It has not been an easy morning, following long and strange night. It is odd how we can go through the most unusual situations and still face the day with every appearance of normality sometimes. We are a resilient species on the whole.
So, after a long night and a very early start, I was home early from my son’s and set about finishing the jobs interrupted yesterday by the recalcitrant washing machine, re-stuffing the sofa cushions into their newly washed covers that, temporarily at least, smell fresh and clean… and not of Ani. The small dog, in helpful mode, decided to plump the cushions for me. Sadly, she seemed intent on doing so by sitting on each of the ones I was struggling to re-stuff. It made life a tad difficult. Funny, but difficult.

It reminded me of the day I tried to lay the carpet here alone. My youngest son was at school, my eldest already left home. Bear in mind I am a mere five foot nothing and this carpet was 28 yards square and heavy. I’d struggled enough to get all the furnishings to one end of the room and, at that point, had two dogs intent on helping.
By the time my son came home I had one end laid and was moving furniture back to the far end to do the other. Bad enough on a flat surface, but of course, there was now a roll of carpet in the middle of the room attached to the floor at one end. Everything needed lifting. My son rolled up his sleeves, called in the troops and we waded in, me and three teenagers.
All went well until we noticed one of the dogs was missing… and found an Echo sized lump beneath the carpet. Every time we got her out she burrowed under again, with Molly chasing her from the top.
The carpet fitting took a while but it was, perhaps, the funniest bit of redecorating ever. Or maybe the purple dog who had used her tail as a paintbrush counts for that. Or the Ani who likes helping with cupboards and who, given half a chance strips beds or hides inside the duvet cover.
The small dog has now reclaimed ‘her’ sofa and is sprawled across as many cushions as she can reach and I have stopped for coffee. My next job will entail climbing; I will climb on one chair in order to get the suicidal crane flies out of the uplighters… Ani will doubtless climb up beside me. Health and Safety would have a hissy fit.
But you will forgive me if the dog comes into the equation again today. Her lunacy keeps me sane in a world that is sometimes fraught with ’unusual situations’. It is that or I wax lyrical over those friends far away who hold on tight when you are in need of a virtual shoulder, talk sense when the world throws a wobbly and are just ‘there’ when you need them… and if I did that they would probably just call me a daft sod and have done. But they, like Ani, bring brightness and colour to my days, particularly when it gets a bit overcast.