Haven of Lost Tranquility

This morning progressed very rapidly from fog to a raving heat-wave. During our morning’s scramble through the forests, Bogey the giant Bouvier became over-heated and took to the cool of the thick black sludgy slime that oozes along the irrigation channels dug between the clusters of spruce. He used them to ploop and glollop his mad navigations home, his feet are mops, his body one huge sponge.

Bear in mind before you read on that it is the full moon today, and to cap it all I am, erm, somewhat ‘hormonal’ – not the tranquil, balanced and quietly reasoning Lixtroll (hemhem) to which you are accustomed. When I tell you that even dear Westerwitch, the most tolerant and understanding human being on the planet went into hiding when she saw the state of me this morning, you will understand.

Burst back out of the forest to find the oil-tanker had arrived and was filling our tank. Completely side-tracked with moving vehicles for the oil man to turn the tanker around to depart down our long narrow track, oh Stupid, Silly Lixtroll. Let the blessed animal into the house unsupervised, where he totally and gleefully ran riot in his stinking slimy state. Result: the new, beautiful, eau-de-nil quilted bedspread - here the lip rather trembles - no, words fail me, I can only turn my face to the wall and sob - I am not materialistic, or precious in the slightest about clean stuff, it simply doesn’t pay to do much housework round here, no white sofas in this country abode, Suzy, but this bedspread is my one luxury. All I can say is that the dog had had a field-day on it. On the one day when I forgot to put the old blankie for doggies over it.

There followed a brief fit of the vapours. Then the bedspread, and this is a huge bedspread (although it appears no bigger than a girl's blouse in the pics), was whisked outside and draped over the decking rails and sponged down with a solution of Oxyclean - no Vanish, hysterical phonecall to Westerwich fruitless, she didn't have any either - and bundled into a laundry-bag, dogs shoved into the trusty wagon, hubby driving (I in not fit state) straight off to the village miles away to the launderette. I have never set foot in this establishment before, and only had fairly vague recollections of launderettes of my childhood equipped with very big capacity machines that will handle almost industrial loads.

Shock horror – the machines, all three of them, were no bigger than my one at home, furthermore the wall was papered with attractive notices saying ‘No Bedspreads’ amongst other forbidden items.
So mad drive back home before the stains began to dry into the fabric and become permanent sordid features, filled up the bath and straight in the bedspread went.

The weight of the waterlogged quilt was unbelievable, leaving no choice but to do it the old-fashioned way – squishing and squashing it with bare feet using body weight. It took me and the Janitor several hours to wash it by hand and foot, gaining first-hand understanding of what our poor female ancestors had to go through on laundry days. So here I am, somewhat resembling Madame Grognonne trampling the grapes chez Un Peu, with the culprit lending a helping hand. The good news is that the weather is hot and sunny enough to spread it out to dry in the garden. And my feet ended up the cleanest they have been for years!

It may also interest you to read that in addition, today has added the incidents of: the bag of dog-meal which had split at the base, the crashing of the computer, the strimmer and petrol saga, the deaf Janitor, the poo in the wrong place, the missing hiking boot, and the run-out-of-stuff-in-the-fridge-so-nothing-to-eat, paper jams, guests in the wrong place at the wrong time, VAT and accountants, and – Oh Ho Ho Ho! – the Cesspits are playing up something rotten again!!!!

Just One of Those Days, as my mum would say. Nothing drastic, all rather trivial – but awfully time-consuming and exasperating!