It is a quarter past ten and I have only just got round to writing to you.
I do not know exactly what I have been doing, but it has taken me all day.
I do know that I have got a new accountant. Very conveniently his office is about fifty yards from our back door, in the way of everything in Windermere, and I went to see him today.
He is advertising that he knows how to manage the finances of people who work in Oil and Gas. When I told Elspeth that she thought I meant he was something to do with boilers, but of course he isn’t. He seemed to be sharp and sensible and to share my preference for not gifting any more of my money to our beloved leaders than absolutely necessary.
Also I have got some shocking news.
Guffy is Up The Duff, the rascal.
I almost said that I did not know how she had managed it, but of course I do, because I might live in the rural Lake District but I can tell you that we do know a thing or two, us country types. What I mean is that I had not noticed her coming into season at all, and in any case had assumed that she was so tiny and underweight that probably she wouldn’t.
She is still very tiny, but is becoming decidedly stout.
I have been looking at her for a few days and contemplating how comfortably rounded she was becoming, and smugly attributed it to my own gentle nurture and liberal feeding of shockingly expensive cat food.
Last night Oliver and I looked at her, just beginning to waddle across the floor, and Oliver said Surely She Isn’t, and I said She Can’t Be, but then we looked again and knew that she was.
I think she probably Did The Deed on the day when she disappeared, when she had been so woebegone and sad for a few days, just curling up miserably in corners and refusing to speak to anybody. I think she disappeared and found a nice gentleman who Understood Her.
Actually she probably didn’t. It was probably that hideous black and white creature that lives at the other end of the alley.
If that is the case then her kittens are due on the day we come back from France.
I have realised that she has started building herself a nest in the corner behind my office desk. I had to fish one of my socks out of it the other day, so I will have to start leaving things lying about that are soft and nesty but that I won’t miss as much as my socks.
It was a very nuisance that I couldn’t find it.
I am having a bit of a trying time with animals at the moment. Rosie dug a hole, an actual hole, in the conservatory sofa the other day.
I mean a real, live hole, with bits of foam cushion all over the place.
To say that I was not pleased does not even begin to describe my state of mind. Very, very cross comes closer, but still doesn’t quite get it right.
I didn’t find it until I dragged the throw off it before the estate agent turned up yesterday. Then I put the throw back, very quickly indeed.
The only bonus was that my rage was so utterly terrifying that both of the dogs were still behaving like complete saintly angels when the estate agents turned up fifteen minutes later, even the one who had not done it. Indeed, one of them even commented that she wished her dogs were so instantly obedient, turning around immediately and skulking away at a single growled instruction.
I smiles weakly, and glared at the dogs, cowering meekly on their cushion. They wagged their tails, hopefully, but I decided not to forgive them until the estate agent had gone.
Sometimes it is is expedient to be a rotter.
