I watched Morgan like a hawk this morning. He still seemed to be walking awkwardly on his front left leg, but it wasn’t causing him active pain. I’m thinking he’d strained it and needed to rest it, but have you ever told a puppy to take it easy?
I made toast, and watched Morgan eating his brekkie. He seemed to tuck in very well – an iffy leg hasn’t affected his appetite at all. As I scoffed I peered into a very dull Facebook. Very dull indeed.
I popped up the road to fetch the car closer to home. As I went so a chap came down the road having a full-blown argument with himself; screaming obscenities at the voices in his head. On the one hand it is wrong that people this ill should be allowed to walk the streets. On the other hand having seen the wards in which these people are imprisoned, perhaps he’s better off out?
I then got all four dogs and we drove down to Orlestone. I thought about leaving Morgan at home, but he wouldn’t understand the need for rest, so we did a very short loop and came home. As we walked so his leg seemed to be a tad better… and then he was limping again. And then it improved… And then it didn’t. We walked for ten minutes just to say that we’d had an outing.
As we drove home the pundits on the radio were trying to scare the public about monkeypox. They wheeled on an expert who was billed as being a Fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences. That was nice – I am one of those, you know (I really am!).
We got home just as the rain started, and I loaded up the rubbish for the tip before it got too wet, then sat with the dogs. They slept and I watched an episode of “Orange is the New Black” as another negative COVID test incubated. And them before I could stop him Morgan jumped off the sofa and set his leg off again.
With the dogs settled I drove round to the tip (yet again) and unloaded no end of wood, general tat, and two bags of tiles from the old kitchen wall (for which I had to give them a bung of eight quid before they would take). I also had an old fluorescent tube from the old kitchen light to get shot of. Unusually this one was plastic (and not glass). The chap who'd taken my money to get rid of the tiles told me to chuck it in the general waste. As I was about to do so, another tip operative came busying over and was nearly apoplectic when he saw what I was doing. He told me I had to put it in "the cage". I explained that his mate said I was to chuck it in the general waste; this new bloke was having none of it. As luck would have it, the first bloke came bumbling past, so I collared him, and the two tip operatives nearly came to blows over where my broken tube should go. I left it propped up against "the cage" and quietly slipped away.
I drove up to Sainsburys where I got lunch. As I came out there was another squabble going on. A rather threadbare and unwashed vagrant was haranguing the chap selling copies of the Big Issue; telling him to stop begging and to get a job. The pot was indeed calling the kettle black here.
I got to the works car park and scoffed lunch, and finally got round to having a look at the Internet. A day or so ago I mentioned that this year's Brighton Kite Festival had been cancelled. The chap who took over the kite festivals at Teston was saying that this year's kite event at Teston had also been cancelled. Whilst that is a shame, I must admit that I'm not surprised. The chap who was supposedly running the event said it had been cancelled "due to lack of interest from kite fliers generally". I thought the thing had died a death years ago. It certainly isn't publicised like it used to be. perhaps if I'd taken the event on all those years ago (like I offered) things might have turned out differently?
And so on with the work… and with it done I came home. Morgan’s leg is still bothering him…
