Song of the day: “Crazy” by Patsy Klein. Still a good song.
So…the past few weeks have been heavy for as far as I’m concerned. Doing long days, having very little time for myself, and basically just muddling through the days only to shlog into the evenings waiting to go to bed. Babysitting an invalid dog isn’t easy by any means, and the past couple of weeks proved as much. Seriously, it is a heavy responsibility, which makes my present visit to Spain a welcome relief.
Yep, once again I am writing from a, at the moment, sunny Spain. Yesterday it was a miserable day weather wise. Our mountain was in the clouds, rain came pouring down and everything was dreary. This is much better. I’m sitting outside. Doggies all around me. Just finished cutting bread for their food, and they are content with the bits and pieces they thought to steal from me. Hah.
The flight: Well, it was a near thing. I left at 2:30, which should have given me plenty of time to reach the airport, but then we got into a traffic jam by the tunnel under the river, meaning that I arrived at the airport about thirty minutes before my gate closed. I did a lot of running, which was no fun since I’d been in the car for almost three hours, which aggravates my foot problem. Aaaargh.
Luckily customs went fast, and I arrived at my gate about 1 minute before it closed…which didn’t matter all that much because I had to stand in line to board for a good fifteen minutes, and there even were people behind me, so maybe I didn’t need to worry as much as I did.
The flight was uneventful. I spent the majority of it reading, really. Nothing like a three hour flight to work your way through your book list. Didn’t have a chatty passenger beside me, which was a pity. Always nice to pass the time talking a bit, but these two seemed completely absorbed in each other, if the leg rubbing going on beside me was any indication.
Though the plan had been for little brother to pick me up at the airport, something had gone wrong in the planning, everybody thought I was going to arrive on Wednesday, and when it turned out I was coming Thursday, he was unable to pick me up. So there was some concern as to how I was going to get home. Personally I didn’t much fancy the idea of having to take the train to the city, and then a taxi home around midnight, so I pleaded my case with a friend, who thankfully could come pick me up…am taking her out to dinner tonight as a thank you. We’ve agreed on a huge pizza, preferably eaten outside somewhere because I want to take Knight II along…something she fully understands seeing as she is a dog nut as well.
As to the time before my flight…well, besides the babysitting there was the planting of bamboo, digging ditches (most of it with big brother helping out, mind you) sorting out big machinery, vacuuming, cleaning, washing up, doing laundry cooking and all those pesky things that come with being housebound.
I did get to a little bit of wood work, and managed to restore a rather pretty antique wooden chest that had lost one paw to woodworm. Removed most of the damaged area, replaced it with new oak, then sanded the whole bit, filled up the gaps with wood filler, sanded the lot again, which was when the fun bit came: Painting. Considering that the color wasn’t like the two types of paint I had available, I had to do some fancy footwork to get it to look original, but succeeded, which was very satisfying.
A bit of bad news is that my mum fell a couple of weeks ago and broke her ankle, which was most unfortunate. She spent a couple of days in hospital, a triple break is nothing to sneeze at after all, and is now bed-bound for at least six weeks. Nothing is quite as frustrating as being a few thousand miles away during a family emergency, I tell ya.
But anyway, they all managed, and that is all that matters in the end.
Daxie has improved a lot since I last visit, thankfully. He seems a bit weak in the hips still, but almost his old self again. A big relief that.
As for the other dogs…big brother’s in this case, it’s great to see them again. Got Arthur on the table beside my computer right now, Knight on the floor in the sunshine, and the rest scattered in close proximity. All of them content to snooze in the sun.
Cooking wise I’ve done quite a bit of experimenting...in particular with meat. Yep. I have successfully prepared lamb chops, pork chops, steak, mince meat and bacon, so that’s not too bad. All of it was edible, some even a big success, so that’s good.
Writing wise I’ve done very little. Added maybe half a page to the “Gun” story, for which I have plenty ideas tumbling through my mind, but I need some mental stability and less exhaustion to do that. Maybe soon, I don’t know.
As to everything else, there are daily things I could jammer on about, I guess, just as I could whine and complain at how difficult I find it sometimes to be away from my dogs, and living in someone else’s house where you just never feel quite comfortable, do you. Ah well. Such is life at the moment, and I can either feel bad about it, or accept it.
Well, that’s it for now. I only have a limited amount of time here with my doggies, and I would like to squeeze in some time to clean out my sleeping corner, because, let’s face it, it’s a mess.
Gotta go.
