It started with a list

This morning I made a list.  I live my life by lists.  I love them.  If I have one regret it is that I also carefully throw my lists away when they are all crossed off, or at least when the tasks left undone are carried over to a new one.  I wish I had kept every list I had ever made.  It would have made a spectacular piece of art as it would chronicle my daily tasks, done or not done.  The tasks would change, depending on the day and the epoch, but the old dependables would show up time after time giving my life a backdrop of stability.  Wash the dishes, clear the table, do wash, hang wash, fold wash, do shopping (and then there would have to be a shopping list made – a whole other installation), make bed, have shower, go for walk etc etc.  When I am working there are work related tasks of course; write lesson plans 1, 2, and 3, make numbers flashcards, laminate Snakes and Ladders game, seek animals/clothing/food worksheets and so on and so forth.  Since the little Westies came to live with us I have many Westie related chores added also.  Clean bottoms, trim eyes, wash beards, clean Looki's ears, cook chicken, sweep up dust-bunnies beneath the stairs, clean up sick/pee/unidentifiable splodge on carpet, rub tummies. (ok, ok I don't really put that on the list, it just happens naturally)

Today I made a list.  It included the usuals; do white wash, do coloured wash, clean loo, clean up sick in guest room, email Pepe about the stair railings, wash dishes…..

The day did not get off to a good start as this morning, while out for our morning amble, just as I let the little beasts off their leads Candy decided she wanted to chase the biggest black cat I have ever seen.  She is very quick at the best of times and she dived headlong into the thick scrub before I could stop her.  Kerry went in pursuit and Looki brought up the rear.  I actually did fear for the cat to be honest as the three form quite an indomitable pack.  There was nothing I could do about it all anyway as once the girls get the scent they do not hear me or do not wish to and i was not going to venture into an unknown terrain, so I just had to wait for them to come back.  Looki was the first to return and I put him firmly on his lead as his eyes were rolling and his tongue lolling and that is a bad sign for wandering.  Then Kerry trotted back to me, cool as a cucumber.  She is fine, apart from rockets so I just told her to stay with me and knew she would.  I could hear Candy crashing about in the thicket and I could hear a cat hissing and a bit of yelping.  Finally the crashing started coming towards me and Candy emerged from the savannah.  Up a tree in the distance I noted the black silhouette of the, now safe, cat.  He was staying firmly put.  Candy was panting wildly but now also happy to follow me, but what was wrong with her face?  It was all sort of scrunched up on one side.  I took a closer look.  Ah! Burrs!  Well there was another vital chore added to my list and let me tell you deburring is no simple task.

A crazy-eyed Candy with a face full of burrs

 At about four o'clock I finally got round to filling the sink with hot water and suds to wash the dishes.  Three hours later I emptied the sink and not a dish had been washed.  You see I also have a problem with straight lines.  Life does not go in a straight line and neither do I.  It's one of the reasons that we went from no Westies to three within as many months I suppose.  It's why I never figured out how to get pregnant within wedlock, but have two lovely children anyway.  It's why I sometimes do the gardening in my best frock, because I got ready to go out and then lost myself in the garden somehow 'just pulling up a few weeds'.  The bonfire was just a natural trajectory of all the garden waste and needed doing.  If I arrive late with a few smudges of soot on my face/hands/best frock my friends aren't even bothered enough to mention it now.

So today, when I had intended to do the dishes, after several hours of Westie deburring, snipping, hacking and tutting, I decided, for no apparent reason that it was time to wash all the tumblers, glasses, wineglasses and flutes, which were thick with dust and some rubble since the builders left.  In addition, while I had them all off the shelves in the living room it made no sense to put them back again, not there anyhow, as I had decided to move them onto Vic's Whisky shelves in his little Whisky snug beside the kitchen. 

It made more sense.  Every time I want to make a drink or just pour a glass of water I have to traipse all the way into the living room and then back to the kitchen or snug to pour it.  As we have a very long thin house, this can take quite a chunk out of your busy day although it is good exercise both for me and the little doggies, because sure as eggs is eggs if I make the journey from one end of the house to the other at least one if not three little furballs follow me, their little toenails clip clippy clipping on the tiled floors.  It makes me feel like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, but then I am undeniably the leader of the pack. 

