be a failure again today, and rushed about getting everywhere swept up before I flooded the conservatory when I watered it. This always happens, we need to modify the watering system, but so far nobody has got their act together, and it is a weekly nuisance. I pegged the washing in the not-terribly-dry garden, but any water that evaporates outside rather than inside the house is a good result, and it steamed there for a while whilst I soaked the conservatory with the contents of the outside water tanks.
I had almost finished when a clattering in the alley caught my attention. It was the builders, depositing the most colossal stack of firewood. This was an enormous relief, because we are starting to run short, and I have been looking doubtfully at our dwindling supplies and wondering about taking the old taxi over to the farm to fill it from the wood stacks there.
Fortunately this has now turned out not to be necessary. There is so much wood that I could barely find room in the yard to stack it all under cover, and I will be spending most of tomorrow sawing it up. Probably I will be spending most of the next month sawing it up, there is lots.
I dragged it all into the yard, which took more than an hour, and by the time I had finished my arms were so scratched and scraped that I looked misfortunately like a teenage girl whose parents do not understand her, and I had to smear Roger Poopy’s Germolene all over them.
Oliver, who is working nights, emerged whilst I was rearranging the washing over the stove to air out, and I sat down to talk to him whilst he organised his dinner for work. It is always nice to watch somebody else working, but I felt guilty after a few minutes, and had the inspired recollection that my boots needed cleaning, so I brushed them and then spent ten satisfactory minutes rubbing dubbin into all the seams.
Even better than the feeling of clean, waxed boots, is the feeling that one is the sort of virtuous, sensible, grown-up and organised person who takes the time to clean and wax their boots properly. I have that feeling now, and I will have it again in the morning.
I expect you are all very envious.
I didn’t quite get Lucy’s sheets changed. In the end I ran out of day. I got to the top of the stairs with the hoover and the telephone rang, after which I realised that I was already late for work.
There is still some week left.
I will try again tomorrow.
