Sometimes the gods are kind
I HAVE A BRAND NEW SHINY BEAUTIFUL DOG MINDER!!!!!! YESSSSSSS! THE WORLD OPENS!*
I also have a car.
And a large tote bag full of board games, also new and shiny.**
Life is good.***
Oisin gave me Mavis’ phone number. Oisin’s wife is one of these people who knows everyone† and she knows Mavis.†† It took me a little while to ring her . . . because . . . because . . . because I’m totally twitchy and superstitious and crazed on the subject of dog minders, and I knew that if she was any good she would be all booked up and if she wasn’t any good . . . she’d probably still be all booked up.
And she was all booked up. She is, I think, kind of the female version of Atlas: jill of all trades and mistress of most. People want her to sort them out for a variety of reasons, dog minding merely being one item on the list. But I wielded Oisin’s name and she thought she might squeeze me in on the occasional Tuesday. This conversation was the end of last week. I instantly made plans for a couple of future Tuesdays . . . and then it suddenly occurred to me that we’re going to Okefenokee this Tuesday. So when she came round to meet the hellhounds I diffidently inquired if she could possibly start fitting me in this very Tuesday . . . and she said yes, she could, and furthermore partly as a result of my woebegone phone call she had decided it was time to start her own dog minding business. And I’m in on the ground floor. Yaaaaaay.
Fabulous vistas unfurl of being away from home more than four hours!††† I can go see Diana again without spending the entire visit sitting on the edge of my chair, watching the clock, and fretting about taxis and train times! I can go up to London and meet my new editor . . . without spending the entire visit sitting on the edge of my chair and fretting about tube and train times!‡ I can go to the opera again!‡‡
However. Eight hours‡‡‡ sounds perfect. Even ten. After that my hands start shaking and you can see the whites all the way round my eyes and I want to go hoooooome. I was a military brat, and as Robin McKinley the Author I have climbed on and off an awful lot of airplanes and talked to a(n awful) lot of schools, libraries and bookstores over the years. But I’ve always suffered Travel Dread: the conviction that your house is going to implode the minute your plane leaves the ground, the absolute knowledge that you’ve left The Thing Most Crucial To The Success of Your Journey behind—this would include the book that you didn’t realise you really really really wanted to read till you were sitting in the airport departure lounge with the wrong books which you did bring§—and that you will come home someone else and your dogs and your husband will run away from you howling.§§ And when you write your next book it will turn out to be about fractals. Or the economy of 19th century Brazil.
But tomorrow is going to be perfect. Eight hours of away: perfect. Wolfgang is home again tonight with more working bits than he had when we sent him to the mechanic for emergency mending this morning. This means we can drive to the train station tomorrow. But we can then get on the train and go to Okefenokee gazing negligently at the passing landscape and a book or (conceivably) a computer open on our laps. Mavis will be giving hellhounds their second hurtle and their lunch.§§§
And the large tote bag full of board games? Well. That perfect last paragraph is whistling in the dark. We’re going to be visiting Luke and his family, who are within a day’s train-ride just for this week. This will be the first time I’ve seen him since it all went desperately and terrifyingly pear-shaped the end of last year. But . . . what happens is what happens. And Luke is still Luke—and his entire family are fanatical board-game freaks. Think of me and bell ringing. Worse.
We’ve known for . . . really quite a while now that we’d be going to see them some time this week. And I’ve been saying to myself: board games. Order some frelling board games, McKinley. I finally did . . . at about 3 am last Friday. This is a great site# and they promise that if what you order is in stock they’ll get it shipped within 24 hours. Which should just about mean it gets here . . . today. Just about. I am an irresponsible moron.
There was a knock on the door this morning before I was anything like ready to get out of bed, and I thought oh . . . frell. I thought oh-frell even harder when I got downstairs (somewhat later) and found the card from Royal Mail saying You can pick it up tomorrow. No. I can’t. I’m going to be on the train. Boardgameless. I also thought irritably that they’re supposed to have left it behind the gate instead of making me troop in to the PO to fetch it . . . but I could have done my ordering a lot sooner.
We hurtled back to the cottage this afternoon from the mews## and I drearily decided just to check behind the gate, in case this morning’s non-delivery was something else . . .
And there was a large box full of board games. HUZZAH.###
AND I HAVE A DOG MINDER!
* * *
* Let me emphasize it doesn’t open enormously far.^ She’s so fabulously round-the-corner local that while she doesn’t mind coming in on weekend mornings, she has encumbrances, like a husband, kids, and dogs of her own. She goes home again.^^
^ Fortunately. A dog minder who won’t cover the twenty-one cities in eighteen days tour is included in ‘the gods are kind’.
^^ Yaay. See above.
** No, I’m not raving. A large tote bag full of shiny new board games is a crucial element in the goodness of life right now. Keep reading.
*** Although it would be even better if I could get more sleep.
† This is very useful in a director of a small local music-theatre company
†† I haven’t yet asked her if she’s in The Octopus and the Chandelier. She’s much too young and nice to be cranky old Lady Thing. Maybe she’d like to be in the back row of the chorus.
††† Yes, normal dogs can keep their legs crossed a lot longer than four hours. Hellhounds, when all is well, can apparently maintain sphincter control indefinitely. But the sweating, paranoid, highly-imaginative human cannot predict when all may suddenly stop being well on the hellhound front. And the hellhound rear.
‡ I could even start having those fantasies about finishing homeopathy college again!
‡‡ The ENO’s spring season is pretty much all stuff I want to see.
‡‡‡ Especially when someone else is doing some of the hurtling in my absence
§ This happens to me so regularly I’m convinced there’s something Funny About the Air in airport departure lounges. And is why, if I ever find myself on the bookselling road again, I will have an ebook reader with me.
§§ Or, possibly, ferrets. It is very comforting to know that I’m in good company with the Travel Dread. Jodi Meadows^ is about to go to Boston and New York City for a week of fun, depravity and publishing, and is suffering Travel Dread: ‘I’ve reached the point now I wish I wasn’t even going. I don’t like traveling. I like being at home. That’s why I live here. All my stuff is here. . . . I’ve actually finished packing. I’ve overcome the I-hate-all-my-clothes part of the Travel Dread. . . . I do it every time. Every time. I hate all my clothes.’ Yes. Me too. Not to mention trying to get the number of pairs of All Stars I have to take with me to fewer than six.
And then there’s the glorious, the magnificent^^ Nancy Pearl: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/soapbox/article/44847-the-allure-of-armchair-travel.html Yep. Give me Eric Newby, William Dalrymple, a sofa, and some hellhounds.
^ ERIN INCARNATE, coming in 2012 from Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
^^ Ahem. She likes SUNSHINE a lot
§§§ And if the gods are really kind, they’ll even eat it.
# http://www.iguk.co.uk/ Highly recommended. I totally depend on their reviews too, since I don’t myself know from board games.
## For me to do things like anticipatorily wrestle with my wardrobe. Yes. Even when I’m only going to be gone eight or ten hours. Although I will only be taking one pair of All Stars with me.
### I have no idea what’s waiting for me at the post office . . .
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