I am always amused by the way they operate.  Sometimes, as I say, they just follow me doggedly up and down, literally on my heel.  At other times they seem to lie in wait in the hope that I will pass by and rub a proffered belly, which of course I can never resist and why should I?

Today was no different and as I passed up and down the passageway between kitchen and living room there were dogs positioned in various spots along the way.  Looki alternated between underneath the kitchen units where he lies with just his nose and moustache sticking out to let me know he is there and his dog cage, which is his little sanctuary.  He goes there sometimes when he has had enough of the girls and perhaps of my walking up and down the corridor.  Candy for the most part was lying half in and half out of the toilet doorway looking a bit hacked at to be sure, but delightful all the same, seemingly asleep and yet whenever I came close to her she would automatically roll over to show me her soft, irresistible underbelly for me to rub.  Which of course, I did.  It also gave me a chance to find yet another catchy burr that I had missed.  Kerry is the most self contained of the three and she preferred to spend most of the afternoon on her big cushion on the living room floor with her little dolly held close in her arms.

Kerry having a snooze with her little dolly xx

 I think that they must think I am mad as I trot up and down and up and down.  "Why on earth does she not just sit down all day with us to rub our bellies and ruffle our ears.  Why does she always have to be rushing around?"

By now I had an empty shelf in the living room beside the fireplace.  What would logically work there?  The answer came to me on one of my trips down the passageway.  I passed by the two great CD towers that I had proudly bought from Ikea, which despite their narrowness did not fit any nook or corner in the living room, so instead have found a home on a corner of the passageway.  They actually work quite well there, though it is a bit strange having the CDs in the hall.  Beside the two towers were three other huge stacks of CDs that did not fit on the shelves anyway nor in any other box that we possessed when they arrived on Vic's container well over a year ago now.  And so they have sat, cluttering up the hallway and providing a urinal of sorts for Looki.  That was during the time he was mapping out and marking his territory when he was new here.  I have washed the floor around them many times, but it is never satisfactory and they really needed to be moved.  So my many journeys back and forth now contained not only glasses coming one way, but CDs going the other and all the while a Westie or two happily skipping along at my heel.

Two tall CD towers on a corner in a long thin house

Of course, all the glasses had to be washed and dried first and all the CDs had to be wiped down and some of them inspected more thoroughly for weewee stains.  RIP Bruce and the Rolling Stones.  Sorry Vic! The shelves in the living room had to be washed and wiped and the shelf in the Whisky snug had to be dusted and polished.  And so it was done.  Slowly, but surely the glasses began to sparkle once more and one by one fitted perfectly into the allocated shelf of Vic's Whisky cabinet.  And at the other end of the house the CDs began to mount up on the simple shelves built into the side of the fireplace in the living room.  It seemed to be purpose built as it took exactly four towers of CDs side by side.

Happy but exhausted I finally sank into the sofa cushions and as if from nowhere three happy little Westies sprang onto my lap.  In my own mind I acknowledged that 'washing the dishes' would now slip onto tomorrow's list and as I rubbed three little bellies my fingers caught on just one sticky burr.  That must be Candy I thought as I drifted into a satisfied sleep. 

Back to School and Sleeping Arrangements

It is less than three weeks since the builders departed and slowly but surely our life returns to 'normal'.  I resumed teaching on Monday and after my first day jitters, with the promise of a large G&T when I got home, everything has fallen alarmingly quickly back into place and it almost feels like the summer never was.  I will have a little bit of extra work for the first couple of weeks it is true, a) because books have not yet been allocated and b) because I am still organizing my classroom. 

Last year I started halfway through the year and was sharing a classroom with Rose.  This year I am 'full time' and have my own room so I get to decorate it as and how I wish and stock it with crayons and scissors arranged the way I think best.  Not that there was anything wrong with the way Rose had the room organized, far from it, I think that Rose is a wonderful teacher and wonderfully organized, it is just that everybody has their own individual style and it is important to find that style and use it in your class and in your teaching.

In spite of coping with the new term my life feels deliciously unstressful at present.  Possibly as it is simply calmer now without the dreaded builders cramping my style. 

