Hard to Blog days

Does everyone get them? Perhaps I live too dull a life. In the exciting-things-happening sense, that is; the changing countryside outside the door is never dull.

Yesterday the dog had some teeth out. I mention that not as a recountable excitement, but because at twelve general anaesthetic can be dodgy, and I didn't feel very bloggy. I would miss her habit of creeping onto my chest when I am unconscious on the floor, and going to sleep with her nose against mine. I am unconscious on the floor because I have fallen asleep, you understand, not because I have passed out. I've not yet grown out of watching TV flat out on the floor. It may be because my family didn't get one until I was eighteen, so I am a late developer.

Also yesterday was a garden bench day. Slapping on raw linseed and spraying teak oil gave me a spacious headache reminiscent of the ones you got at school when a mate had nicked a conical flask of ether or chloroform from the lab and you tried it out in the three-year-olds' common room. I would imagine, because I never did that, oh no. And I followed that by inhaling a fair amount of apple green spray paint. It was a capricious breeze.

In the evening the women went to yoga. Uncle Buck brought Meg down, so I companionably had one of his little cigar things, even though I don't smoke anymore. Last time Helen McCookerybook visited she brought a splendid panetone. It was enormous, but difficult to light.

Yes, we have our own Uncle Buck. His naming predates the film one. As a small child K firmly renamed everyone we knew, and somehow the names have stuck. Does that happen to anyone else? There is Auntie Bidder, who is normally Debbie. And friend Debbie is still known as Bidden. Strange linguistic skills, my daughter. Her first word was 'picture,' which can't be normal.

It may be inherited. Unable to manage 'grandfather', I named my Highland grandfather 'Bucha.' He was a formidable gentleman known affectionately to his children as 'The Boss'. I'm told he was completely nonplussed when I met him on the back stairs and greeted him by name.

Nonplussed. That's what I was yesterday. Nonplussed. A body can't blog until they're at least a little plussed.

The dog is fine, thanks, and her breath is greatly improved.