I had another bad night last night, again waking far too early. At least Treacle and Pogo weren't overly fidgetty. I gave up trying to sleep and crept downstairs taking great pains not to wake the puppies so as I could get a shave done in peace.
I then turned on all the lights, woke the babies and hurried them outside where they both did that which puppies do. As we hurried outside I saw one of the dog blankets piled up by the washing machine. Had they done that which puppies do on that last night after I'd gone to kip? I didn't take any chances, gave it a quick shake to dislodge any errant turds (fortunately there weren't any) and set it scrubbing as I watched an episode of "Orange is the New Black" in which our heroines were starting a small business by selling purloined undercrackers.
As I watched telly so both puppies slept with me, and so didn't need much settling when it was time for me to settle them. I got dressed, and it was rather good to button up my trousers; the button had gone missing last week and I finally got round to sorting it last night.
Pausing only briefly to scrape bird dung from the car I was soon on my way up the motorway. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about Elon Musk who has just bought Twitter for forty-four billion dollars and now that it is his personal property he's planning to remove all moderation from the platform to give free reign to free speech. There was a lot of concern being expressed that this will open up a can of worms by giving a mouthpiece to minority hate groups. It's been my experience as a moderator of several Facebook groups that the removal of moderation will mostly result in the non-removal of adverts for porno websites. And the biggest cause for concern for Twitter (Donald Trump) has apparently said he doesn't want to start Tweeting again anyway.
Three other people with more money than sense have just returned from a week's jolly on the International Space Station which cost them fifty-five million dollars (each)
I would love to be able to buy Twitter, or to have a holiday in space. I wouldn't buy Twitter, and neither would I have a holiday in space, but I would like to be able to afford either.
Meanwhile President Putin says he is actually fighting a war with NATO and has told the West to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine.
I think the chap has got a point. Whilst the NATO alliance has said it will not get involved in any conflict in Ukraine, its constituent countries seem to have no issues with sending the Ukrainians weapons. There's a very fine line between actually staging a war with Russia, and just providing the weapons for someone else to do so, isn't there? I can remember as a schoolboy at various times egging mates on to have fights with people I didn't like; offering to hold their coat whilst they got stuck in. Handing over weapons to one of the protagonists of a war is much the same, but on a (much) larger scale... isn't it?
I again managed to get through the "Operation Brock" contraflow without being run off the road. I wish drivers of lorries and white vans would realise there is no point in tail-ending me; I can go no faster than the cars blocking both the lanes in front of me. There are fifteen miles of two-lane traffic all going at the speed of the slowest car. It can be frustrating if you like driving far too fast, but dangerously overtaking at the very exit of the contraflow whilst blasting your hooter achieves very little other than to remind everyone to make a note of the name on the side of the van as it flies by, and not to use that company.
I got to work on what looked to be a beautiful morning, and did my bit whilst staring out of the window at what turned out to be a beautiful day. More and more I'm thinking I'd really like to jack it all in and take early retirement. Today I could quite easily have walked all four dogs out to Wye or Pluckley or Ham Street and come back home on the train... Mind you I did do that with Fudge and it wasn't a success. He hated the train. How would four dogs respond to it?
As I worked I had messages. “er indoors TM” 's car had got a flat tyre. Did I have a pump? Yes, I did. It was (and still is) in my car. She wasn't happy about that, but I'd rather have it where it will be needed.
And “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” was messaging me about smallest grandchild who has started making odd noises and is known (for now at least) as "Darcie WaaWaa". I wonder if that name will eventually warrant a TM after it?
I am reliably informed that "Darcie WaaWaa" looks just like me…
Being on the early shift I got out early. What with having to wait for tyre fix-it people “er indoors TM” had been working from home today so I left her with the puppies and took Treacle and Pogo to the woods. There was a minor hiccup when Treacle started limping. I had a look at her paw, pulled out a thorn the size of a small dagger, and all was well.
I had a little gloat as we walked past some of the normal people who were staring in horror at their Labrador who was standing chest deep in stagnant mud… and then just at the end of the walk both Treacle and Pogo ran at top speed into a thicket. I blew the whistle to call them back and I heard them stop, then heard two muted “plop” sounds. Both then appeared covered from shoulder to paw in muck. I frogmarched them back to a stream I knew to have clean water and chucked them both in, but the damage was done.
I sent a message telling “er indoors TM” to spark up the bath, and once home I volunteered to look after the puppies whilst she scrubbed the bigger ones. I think I got the worst part of that deal.
It will be dinner time soon… I will scoff it, then spend the evening constantly falling asleep in front of the telly before spending much of the night wide awake…
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