Of course the doggies do have to get used to our new schedule:

I am here every morning, bar the odd foray out to buy food or stationary supplies.  We rise and go for our walk and on return have our yoghurt.  Then I am pottering around the house, upstairs and downstairs with a fleet of hounds trailing in my wake wherever I go.  When I sit at my desk they arrange themselves somewhere beneath me or around me, depending on their mood, and their gentle snoring fills the air, unless a cat yowls or a child shrieks outside, then it is up and barking like lunatics for a couple of minutes, until they tire of that game and arrange themselves once more and start dreaming peacefully again.

Gentle snoring fills the air,  but where will I put my feet?

This continues throughout the morning and in fact until a quarter to three when I depart the house for school.  Then they give me those long sad faces and slink away into dark places under cupboards or behind wardrobes.  So even though we have been together all day so far and I have stopped my work many times to give them cuddles and tummy rubs on demand, I leave feeling like a complete shit!

Upon my return however, they simply go berserk with happiness.  Looki is by far the best jumper.  In fact he is the only one who actually jumps up and down.  Alarmingly he springs higher and ever higher.  I'm sure one day he will succeed in kissing my face from a standing jump.  Kerry stands right up on her little back legs.  She looks so like a performing dog that all she needs is one black eye and a little ruff around her neck.  Her fat tummy is stuck out proudly in front, her nipples arranged like brass buttons down her waistcoat.  Candy is a total love thug who just scrambles over everybody and everything in order to get to me.  She never waits her turn or cares whose back, head or face she steps on in the process.  In this fashion I push my way back into the house again. 

The evening is usually quiet and sedate with the little fluffy whitenesses never straying far from my ankles, anxious that I should not be temped to leave them all alone again.  We watch a bit of rubbish TV, for Candy of course.  We might write an email or two or at times I have to do a bit of work preparation for the next day's teaching.  However, as the evening draws to a close there is a visible sense of excitement and every time I have to go to the loo or refresh my drink or make a cup of tea or any task that takes me closer to the stairs they swell like a wave and you can almost hear them holding their little Westie breaths.  "Will she, won't she?"  They whisper inaudibly.

A little bit of TV for Candy

Finally they get their reward and I say the magic words "Ok guys, it's time for bed!"

Ah bed!  The minute those words are out of my mouth twelve tippy little feet jump into gear and are up the stairs in a flash.  When I arrive in the bedroom they are already slotting themselves into their early nighttime positions.  Looki is under my mother's old chest of drawers, Candy on the green cushion, which was bought originally for Looki when he was an only-child and Kerry takes a stroll out onto the balcony to survey the demesne for cats. 

I prepare myself for bed.  I go into the ensuite to brush my teeth.  It always makes me smile when I think of when the house was just finished for the first time and Victor saying to me, "I've never had a bathroom in my bedroom before" and I replied "neither have I."  This is the time of night for those very sweet reminiscences.

Candy follows me in and lies down under the wash hand basin while I brush.  I sit on the toilet.  She comes over to me and pokes my leg with her nose.  "Love me" she says.  So I do.  Candy is very needy, but so am I, so we fit together pretty well.  Then I get undressed, turn out the light and pop into bed.  Exhausted, I stretch my legs diagonally across the bed, while I have it to myself.  The room is bright enough with street lights and house lights across the way to see, albeit dimly.  I can easily make out three white forms.  One is on the green cushion, another half in and half out of the chest of drawers, a third lies with her head resting on the door frame of the balcony door.  We all drift into unconsciousness.

They sleep anywhere they fit

I don’t sleep as heavily as I used to and dogs, not ours, wake me an hour or so later.  There has been a change of position.  Now Kerry is magically curled up in my arms like a spoon and Candy is on the throw on the foot of the bed and wedged between my two feet.  The boy is out on the balcony.  I can hear him snoring.  I rub Kerry's tummy and we drift off again.  Those blessed dogs!  I awake once more!  This time it is the same dogs to the back of us barking frantically and there are men shouting too.  Kerry is now lying behind me and Looki is on the green cushion.  Candy is nowhere to be seen, but I suspect she is not far.

