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.