We have rescued the poor dogs.
They are traumatised.
They are also pretty smelly, although Mark shoved them in the bath, which helped.
They were so desperate to get out of their kennel that when the kennel chap opened the door to release them, they went belting out head over heels, not realising that I was standing there next to them, and they had to come back a minute later when they had worked it out.
We put them in the boot of the car and they stuck their heads over the seats and told us all about it in a lengthy series of agonised whimpers and squeaky noises.
We listened to them until we felt reasonably confident that we had got the message, after which we told them to belt up, and they settled down to sleep.
They were pleased to be home, especially once we had got the fire lit. I think they must have been feeling the cold, it is, after all, not very long since they had their fur trimmed off, and it has not grown very much past the stubble stage in the meantime. They have been lying as close to the fire as they possibly can, until their noses and ears were so hot that they were practically steaming.
We have fed them and emptied them and they seem to be slowly coming round to a grateful acceptance of their restored warmth and domestic tranquillity.
Poor the dogs.
Of course we are back home, and I am writing to you from the taxi rank. We left the lovely Midland this morning, and Oliver and Emily went south to Bath and we took Jack and Lucy off back to Oldham. Jack was going to follow us home to be useful in the Lake District, but in the event it turns out that he has a sick relative and will be rushing about trying to do family things for the next few days, mostly saying goodbye, I think, which seems a very sad task for the week before Christmas.
I spent the first hour and a half of the journey trying to pay for the car park.
National Car Parks have a completely incomprehensible App thing on my telephone.
It would not, unlike previous years, simply note on its camera footage that we had parked in a car park, after which it has simply calculated the colossal charge and helped itself from our bank account. This is fairly simple and involves almost no effort on my behalf whatsoever, and hence is my preferred method of payment.
It knew that we had parked in the car park, but it would not let me pay.
It said that I should have paid on the way in.
Given that it would only let you do that for a twenty four hour stay and we have been there since Tuesday, that did not seem like a sensible option. Also, since I hadn’t done it, I wanted the option to pay with hindsight.
In the end, with great reluctance, it agreed to let me. It would only let me if I decided that I didn’t feel any need for the massive discount accorded to people who are staying at the Midland.
The discount was forty quid per car, and we had two, so I did feel the need for it.
In the end I telephoned their call centre and waited whilst they finished their lunch and spent half an hour scrolling through Twitter and telephoning all their friends before they finally thought they might pay some attention to the endlessly ringing phone in the corner.
When they did, they explained, helpfully, that I could only pay for one car because I only had one telephone. I tried to make it plain how I felt about this policy but they said that it was made clear in their Terms And Conditions, have a nice day is there anything else I can help you with?
I had to pretend to be Lucy and ring them back, which worked in the end, perhaps it is an Ed Miliband invention to make you think more favourably about going on the bus.
It is now the very end of the night, and I am in bed. It has been surprisingly busy, it is the night of the year called Black Eye Friday, and I have witnessed a couple of encounters that could well have produced a few of them.
It is five in the morning. It is lovely to be at home again.
I can start on the new pile of ironing tomorrow.