Some locations are temporary

Once more we fall back to sleep only to be woken a short time later by a loud bang!  Damnation!  Kerry jumps up alarmed and dives under the bed.  Looki walks briskly across the room and dips under the chest of drawers and Candy starts barking her head off and running around in circles.  I tell her to stop it and come to me for a cuddle.  She jumps onto the bed and I try to put my arms around her but instead she jumps on top of my head and then tries to burrow right into my hair.  Eventually she starts to settle and wants to lick my face.  She firmly sits on my head.  I sigh and she jumps down again, chases her tail a couple of times and then curls up on the green cushion.  Peace reigns again.

Candy does like cushions

I awake to perfect peace.  Kerry is once again in my arms, this time with her bottom in my face, I rub her tummy. "Good morning" I whisper.  Candy is stretched down the back of me and as I roll over and say "good morning" to her Looki pokes his head in through the balcony curtain and smiles at me.  He jumps up onto the bed and creeps toward me with his bottom high in the air.  We have great cuddles and then he starts going bonkers and starts burrowing into the side of my body and burrowing up and down the bed making a right dog's dinner of the bedding.  Egged on by him Kerry starts the same tactic until I have to get up out of bed.  The love is great, but they have very hard heads and the sheets are a mess. 

On my way to the bathroom I tousle Candy's head.  Being the perpetual teenager she is still zonked with sleep, it will take her at least another three minutes to start running around desperately looking for cats.  

A Westie made bed

The Builders Have Left the Building

Since last Thursday (now two full weeks in fact) peace has descended on our home again.  It has been a long, hot summer with dust and rubble and noise, lots of noise.  Having just put down my first year back teaching I had mapped out a whole other summer for myself…

I was looking forward to a peaceful couple of months padding around the house in my bare feet followed by three little doggies, who would also pad around and stay cool in shady places.  I was planning to write poetry and a blog, do little drawings every day to illustrate my poems, perhaps write a short story or two and maybe even do the illustrations for my picture book, but none of this happened as the builders moved in.

I mentioned previously that this house is still in progress in spite of the fact that we have been living in it for the past four and a half years. In addition we have a problem with uninvited guests hopping in over the wall whenever they please to help themselves to anything that they need out of our garden.

We have been battling for years to keep these thieves out, building our walls ever higher, but they are very persistent.   Over the years we have lost a garden table, two bikes, acro-props, number unknown, fruit from our trees and a large ornamental pot.  On a couple of occasions I have charged out into the garden to stop robberies in progress, saving hosepipes and scaffolding.  Vic surprised a visitor in our Nispero tree one afternoon too.  It does not seem that much, but it is the sense of violation and lack of privacy in our own home that has made us so determined.

In addition we now had a duty to protect our new family members.  I was so afraid that someone would steal our dogs.  Being full-bred Westies they are very wantable, though Looki did not come with pedigree papers, he scrubs up very well, they all do.  Both the girls have family trees as long and illustrious as a Borzoi's leg.  The girls are neutered it is true, but a thief isn’t going to turn them over to check their bellies for a scar, he will take them first and ask questions afterwards and if he cannot breed them or sell them on, will probably just dump them and that just didn't bear thinking about

Oh yes, and one other thing.  Westies hate cats.  Hate them. 

In the morning when we all rise and I have said hello and rubbed three sets of ears and kissed three shaggy foreheads and avoided (almost) three tongue kisses from our little babies they want to go out.  They really want to go out!  Not so much to go for a wee, but to find cats.  I open the back door with difficulty as three eager black noses are pushing to be the first out.  And they're off!  Kerry usually in the lead, but quickly overtaken by Candy.  Looki has been known to leap over the two of them, but then come to an abrupt halt as he doesn’t quite understand what he is supposed to do then.  So while the girls sweep the garden for hidden cats he sort of pootles around cocking his leg on any handy bucket or tomato plant.

Most of the walls were already high enough to keep small dogs with very short legs from escaping. But there was one weak point which I had barricaded up with an old metal table and an unwanted painting, not very attractive and not very secure. It was time to get the builders in.

