Hat weather
The piano tuner came today and very much admired our . . . innovations. I may have told you that while my darling is perfect in every way* her frelling music stand is a nightmare. I’m sure I’ve snarled about this before. It’s one of these flimsy, miserable, popsicle-stick and pipecleaner-wire things that folds up, flips over and fits under the piano lid when not in use–it’s good at being not in use, it’s when you actually want it to hold music that its manifold faults get in your face and scream. After wrestling with it for a few weeks I sent it away and told it never to darken my life again . . . and used a bit of carpet, working side up, over the folded-back keyboard lid, for traction, and propped my music there . . . which worked a whole lot better than you think, although it wasn’t very artistic. So I began to dream of a detachable music stand . . . and Peter, The Man** and I came up with one. It works a treat, and when you take it off the piano it collapses into a long pointy something that looks like an umbrella that has had a terrible accident. My favourite part is that all the bits that come in contact with the piano herself are padded with neatly glued-on pieces of an old shirt of Peter’s.
Anyway. The piano tuner came, admired, tuned, and went away again. It was by now dark*** and the hellhound faction was showing signs of Where’s our afternoon walk then? I walk them in the dark a lot, this time of year, but I don’t like it. They obviously see better in the dark than I do and this leads to perilous escapades. They nearly took out both me and a cat just yesterday, when the frelling thing first ran under their noses, suddenly realised those were dogs, changed direction spectacularly with Chaos in hot pursuit, gained the frelling tree, and then while I was remonstrating with Chaos† the bloody damn cat came down out of the tree and sprinted right back past us again, this time with Darkness in hot pursuit, since Chaos was somewhat occupied, which is to say I had him in a neck lock. Cat made another 180° turn and bolted for the tree again. Darkness would have got it too–which if it weren’t for the likelihood that Darkness would have been damaged by the experience might have been quite a good thing in terms of the future peace of mind and physical integrity of all local dog walkers, and possibly also the feline gene pool: I like cats, but I prefer them to possess the brains the gods gave fruit flies–only he hit the end of his 26′ lead and my shoulder instead. Which now sounds/feels a bit like one of those frozen car doors mentioned yesterday.†† Spun me round like a salad spinner having its chain yanked, even though I’d had the two seconds’ warning, I dropped Chaos, yelped, and started cranking Darkness in. With liberal use of language. The cat may still be up that tree.
So here we were, walking after dark again tonight. We came back right through town, and Chaos made a dive for the gutter–which is not allowed, theoretically; they have a dim idea that kerbs are the boundary of the forbidden, but the emphasis is on dim–and came up carrying something or other. Darkness immediately pounced on the other end of said something, and they began to reverberate down the pavement, chomping on this thing. It’s that time of year. The first winter I had hellpuppies I would dutifully take the glove, scarf or hat away from them and hang it on the nearest tree, waste bin, windowsill, or anything handy–and then drag protesting hellhounds away. But these items were never reclaimed so eventually I decided that such flotsam might as well go out with a hurrah as hellhound toys.†††
It took me most of the length of Main Street to get much of a look at this item. Oh. Rats. I think it’s a hat. I’m hardened to odd-glove destruction but . . . well, never mind. Chaos got it out of the gutter, after all. And at about this point we had an exchange of pleasantries‡ with some other dogs and by the time that was over with Chaos had dropped the thing, whatever it was, and, hey, I’m irresponsible, it’s gone, it’s no longer my problem.
I didn’t think anything of the sound of a car pulling up behind me–the hill that takes you back out of town has this weird double arrangement of the main street paralleled by a kind of slip road in front of the houses. There’s also a pub. Cars pulling up behind you on that hill are usually going to the pub. But no. “Excuse me!” someone shouted. I turned around and this woman came hastening up to me. “Your dog dropped something! She [sic] had something in her mouth, and she dropped it! Down at the bottom of the hill! It’s still there!”
It was dark enough, probably, to hide my look of stark amazement. I have run after mums with pushchairs whose offspring have just offloaded something either the mum or the ‘spring might miss later, but I draw the line well before turning around in my car and going after someone whose dog has just dropped something. “Oh–er–thanks,” I said. “Must have been one of his toys. I–er–wasn’t paying attention.”
She beamed the self-congratulatory smile of the successful Good Samaritan and trotted back to the car where the man behind the wheel was no doubt wondering if he was making a big mistake dating someone he met in a chatroom called Goofy About Animals and, I am not kidding, they turned around and went back in the other direction, so they really had turned around to come after us. ‡‡
What could I do? I went back down the hill and picked up the hat. It was a hat. In fact it is a hat. It is presently lying on the top shelf of the boots-and-bits shelves just inside the front door of the mews, because I haven’t the faintest idea what to do with the thing.‡‡ It’s a nice hat, of deep purple Harris tweed with a white satin lining. Whimper. I’m not going to subject the thing to the humiliation of the Waste Bin or Window Sill. Maybe I should put a lost and found note up somewhere? ‘Harris tweed hat found in Main Street gutter, only slightly gnawed by hellhounds.’
* * *
* Although she’s still falling out of tune every six months (I’ll have had her three years next March). But she’s also 111 years old and may go on needing tuning twice a year. A small price to pay for her nonpareil loveliness.
** Poor The Man. I should give him a name. Atlas: because he carries our world on his shoulders. He’s the one does all the hammering, screwing, building and bodging that Peter used to do. He recently built a support frame for my little café table, which, with its two chairs, spend their lives being plant stands. The third time the wretched thing tipped over–during recent evenings of hauling everything indoors to my frost-free greenhouse substitute known as my kitchen–because you have to take ALL the pots off at ONCE or it gets all unbalanced^ and I find performing this feat CHALLENGING, especially at 2 am with optional cavorting hellhounds . . . I asked Atlas to give it some under structure. Which he has duly done. Yaay. Now he’s working on a weight-bearing top to the hellhound crate so I can put plant pots up there. I am hoping that this will then have amused the weather gods so much they’ll give us a mild winter after all so I don’t get to use it.
^ Paradigm me no paradigms about the stability of three-legged furniture
*** Despite being barely past noon
† I know it’s instinctive behaviour. So is eating long-dead unidentifiable ex-creatures. I discourage both.
†† Ringing winter-sticky tower bells tonight was probably very good for it. Ow.
††† Thus the collection of odd gloves all over the kitchen floor at the cottage, which helpful visitors keep picking up out of harm’s way. No, no! Harm’s way is where they belong!
‡ Euphemism alert
‡‡ I am longing to make a rude suggestion here about whether or not she made it worth his time later in the evening, perhaps because he’d been so understanding about the dog . . . . How family oriented is this blog again? Eleven year olds read SUNSHINE. Sometimes they even read it with their mothers. (Just by the way: Eeep. I am an old fuddy duddy really.)
‡‡‡ And Peter tomorrow will say, So that’s what that is. I couldn’t imagine. But now I’ve read your blog.
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