I am writing to you in five unexpected minutes which have suddenly become empty.
The thing is that I am halfway through giving the dogs a haircut and the battery of the clippers has run out.
There is not much left to do, just some still-hairy bits of Roger Poopy, but I do not think there is really time to dash into the attic and do the ironing in between, and so I am just taking a few minutes to write to you.
Rosie is done. She has been trimmed and bathed and is shivering mournfully on her bed.
She has got no need to shiver at the moment. The fire is running hot and she should really be perfectly warm on their fat cushion in front of it. I think she is just Trauma’d, as the lodger used to say.
All the same they are going to have a very chilly week.
I felt terribly guilty about it, because their coats have become wonderfully, warmly thick and woolly, all ready for the winter, but as well as being thick and woolly they are revoltingly greasy, seem to be concealing some unappealing dandruff, and also they are shedding hair all over the carpets. Also despite the vile weather, Rosie has been getting so hot that she has been leaping into the tarn in the mornings to cool off, so I am afraid that it had got to happen. It was my Job Of The Day, along with the wretched ironing, which I still haven’t started, and which I am going to try and start after I have finished abusing poor Roger Poopy.
I have also cleaned out my taxi, which was every bit as revolting as the dogs, not least because the dogs have been in it, every morning after their plunge through the mud on the fells. Also I have been in it after the same, and it was horrible. I found a pint of milk and a vape under one of the seats, but no cash, which is always disappointing, people must be feeling the pre-Christmas pinch.
Anyway, it is done, and shiny and clean ready for the weekend’s cash-generation, and tonight I will not mind getting into it at all, it will be a happy moment.
When I had finished the taxi I came into the house to get my taxi picnic ready before I embarked on the dogs. When I looked at my phone I had a message from Spotify telling me that it had been keeping records of my musical tastes over 2025 and would I like to know what they were?
Since I already know perfectly well what my musical tastes are I did not really feel that it was exactly vital information, but I clicked on it anyway, only to discover that my Most Listened To Album was Vivaldi’s Gloria, and my favourite band was King’s College Cambridge, with the Flying Pickets a close second. It added, rather depressingly, that my musical listening age was eighty five.
I was surprised to discover just how often I had listened to Vivaldi, about once a fortnight according to Spotify, so I put it on again and sang along merrily whilst I chopped salad and mixed cottage cheese with yoghurt.
I paused there, to dash off downstairs and drag poor miserable Roger Poopy back onto the table to remove the last fistfuls of still-remaining warm fur, and now I am on the taxi rank.
Roger is bathed and dry and curled up in front of the fire.
I even managed to make a start on the ironing. I ironed three pairs of trousers and three shirts, but there is still a huge pile left to go, and the attic is a shocking mess. I am going to have to clear it up very soon, because Jack’s dad will be staying in it over Christmas, and he will most certainly not like sharing his space with empty Christmas decoration boxes and old camper van cushions.
I will do it tomorrow.
Well, probably.