We are not people who do things by half measure.  In addition to the walls we had already built we now have a superhuge wall almost five metres high and jagged up with glass. It is behind the Nispero tree to the left hand side of the garden.  This wall continues as the ground rises so becomes less of a height at around 1.80m, this was also as a consideration for allowing light to enter our garden.  On top of this wall we have industrial steel railings, 1.80m tall with razor sharp spikes on the top.  We also put the same type of railings on top of the original wall on the right hand side of our property.

Industrial steel railings enhance the view beside the Nispero tree

There is no fear that any Westie is going to get out of our garden even in the desperate pursuit of cats!  And I hope that no one is stupid enough to try to come over from the other side.  I would hate to get up in the morning and have to report a dead body skewered on the top of our fence.  The spikes are really sharp!

There is no fear that any Westie will get out!

While this building was going on Vic and I decided, in our ultimate wisdom that it would be a good idea to get a few other 'small' jobs done at the same time.

There were plenty of things that were left unfinished when the first contractor ran away with our money.  So we decided to finish the balcony, build a back door step, put a proper cowl on the chimney, build a new stairway up to the roof, put a tap on the terrace, finish the electrics and put railings on absolutely everything including the landing outside our bedroom which really has been a bit of a hazard all these years, with a sheer drop to the bottom of the stairs.  There were one or two other things too. 

Looki surveys the sheer drop to the bottom

A couple of weeks we thought….

So instead of barefoot tranquility, Vic has been confined to Scotland in order to keep the money flowing and myself and the Westies have been tripping over acro-props in the hallway and getting caught on the billowing plastic cover on the stairs.  Not to mention the very hard bits of rubble underfoot that have caused me great grief when I have inadvertently stepped on a piece while trying to pad around in my bare feet.

Kerry takes the power tools as they come

For three days solid during the occupation we had three men on the roof with kango hammers knocking a new hole in the roof for the stairs.  Poetry doesn’t really flow at times like that.

Poetry does not flow

Still we did try to maintain a routine of sorts.  The alarm would go off at six thirty, I'd hit the snooze button and if Kerry was on the bed I would put my arm around her fat little tummy and drift off again. Ten minutes later.  Plinky plinky plonk!  It's off again. Snooze. Snuggle...... Plinky, plinky ok ok!  I'm getting up!

I reach for my glasses and shuffle out of bed in the darkness.  I have got into the habit of shuffling to avoid stepping on the vital limbs of any canines that are lying, creeping or charging across the floor.  I still do everything in the dark because I have spent so long without lights, waiting for an electrician who never came, that old habits die hard and I just do without.  I put my glasses on because I still have to check from the bathroom window every morning for unwanted invaders in the garden.

I sit on the loo. Looki is usually the first to come and greet me there. We have a little cuddle and he either creeps toward me with his bum in the air or in a classic Westie-creep pose with his little back legs splayed out behind him while he pulls himself toward me with his front paws or he simply rolls over into total submission and 'rub my tummy, mummy' mode.  So I do.

By this time Kerry is screaming or gargling at me in her own peculiarly vocal way and Candy is just rushing around in circles panting.  The fur on her face is squashed into a sort of sideways quiff from having been in a deep sleep.  I put on my dressing gown and shuffle towards the stairs.  We have to pass through a maze of acros holding up the new part of our ceiling and the work platform for building our little housing on the roof.  The pack sticks close together and we all make our way down the stairs being careful not to slip on the plastic wrapping that was supposed to protect the steps, but only causes us daily grief.

Threading our way through a maze of acros

Big lumps of rubble hide in the folds of plastic and every morning without fail I step on at least one painful piece and I have the scars to prove it.  Somehow we all make it down the stairs intact, but uncomfortable, and I let the dogs out for their morning cat hunt.  Then I painfully retrace my steps to wash and get dressed.

Big lumps of rubble hide in the folds of plastic wrapping

Before the builders we would have got ready and gone straight out for our walk early, before the heat and before too many other dogs are out on the prowl.  During the building we had to wait for the builders to arrive, which made us late and made me grumpy.

No, it has not been an easy summer, but just as suddenly, the builders are gone and we have our life back again for a while.  There is still dust and the odd piece of rubble turns up in the most unusual of places and the electrician still hasn't finished, but we have at last a sense of peace and a taste of what the summer might have been.

Candy makes friends with the stair wrapping