Yeeep
We’re going away for the weekend. Tomorrow. With hellhounds. Yeeeeeeep.
It’s not my idea! I don’t want to go!* And I haven’t mentioned it here before because I’ve been In Denial!
This is the make-up visit to the wodge of Peter’s family that lives in Gloucestershire. We were supposed to go last December, for another of these command-performance 80th birthday parties*, this time for Peter’s elder brother’s** wife, which I, in my usual fashion*** cancelled attending at the last minute: that was when the hellhounds had their stomach bug on top of chronic diarrhea and I was well past coping, certainly with any additional challenges like long drives in the car and strange accommodations.† When we cancelled last December, Peter said we’d try again in the spring.
It’s spring. Oops.
It’s a beautiful part of the country! Gloucestershire–or anyway that part of Gloucestershire which is the only part I know–is arguably more beautiful than Hampshire. I prefer Hampshire, but that’s because it’s mine. Gloucestershire is more dramatic, and it also has that golden Cotswold stone.†† It has Kiftsgate!††† It has Hidcote!‡
I want to stay hooooome!
It’s funny. I was a fiend for travelling when I was younger. I’ve told you this: I was a Navy brat, so we moved on every year or so when I was a kid, and as a young adult–I mean over eighteen and out in the world earning a living, not ‘YA’ as the library classification goes–I kept moving on because it just felt like the thing you do. After BEAUTY came out, I started receiving invitations to go Be an Author in different places, and that was great. Well, sort of great. Seeing new landscapes‡‡ was great. The Being an Author was variable. I could have done without that part altogether, but nobody wanted to pay my travelling expenses if all I was going to do was come and hang out.
But I’ve got stodgier and stodgier as I’ve got older. Creeping middle age was manifesting even before I left Maine: I was already staying home more and travelling less.‡‡‡ And when I first moved over here we drove around a lot of England (and not nearly enough Scotland and hardly any Wales) and it was all gorgeous and glorious§ and I loved it.§§ But there were three dogs now, and the most amazing garden at home, and . . . remind me why I would want to go away? We did sometimes take the dogs with us, but it wasn’t their favourite thing either.§§§
And now . . . well, my garden is less amazing, but it’s extremely labour intensive,¤ and there’s bell ringing¤¤ and piano playing ¤¤¤ and . . . hellhounds. Who have never been away overnight. Well, they wouldn’t, would they? Chronic diarrhea is a very effective damper [sic] on frivolous holidaying. But I’ve been telling Peter for two and a half years that we’d go somewhere with hellhounds . . . as soon as we had this little canine digestive irregularity sorted. As petard hoisting goes, I’d much rather be hoisted than not in this case but . . .
And have I mentioned yet that Computer Men were here for over three hours today and I now have even less idea how to use the new gizmo than I did before? And none of us can figure out how to use the new organ music software.+ And the first thing that happened after they left is that this laptop froze and crashed. . . .
And our hired cottage in Gloucestershire does not have internet access.
Now because I am a Wonderful Human Being++ I’m about to rip off another 1000 words of KIRITH for you, and Blogmom will post it tomorrow night.+++ Saturday night . . . well, I may conceivably miss a night.~ If I get an entry written, and can glom onto one of Peter’s relatives’ internet connections, Blogmom will post it too. If not . . . I’m not sure what the sounds of blog withdrawal are, but if they’re interesting, I can tell you all about it on Sunday. Or maybe you can tell me.
Whimper.
* * *
* Peter, some of you will remember, had his December before last, which I, having spent dozens of hours and thousands of pounds on it, almost missed, because Chaos was so ill. It’s true, the hellhounds do kind of get in the way a lot. ECIAC.^
^Especially Chaos, It’s Always Chaos. I should start a blog glossary.
** There are four brothers–Peter is second oldest–and twelve first cousins who all grew up together, and they all have families and . . . major family gatherings are terrifying.
*** Sigh
† And all for a party? I party like Nick Bottom sings.
†† Hampshire has brick and flint. –Ignore me. I’m partial.
††† http://www.kiftsgate.co.uk/ ‘Home of the largest rose in England’ Ahem.
‡ http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-hidcotemanorgarden.htm
‡‡ and visiting new bookstores
‡‡‡ Having developed a whippet with catastrophic separation anxiety my last two years in the States aggravated this process a trifle.
§ We picked the good bits, obviously.
§§ Especially the fact that I lived here.
§§§ Although I’m sure they preferred it to being put in kennels.
¤ We’re going away tomorrow, so of course I had three boxes of little plantlings arrive in the post today. Three. I haven’t had any in something like a fortnight. I was going to finish getting the dahlias in today. And instead I was out there on my knees muttering evil words and stabbing tiny plants in tiny pots. Which will now dry out while we’re gone. My hydrangea needs watering twice a day. Yes, I have some of that Guaranteed to Remain Soggy Tray Liner stuff, and I’m using it but . . .
¤¤ I’m missing Friday practise! Waaah! I’m missing Sunday service ring! Chorus of slightly panicky ‘waaah’ from those I’m leaving bereft of what might be a crucial pair of hands! I’m also missing ringing a wedding on Saturday! That’s £15 toward The Next Piece of Self Indulgent Jewellery I won’t be putting in the jar! –The yearly ‘tower lunch’ is also on Sunday, to which all of us are supposed to bring spouses and significant relations^, and our regular tower visitors and their spouses and significant relations are invited, and it’s all too tragically social, and reminds me of a Buckingham Palace garden party only without the hats, not that I’ve ever been to one^^, but how I imagine it. I go to the tower lunch rather the way I get out of bed on Sunday mornings: loyal and groaning. Peter goes because I go: our percentile readings on the sociometer are similar^^^. At least the lunch is only once a year. And this happened to be the weekend that works for the Gloucestershire folk we’re supposed to be visiting and that the hired cottage that takes dogs was available.
^ Hellhounds are inexplicably not included
^^Peter has
^^^ Fail
¤¤¤ And I’m missing my piano lesson tomorrow!
+ Sigh. I will pursue this next week.
++ Not to say a neurotic obsessive who can’t let go
+++ Blogmom said, when I asked her if she’d do this: you know, you could just take the weekend off. –I what?
~ I know. The end of the world as we have come to know it in the last year and a half.
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