Short* NASTY Monday
I got up what passes in my case for betimes today because I was having an early lunch with Penelope and wanted to have hellhounds well hurtled beforehand.
Except that it was raining. Not just raining: RAINING. Rain on a mission to dissolve planet Earth and leave a large muddy spreading splodge in the solar system.**
While I was waiting for either a break in the downpour or the void to open at my feet when both the road and the ground underneath were washed away*** I discovered that I had a dead phone. I had a dead phone because a hellhound had chewed through one of the wires.
Eighteen kinds of panic at this point. He’s eating WIRES???? I know who it is—Darkness, usually my better behaved, more mature hellhound. He does get into random acts of mastication occasionally.† He actually chewed the spines off a couple of books, and the fact that he’s still alive since I discovered this proves what a soft option I really am. I’d caught him having a go at the phone wire a few weeks ago, lectured him SEVERELY and, as I thought, tidied the wire out of reach. But tidied is not really a concept that applies to the cottage and obviously . . . it didn’t stay where it was put. Very like the hellhounds themselves.
BUT . . . HE’S EATING WIRES?!?
We finally got out on our walk. What with rain, wind and appropriate headgear I don’t hear too well and at one point we were slopping along a farm track and I whirled around, convinced that we were about to be run down by one of those tractors with tyres so tall the driver wouldn’t be able to see a woman and two hellhounds down at ground level, especially in this weather . . . and I dropped one of my pink suede gloves and TROD on it.††
It’s barely worth mentioning that the hellhounds shook themselves violently the moment we got indoors again.††† This is not really the best means by which to have your house plants misted.‡ One of the reasons the carpets don’t get hoovered often enough is because I spend so much time mopping the kitchen floor. And walls. And cabinet fronts. And snarling.‡‡
Lunch was a bright spot. Obviously I was under Penelope’s protective aegis for the duration.
And then back to RATPEGASUSBAG. Maybe I’ll just email everybody the ending. You don’t really need all the details, do you?
And because I haven’t had a good practise ring in long enough to feel my fragile grip on [name any method here] slipping I decided I was going to go to Colin’s tower practise tonight. And Niall was even going to come along quietly.‡‡ I was already standing out at the end of the long mews driveway wondering what was taking Niall so long when there was a small breathless voice behind me and Peter had come pelting down the same long driveway to tell me that Niall had just rung to say that Colin had just rung to say that they couldn’t start practise till eight.
So I frelling cancelled. EXTENSIVE AND CREATIVE RUDE GESTURES HERE. I know I don’t go to bed till most people are thinking about getting up, but most of that late time is spent doing stuff. RATPEG or blog or something torturous with the piano, and I don’t dare be out too late or my brain refuses to go back to work. It’s late! it says. I’m not supposed to have to work this late! I’ll have the union on you! Nyah nyah nyah nyah!
And speaking of something tortuous with the piano, I have a voice lesson tomorrow. I haven’t got Evening Hymn anything like learnt, I’ve been so busy trying to learn the wretched thing I’ve not got any further on It Was a Lover AND I committed the CARDINAL ERROR of taping myself singing last night. JEEEEEZUM. What the hell was I thinking of?
* * *
* FRELL FRELL FRELL FRELL FRELL I AM SPENDING WAAAAY TOO MUCH TIME ON THE BLOG STILL AGAIN ETERNALLY ETC ARRRRGH.
** In all the dystopian returning-to-a-changed-Earth-after-years/generations/centuries SF I’ve read I don’t recall anyone exploiting the large muddy spreading splodge denouement.
*** Hey! Stop that! I have roses to plant!
† Although it was Chaos—I’m sure I’ve told you this story, but it remains vividly etched in my mind—who bit through the cable plugging my electric keyboard into the wall at the cottage. UNGLEBLARG GLURP. Cheez. I was at my desk, and there was this funny sharp alarming noise, and . . . there was a half-grown hellpuppy smiling at me with the two halves of the severed cable lying over his paws. Why he didn’t electrocute himself I have no idea.
†† It’s actually not ruined. I think. It’s pretty handsomely waterproofed or I wouldn’t be wearing it in this weather in the first place, and the mud is cracking nicely, like Death Valley in August. I think it’s going to brush off. What is really miraculous however is that . . . this being a farm track and all . . . it seems to have fallen in honest mud rather than slurry.
Oh, and no, there was no tractor.
††† Raincoats have no effect on this behaviour. They still shake, and they still irrigate the vicinity.
‡ Maybe the reason I’ve still got a little of a certain three-week-old bouquet left is because it is regularly misted by hellhounds.
‡‡ Relatively quietly. He did tell me that Titus’ wife loves dogs and does not love handbells, that he had told her my flimsy excuse for declining Saturday morning handbells and her response was that if I wanted to bring the hellhounds some Saturday morning she would walk them while I rang bells. I asked Niall how large she is and if she has shoulders like a football player. I am not sure I was satisfied with his answer.
comments
Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.