Stedman Doubles . . .
. . . a remedy for the doldrums. Well, a remedy like bubonic plague is a cure for worrying about your head cold. I’d come back from taking Darkness to his second session with the physio in a state of extreme prostration*, and was lying on the sofa with accompanying hellhounds, leafing idly through the Taylors clematis catalogue** and wondering if I could drag myself together to go ringing tonight, or if I wanted to try.
The trip to the physio had been exciting enough for one day. I’d decided yesterday that I needed 1,000,000,000 more stakes because of all the dahlias, so we went to the physio via the big critters-and-gardens store that caters to people who like to think they’re real country folk.*** And tried to buy 1,000,000,000 stakes except that every time I recounted I came up with a different number.† Oh, well, 999,999,998 or 999,999,995 will do. Staggered out at last, bristling with stakes, to two little pointed faces in the back of an elderly red VW Golf,†† and set off on part two of our journey. . . .
. . . And sat for fifteen minutes in a traffic jam. £$%^&*”}~#[+!!!!!!! And when we got to the blind corner where we would finally be able to turn onto The Way That Is Always Empty, and as a result we would just about still make our appointment on time . . . The Way That Is Always Empty was bumper to bumper at a dead halt.
Think fast, McKinley.
I have this pleasant fantasy that I’m usually reasonably competent in an emergency, but that’s mostly about blood and what you do till the ambulance gets there or four foot of snow, the power’s out, and there are forty horses in the barn†††. Put me in a car and prevent me from going the way I know how to go, and I turn into one of those hand-wringing princesses in a fairy tale. Come on, I’ve lived in this area nearly twenty years! There’s got to be another way round!
There is. But I get lots of points for figuring it out on the trot, so to speak. Of course I didn’t have a map with me. Even more of course I didn’t have the physio’s phone number with me. Even more of course than that, I don’t know how to use my new mobile phone. It’s part of the new RaspBerry, which I am coming to grips with only slowly, and we haven’t got to the lesson in phoning yet.‡
So we took off cross country, always a mistake–okay, that road looks like it’s going the right way, let’s try it–only this time it worked. I even recognised the road the physio was on coming in from the opposite direction. I don’t know, the hellhounds must have been beaming Navigational Waves at me or something; finding my way in a panic‡‡ is not one of my skills. If it’d been me on the Incredible Journey, I would not have made it back‡‡‡.
We were five minutes late. This is a medium-sized miracle. And it was our good luck she was running late. All was well. Yaaay.§
And then, at the end, after Darkness had indicated that he had had Enough for One Day and was mooching around investigating the corners while I wrote the cheque–and Chaos hovered by the door in case someone was going to try to do something to him next–Darkness lifted his leg and peed on the wall.
My next dog is going to be a goldfish.
So, we were back at the mews, lying on the sofa, and I was composing a list of required clematis and wondering faintly if I should try to go ringing tonight. The answer was clearly no. But I’ve missed too many Wednesdays and I like that tower, and I miss Wild Robert and all the people I ring with, and I’m one of the Big Kids there, which is the only tower I ring at where this is the case, and this is good for morale. When I have enough brain to ring at all, which hasn’t been lately and wasn’t going to be tonight either.
I went anyway. I’ve told both Marilyn, the tower captain, and Wild Robert that the ME has been keeping me busy bringing it breakfast in bed and peeling it grapes and so on, and I turned up tonight saying firmly that I Had No Brain and Promised Nothing Past Rounds and Call Changes.§§ Which of course explains why for the last touch Wild Robert called for Stedman. And you regular readers will note that ‘touch’. Not a plain course. A frelling touch. It took us three tries, but I wasn’t the only one coming adrift. And we did it at last. Sometimes it’s a good thing to make the wrong choice and go do something anyway.
* * *
* The prostration is mine, not Darkness’. Darkness is back to being lifted into the car and lifted onto the sofa. Darkness is prostrate like a prince in a palanquin is prostrate. I am recumbent as a weary slave falls down chained to her oar.
** Idly hell. I have a list.
*** I think the real farmers have a different entrance, with a grille and a bouncer.
† And have you ever tried to carry 1,000,000,000 four-foot bamboo stakes? Your arms aren’t long enough both to go all the way around them and be spaced out at enough of an interval along their length that the stakes don’t just all tip out variously fore or aft and patter all over the ground. Arrrgh.
†† One of the differences of this generation from the last is that these guys–especially Chaos–will stand up in the stopped car indefinitely, hoping something exciting is about to happen. Holly of the whippets wanted to stand up, but that was in my despot phase, when dogs were to lie down in the car all the time for fear of evil precedents being set. These guys . . . it was pretty obvious that I was getting it handed to me on a plate that they believed me that they had to lie down in the car when it was moving, and therefore, having won my main point, I would do well not to push my luck. So I don’t push it. I’m also so paranoid about dog theft that I rarely do leave them anywhere but in the driveway at the cottage or Third House long enough to race indoors for the crucial items I have forgotten^, to wrangle and wrestle with builders, etc.
But this means that–because I am hopelessly soppy–I get this little thrill every time I do walk out to the car when the hellhounds are in it, not necessarily bearing mutinous bamboo stakes clutched ineffectively to my person, and see those lean racing bodies and the little pointed faces looking out at me: and when they recognise that the curious spiky monster lurching toward them is their hellgoddess, the tails begin to wag. . . .
^ Memory stick with current draft of PEGASUS on it, for example. Clean shoes.
††† Yes. This happened once. It may only have been thirty-eight horses.
‡ Phoning out. I never did learn to pick up messages on the old phone, and since I never left it on, I never answered when it rang. When people want my mobile number I say I don’t have one, which eliminates messy explanations.
‡‡ Have you ever tried finding your way in a panic? The landscape is a strange, shifting grey, the wind keens bad words in your ears, and the roads move around. The worst of it is you never know when you may blunder into one. Panics are everywhere, like swamps and motocross tracks.
‡‡‡ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Journey
§ Except for the fact that Genuine Dog Professionals make me feel faulty and inadequate.^ Oh gods, what am I doing wrong? I know I’m doing it wrong. But I’m faulty. And inadequate.
^ Southdowner, I’m talking to you.
§§ I notice we’ve picked up another beginner, so rounds and call changes are much on the menu.
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