A week ago

 

A week ago – how time flies!

A week ago today, Sunday, it was Easter Sunday and we had been invited to lunch with Susannah and James, along with some friends of theirs.

I made a trifle to add to the festive table.  My trifles are quite substantial and threaten to overwhelm my ‘trifle dish’ (a Pyrex bowl!) which is not very large. That doesn’t usually matter as it’s just a short distance from the kitchen to the dining room. However, as it was travelling further afield, I had to balance it on my lap in the dog car. The roads, like most in the UK, are full of pot holes and temporary patches and we have the added pleasure in this area of ‘sleeping policemen’.

The journey was made more interesting by the myriad of traffic lights, which seem to proliferate day by day. Holes are dug, heavy plant and other work vehicles of the ‘Motorway maintenance’ variety are parked near them, and occasionally one or two workmen may be observed, sometimes even doing something down a hole or at the controls of a digger. Usually, nothing is happening, apart from drivers becoming ever more frustrated as access is blocked or diverted and temporary traffic lights impede their progress. I feel very sorry for those who commute to work daily or who drive delivery vans for a living, and I dread to think how emergency vehicles cope.

The custard and cream slid from one side to the other as Barry drove carefully from our house to theirs, applying the brakes many times as he negotiated obstacles. As it was Easter Sunday, there were many cars parked outside friends’ and relatives’ houses, people taking the opportunity to visit and be sociable. This had the effect of narrowing the roads, turning them into a slalom course. It was a stop-start, staccato journey and I feared I would present with a bowl and lapful of trifle by the time we arrived, but managed to avoid that. I have now bought a ‘proper’ footed trifle dish!

We had a lovely day and everybody was suitably exhausted by the end of it.

Barely able to move!

Roxy and Gilbert were flat out for the whole of Monday, and unusually quiet, and so were Susannah and James’s dogs, Arthur and Lottie. 

Half in, half out of bed 

Like young children, dogs love seeing their pals, and having happy new experiences and meeting different people. Roxy basked in the joys of being stroked and talked to and receiving lots of attention without young Gilbert barging in, demanding, ‘Me too, me too’. 

He was busy fetching and playing and his tail wagged non-stop, miraculously without knocking things flying.

 Since he was a very small puppy, Gilbert has liked to lie under my chair and under my legs. He sometimes goes there for reassurance if he thinks he's in trouble. At other times he just wants contact. He doesn't realise he's so much bigger now, and squeezes in so I end up in some very odd contortions. He doesn't usually stay for long, though, and it's very pleasant to feel his warm body next to my feet and legs.

We bought Roxy and Gilbert some toothbrushes recently. 

‘Whimzees’ come in various shapes and sizes from extra small to large. I rather like the alligators and will enjoy seeing the dogs trying them out soon.

Wait!

                                                Look at me!

                                        Good dogs, look at me.

                                                        Gently!

Good girl, Roxy.

Good boy, Gilbert.