We had a lovely night last night.
We chucked the dogs off the sofa and cooked ourselves some pasta. Then we lit the candles and sat in blissful idleness to watch the next exciting episode of Downton Abbey, accompanied by a couple of glasses of very nice French red wine and some chocolate.
It does not get happier than that. I would have liked to stay up a bit longer and watch a bit more, but we knew we were so tired we had better not, and yawned our way through the shower and into bed.
When we woke up this morning it was to a small but time-consuming crisis.
A flea jumped off one of the dogs whilst we were having our coffee, leading to immediate squeaky horror followed by a morning of paranoia.
Both dogs were hauled, reluctant and trembling, out of their hiding places and given compulsory baths. Then they, and everywhere they have ever been, were drenched in Hideous Death To Fleas And Other Things that Eat You poison, until we were all feeling a bit nauseous and uncomfortable.
I dragged the sheets off the bed and boiled them, and hoovered absolutely everywhere and then sprayed the carpets and the bed and the cushions and the furniture and everything I could think of with the poisonous stuff. The house smelled awful after a while, and I had to open all the windows and doors, at which point both dogs tried to run away, presumably in case they were awarded another bath.
Mark did not participate due to his taxi being due for an MOT tomorrow, and in any case he thought it was perfectly possible that the flea, which I had captured and squished, had been a lone operator picked up at the farm, which I hoped was right.
He went off to get tyres fitted to his taxi and to fit another handbrake cable to it, which is the third this year, he must be doing some exciting driving. He went to the farm to do this, which made me worry about his overalls but I suppose it will be all right as he is unlikely to buzz off sniffing at other dogs and sheep and other potential sources of flea infestations.
When I had finished poisoning the house I had to clean the bathroom as well, because it looked exactly like a bathroom which had had two smelly farm dogs washed in it and not at all like the gleaming sophisticated bathroom that we liked so much at the Caledonian in Edinburgh. It doesn’t ever look much like that, actually, but it was very noticeably not like a lovely hotel bathroom, and quite a lot like the sort of place where somebody might have been dipping recalcitrant sheep.
Number Two Daughter went off to the gym, and to work, and rang me in the afternoon to tell me that her car wouldn’t start, possibly because it was raining, so she would be late coming home. When she got back we discovered that her T-shirt venerating Number One Daughter had arrived.
This is very exciting, it is the first time anybody in our family has had a run of T-shirts made in their honour, and we are all very impressed. Mark and I did not buy one, because with the postage they were thirty quid each, but Number Two Daughter has got sibling loyalty, and transferred some cash out of her ISA especially for the purchase: so we can all see how wonderful it is.
I suggested that we shared it, but she said that we could get lost because at thirty quid she was going to wear it every single day for the rest of her life.
She modelled it for a photograph for the benefit of this website, which of course you can only see via Google although it is really at the top of the page, however it says Spence, which is Number One Daughter’s name, courtesy of Number One Son-In-Law, and proclaims her as a member of the Iron Elite.
We are jolly proud.
