All good things…

Ginger Poopy went off to her new home today.

The people who came for her had two dogs: one had died, and they and the left-behind dog were sad and wanted a new dog to love.

They had the kindest faces I think I have ever seen. They were old and rosy faced and smiling, and Ginger Poopy loved them on sight. We put her on the old lady’s knee, and she stood on her hind paws and licked the old lady’s neck and face. Everybody laughed, and the old lady’s wrinkled apple-face lit up with a bright beam of pleasure so we could all see that she was not at all thinking secretly what a tiresome poopy it was.

We carried Ginger Poopy out to their car and said goodbye, but she had already turned her whole attention to the old lady, and had curled up contentedly in her lap before I had even closed the door. We waved them off without the smallest worry for her future, if ever there was a poopy who has fallen on its paws, it was Ginger today.

After that I hung the washing outside, because the BBC had promised sunshine, and I trusted them even though it was still raining a little bit. As it turned out I was justified in my faith, because little by little the dreadful grey skies slowly became blue, and our sheets and towels dried in the sunshine, so maybe the Weather Gods noticed that I did light that candle the other day and am properly appreciative of their munificence.

Whilst the Weather Gods blew gently on my washing I did the ironing in the house. This was an especially tiresome task because it is so long since I have bothered about ironing that all sorts of unpleasant surprises were waiting for me, not least that the water tank on the iron had filled itself up with black mould.

I didn’t discover this until I was ironing Mark’s beautiful pale blue linen shirt and of course you don’t need descriptions of black mouldy smears on fresh linen in order to imagine my grumpy remarks.

I cleaned the offending iron out as well as I could but every now and again it spat out another blob of black mouldy surprise which it had secreted for an emergency. After a while I stopped worrying about it, so we will have to wear jumpers over all of our nice flat shirts for a while until they have all been washed clean again.

Also it was brought home to me exactly how long it is since I have been properly domestic when I discovered Oliver’s school cricket whites at the bottom of the ironing pile. Actually, they weren’t at the bottom. It turned out that the things which were at the bottom had fallen down on to the floor, and the poopies had walked across them with what I hoped was mud on their paws, so I saved myself at least some ironing by just shoving those things back into the washing machine.

Mysteriously the ironing did not resolve a handkerchief problem which has been bothering me lately. I have got thirty six hankies, out of which number I can find four. I had thought the rest might be in the ironing pile, but apart from one lonely one which I tugged out of the poopies’ box, they did not turn up. I found a further two in the taxi tonight. I am going to have to start emptying coat pockets.

It is a great difficulty with the summer that I just don’t seem to get around to anything, it is ages since I have made soap or cakes or anything lovely. I made fish fingers and waffles for Oliver’s dinner this evening, and I even forgot about those and had to cut the burnt bits off. Lucy said that she didn’t want anything to do with my catering, and went to the Co-op and bought herself a Pot Noodle.

It will all be over very soon. The poopies will be gone, the children will be gone, and the tourists will all be gone. We will be able to find the time to drink coffee and watch films and do nice things.

It is too sad to think about.