some enchanted evening

The boys always need a bath when I pick them up from the kennels, especially in the winter, because they absolutely stink. So there’s no harm in taking them out for a big muddy ramble, except of course that I picked them up straight from the office so I’m not really dressed for the elements (and tonight was elemental indeed, gusty winds and driving rain), and the fact that it’s pitch black. But what the hey, I’ll have a bath too?

So we slithered and slimed and hullaballooed our way around the local park, scuffed by twigs and the occasional bush and shed uprooted and whipped along by the wind. And they scrubbed around in the undergrowth, collecting as much as possible in their ears and tails.

This is part of the problem you see. I have the foresight of a gnat. I know that Toffee’s ears and hairy undercarriage are magnets for any flaura with prickles or burrs, they just wrap themselves up in a curl of hair and wait there for the spring to germinate. I know this from experience after having to prune a small briar poking out of his arse earlier this year. But it still feels like a good idea to let them have their fun. So I made allsorts of discoveries as I lathered them up in the bath, and spent an unhappy hour after towelling them with a pair of scissors disengaging sticky bobs from their pits and bits along with a lot of hair that they probably need (you need nail scissors for the tricky bits especially around their unmentionables).

Bathing the dogs entails cleaning the entire bathroom.

And then washing the towels.

And then, mopping down the route that we took into the house.

And, buggeration, I left the bedroom door ajar, and Charlie has introduced himself to the pillows by, upside down rolling around and rubbing the back of his head on them to “scent” them. Which he made a perfect job of, so I changed the bed while I was at it.

Now I’ve just come back from Hamburg. I walked into my front door at 2am this morning after spending the beginning of the week at a conference and “entertaining” clients in the evenings / early mornings. I was in the office early this morning and there’s a pile of laundry, and bags to unpack, and a fine film of dust seems to have settled in just 3 days (I have issues with dust, I seem to have more than my fair share – I think that my place is keeping some other household completely dust free). All of this has been slightly compounded by the fact that I look like the phantom of the opera at the moment, courtesy of a plastic mask which is protecting the socket of my left eye which was fractured by a hockey ball on Saturday. (I’m a lucky boy there, because that’s the one I’m already almost totally blind in). But it is annoying, and I’ve permanent headache, and seem to be mislaying little fragments of time, a minute here or there, over the past few days (I found myself in the gents toilet in a bar in Hamburg standing against the sink still clasping my willy and wondered how I’d made it there from the urinal which was 5 yards away – and I was sober! Anyway, trust me, you don’t want to be seen provocatively posing with your old chap in your hand in ANY public place in Hamburg).

So all in all it’s really not been the best of evenings. It’s compounded by the fact that, almost for the first time I felt quite lonely and morose coming back to an unlit, cold home. I’m not given to loneliness at all, I’ve settled that in my head on the whole and I’m generally quite all right with my own company – except of course I miss the warmth and physical affection, (I’m selfish, but not completely daft!!). But once again I’m lucky in that respect too, because although I’ve had some fairly exhilarating relationships I don’t think I’ve ever had a “soul-mate”, so I don’t know what I’m missing.

But that’s a bit off topic, and I’m too tired for tangents, suffice to say that I feel at a bit of a low ebb. (Vulnerable?).

Nothing that a hot bath, a glass of wine, a bit of Bach and a good book won’t normally fix. (Or even a cheesy baked potato with baked beans at a pinch).

Which was when the vomiting began, when I was running the bath. Jungle noises in the hall. Jurassic sounds, great honks and hoots and rasping shuddering breaths, spittle laden respiration…the call of some disgusting other-nature, right here in my house.

I peered round the corner half expecting to see a yeti vigorously rodgering a gnu with a head cold. In retrospect I think I might have preferred that. The two idiot children were standing side by side in the hallway wracked with gut busting, rib cracking heaves sending gobs of white mucous and knotted undigested grass across the carpets, and up the walls.

They were doing a great job too. They seemed to be taking it in turns, resting, shallow gurgling and panting and then getting a good lungful of with which to shoot the gooey green gobs as far as possible. “Beat that”, “Giz a mo, I’ve got a good ‘un in the pipe”.

I grabbed the wine and a glass from the kitchen counter and sat on the bathroom floor for a good twenty minutes until the noise subsided.

I’ve never been entirely sure why dogs suddenly decide to eat a wild emetic salad – I’m supposing that they know somehow what the consequences are, it’s not as if they’ve any bovine ancestry, they do it to actually make themselves throw up because they’ve eaten something bad (worse!)? But this was like a vomiting version of mass hysteria.

So I spent a happy hour with the disinfectant and a pale of hot water, and the mop, and somehow dinner didn’t seem quite so appealing.

Is it Monday today – I know that God occasionally throws a spare Monday into a week if he needs a laugh.

I wanted to catch up on some correspondence, people I miss and want to talk to, but this is all I have the energy for at the moment, and I want to be better ‘company’ than I feel I could provide right now..

So, nite, nite everyone, sleep tight, I’m going to bed before anything else happens.