I had a frankly
amazing night’s sleep last night. I went to kip shortly after midnight, and
despite a swift tiddle at 3am I was still snoring when ‘er indoors TM
got up. I was eventually licked awake at 8am by a small dog wanting his
walkies.
Having a letter to deliver in Newtown I
thought we might walk out through Frog’s Island and back through Newtown this
morning. However the overnight rains had made the river burst its banks again.
Anyone else would have walked round the long way; and would have put up with
adding five minutes to their journey. However one of the louder voices in my
head is that of idiot enthusiasm. It told me that I could walk up the left hand
side of the footpath, climb down from the red brickwork and shimmy along that
little raised concrete ledge you can see on the left hand side of the
underpass.
Usually I find my friend idiot enthusiasm to
be very reliable. Today he let me down.
I got onto that little concrete strip easily
enough. I’d never before realised how narrow it is; it’s only about six inches
across. But that would be enough for me to be able to shimmy along. So there I
was, hunched over shimmying sideways along a very narrow ledge with a small dog
swimming along beneath me. I’d got about half way through the tunnel when hunching
over became too much for my poor back and it went into spasms. I lunged
forwards; missing a soaking by grabbing that brick wall on the right hand side.
I found myself hanging over the flooded
river, with my back in agony, unable to move. It was at this point that I
realised how funny it all was and got a fit of the giggles. Then I fell in.
The water wasn’t that deep, and I was soon
back on dry land. Note that *I* was back on dry land. “Furry Face TM
“ wasn’t. He had scrambled out of the water onto that concrete ledge and was
running up and down it in panic. He does this; he swims himself into various
predicaments from which he can only escape by swimming, and then he forgets
that he can swim. Fortunately a passing normal person who clearly knew of the
flood had come along equipped with wellies. She waded in and rescued him. As
she picked him up he looked terrified.
We came home, got dried, then went out again.
It was time to try out my exercise in canine psychology. Every week for the
last few months we’ve been walking into the vets so he gets used to going there
and he doesn’t think it’s somewhere of which he should be frightened. The
theory is that he sees the place as part of our general walking route and so whenever
he has to go in there for vetinary purposes we won’t have the trauma that a lot
of pet owners go through.
It is a very good theory.
“Furry Face TM “ was to have his
claws clipped today. Somehow he knew that today was different. As we walked in
we bandied insults with a friend who was fish-shopping, and we took our seat
and waited. “Furry Face TM “ was not at all his normal
boisterous self; he was cowering under the chair, and when the nurse opened the
door to call us in he ran as fast as he could to get out of the place.
It was a shame that the nurse clipped several
claws a little too short. A shame because it hurt my dog, and a shame because
it will only make future visits more traumatic.
Home again, and housework. Hoovering and
washing and tidying and shoe polishing. Over a spot of lunch I watched the
second episode of “The Tomorrow People”.
It’s getting quite good now. But I do wonder if I’m liking it for the various
references to the original series rather than liking it for its own merits.
I then fiddled about on the computer; chasing
party invites, updating my calendar, this and that. I had half a mind to
actually do something in the garden; there is still some storm damage to fix
but the constant rains recently have put me off gardening. As I looked out of
the window I saw it had started raining yet again. So another afternoon and
evening was wasted on Candy Crush Saga…
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