The War of the Pansies

Lolly, aka Princess Furry Trousers, loves pansies. Shame is, so do I. And it was my digging, my fivers.
She stalks them, I stalk her.
This inappropriate admiration for botany and a nasty penchant for half five in the morning, however, is about as bad as it gets, and she is SO pretty and jolly that she is almost forgivable.

Friday evening found us perched in a small sitting room with a puppy trainer. Our mismatched seats, culled from a Dentist’s waiting room, arrayed around a disconcertingly large rubber mat. Most tempted to test its efficacy myself. A tenner for more than an hour of efficient “one-to-one” and away we went with effective little hand motions, a dog keen to Sit and Off and, oh, something else – I should have been born blonde – and our own paws stinking of cheap mangled sausage.

We then went to pick up T10 from his chum C9. We stood all adult with wine on the front garden to their pretty cottage facing the church in their beautiful village trilling in that parenty way, and Lolly crapped on the perfectly manicured lawn belonging to Mrs Northern Posh.
Exquisite timing.
Most very wrong grass.
I flapped around keen to show how well I remembered the vileness of other people’s dogs – not one to be Love Me Love My Dog, how tiresome is that? – and squatted dismally amateur with my green plastic bag and Mrs NP’s hose at which point her littlest, the dear sweet B4, scuttled out all sunshiny squeals and random trotting and armed with an inevitable homing instinct for the faeces…
Mrs NP went into screech freefall and I had a misguided moment involving B4, Mrs NP and the manic hose, but we were well tucked into our pinot grigio by then, which we managed to grip that necessary bit tighter while separating child / dog / poo / water, so I hope that we can say that a) my how we laughed and b) I think we got away with it…

Buoyed by her prowess in the poo department, an ear cocked for further instructions emanating from Asbo Jack way south in Exmoor, Lolly then pranced around with unpleasant eagerness in Mrs NP’s immaculately maintained flowerbeds.
Mrs NP twitched, and who can blame her, with that intensity of scrutiny being displayed by one so small and busy and wanton?
My yanking on the pretty pink’n’daisy collar’n’lead threatened to compromise the sloshing meniscus of my wine so I had to take ungainly gulps of that, so as not to waste a drop, while tottering inelegantly in pursuit of, what Countrymousie would doubtless call, my wheaten terrorist. While still managing to chat about schools. As you do.

A relief to get home even if that does signal cooking time and an interest to be shown – mine – in supper while Lolly dipped in and out of the flowerbeds here, rummaging and foraging and gathering pretty petals on her teddybear fur.
A second bucket of wine and it was hard to care either way.

The nights are still less than ideal, made vaguely bearable only by being able to call it summer.
I am re-connected to times of day I do not like.
2 in the morning while still at a party: tick.
2 in the morning to marry the sound to the likely scenario – Lolly dancing on her crate scrabbling at the door and yapping, and then stagger downstairs to deal with it / endeavour to ignore to show that this sort of behaviour is not to be tolerated: not tick.

We take it in turns, Mr C and I, and it is a matter of debate whether we will make our imminent 17th wedding anniversary.
(17 years, though, blimey, what an age is that. Seems like only yesterday etc.)

What actually seems like supper time is now, yet not even lunchtime, since Princess Wildebeest was up and on the go before 5 this morning, bouncing on her crate, eating the door.
You read that right. 4 something intolerable.
And straight out to nuzzle into the pansies, breathing in pleasurable wafts of a junkie’s fix.
Off to slaughter a puppy – furry pair of gloves anyone?? – she’s pushed that envelope too far today, and I did merely say that she was “almost forgivable.”

Country Lite: Spiders and Other Nastiness

Here am I with not much to say.
How can this be! Has the Princess of Verbiage (West Country version) really run out of fuel? Perhaps I should just re-hash an old one. Surely no-one would notice?
Kitty Corrigan will be nodding in self-satisfaction. After all, “The three we chose, after much debate, all have the potential to write a column centred on rural life without being repetitive.”
Well, correction, still not much to say but of a sudden without the words to say it. I rather hope that this trimming of the soul is a temporary thing but some stuffing has been knocked out of the Mad Milla Typing Machine, not to mention my peepers which are strained rotten by all the obsessive computer work over recent months.

In any case, thank goodness Ms Smith in her wisdom – by omission – judged my work
“not to stand out above all the rest” since, “Writing a magazine column is very different from blogging, and the blogs were judged not only on writing style and structure but also on the subject matter and how well it related to CL. The shortlisted blogs are the ones that we felt had the most potential to be turned into a regular column.”
Nice to clear that one up. Thanks, Suse.
Phewee.
Could all have turned quite nasty. I would have dried and died and how deeply unpleasing that would have been.
Kinda kicking myself, though, for not sticking to the one subject, a hen, and talked about it over 5 very short paras.
Or, if wisdom were mine, I could have mentioned a mole catcher: oh, we’d have laughed, how exceeding quaint! or a horse licking a window: how very country, what larks!
Fool!
Victory could have been mine.
Mwah, hah, ha.

You get the point.

So what goes in the day-to-day lives of one of the spurned?

Now that I can admit not giving a flying *uck about chickens, I can at least concentrate with a vaguely happy heart on the true business of the day – gossip if you dare!! (that’s enough, Ed, the silly green duck will be set on me!) – which is my bathroom.
Chaps, it is a triumph. Spanking new white bits and pieces. An enormous splendour of simple oak, being the basin unit. Groovy, but discrete, shiny chrome shower. Travertine marble smooth on the walls, a running line of the juiciest little glass tiles – all seconds, so crazed and millefleury in places and, importantly, cheapish – and good enough to make me Squeal.
True, it’s all taken a month or so, and still the lights aren’t in or the paint splashed on but it is all so so near and I can at least stand in the doorway and sigh big fat happy sighs.

A thumping big spider was trespassing away in the bath this morning, threatened to send the sullied lot in the skip pronto.
Shudder.
Blimey, what a turn I was given when shimmying in for a quick matutinal admiration session to confront the big black beast o’too many legs. That’ll larn me to get me about my chores quicker, rather than mooning around in dazed smuggery. Down to the cereal boxes, girl, do not linger over glass tiles, they will prove your downfall.

Spiders, I just cannot abide, which basically rules out travel in 9/10ths of the world: a teeny tiny Cinderella Carbon Footprint is mine through mimsy.
The darting scuttle, the sullen stand-off stance when they sense the air suddenly saturated with adrenaline (mine). The ones in our house all but wear sunglasses to express their disdain at my fear.
I had thought that September was their month. I imagined that that was the deal and had tried to come to terms with it. Not in this house, though, due to those pesky fields out the back, where an open season is declared from February to November and they saunter about at will. Only the bleakest, most bone-sapping months are spider-free, which is prompting me to relinquish my Seasonal Adjustment Disorder ways in favour of promoting winter as suddenly a Very Good Thing.

Darn it, all twittery and scared again. Should have stuck to moles. Aaah, how sweet! Squeal!

Before I dive into a nonsensical freefall, I'm going to limit this to a sentence or two to check if I am here, that this is working, that it is accessible. Am an old dog and bad at new tricks. Here goes.