Goodness, what good dogs I have got.
They were the models of perfect canine perfection on our walk this morning. Not once did either of them as much as bark at a squirrel.
I do not mind them chasing squirrels. Squirrels run away in three dimensions.
I was so very pleased with them that when we got home I baked their bones in the oven, and handed them over shortly after breakfast, much to their noisy delight. The kitchen is no longer a good place to wander about barefoot, due to the liberal distribution of tiny, lethal bone splinters all over the floor. The bones have been chomped into bits, the marrow slurped out, and I left the dogs replete and snoring contentedly on their cushion.
They are especially pleased because Lucy and Jack have come up to visit. Roger Poopy likes Lucy better than anybody else in the world.
I was as surprised as Roger Poopy to see them this afternoon. I had had a message from Jack in the morning, telling me that he was considering dropping around to see me. He had an interview locally, and sent me a message suggesting that he might call in before he went. I was not doing anything much anyway, I had earmarked the afternoon for painting Advent calendars, but it is still some weeks until December, and so had thoughtfully filled up the kettle in readiness for a sociable shirk.
When the door opened and it was Lucy with a suitcase I was suitably astonished.
She has got a couple of days off, and so they felt they could justifiably spend them loafing about in the Lake District.
Fortunately their bedroom was tidy and clean, so I had no cause for alarm, and instead made cups of tea and stopped telephoning the insurance company in order to sit round the fire and catch up on their news.
This is a perfect way to spend a chilly October afternoon, by the way, even accompanied by bone-crunching noises.
It was a very pleasant afternoon. Lucy told tales of her tiresome customers, and I told tales of mine. Jack went off to his interview and we talked about our plans to head to Florida next winter.
This is still burbling along in the background to life. I have not yet booked it but it appears that we have some definite enthusiasm, and so probably next week it will become a real Thing, watch this space.
After that, I regret to say that I could manage sensible conversation no longer. I had become so sleepy with the quiet of the afternoon, with the fire and the convivial company, that my eyelids had become impossibly heavy and I could not stop yawning. It is Friday night tonight, and a long evening at work, and falling asleep on the taxi rank inevitably turns you into an object of ridicule, so eventually, and a bit regretfully, I gave up.
I made some guilty excuses and sloped off to bed, where my telephone promptly started to ring, and rang half a dozen times with general nuisance calls wanting nothing in particular before I finally switched it off. Without a useful telephone alarm to wake me up I slept rather longer than I had intended and had to rush about trying not to be too late for work, although I was late anyway in the end.
Lucy and Jack promised to empty the dogs for me, which helped. Mark said that it was all the excitement of buying a new camper van that had worn me out, and he might have been right, the thing about getting old is that even little things can become almost painfully exciting. I have been watching some shaggy parasol mushrooms growing on my walk in the morning, and it has become something of a highlight, a small and interesting interlude to which I look forward every day.
If there are any young people reading this, it will happen to you as well. You don’t believe it now, but it will.
Therefore it is hardly a surprise that spending colossal sums of cash on a life-changing new adventure has left me completely flattened out with exhaustion.
I was definitely improved after a sleep, but it is midnight now and I am very much looking forward to the next one.
I will see you on the other side.
