Whose idea was dogs?*

 

YAAAAAAH.  The balance of household horror has shifted:  the hellterror’s Swollen Bits have become less engorged and appear to be giving her less discomfort . . . but they have become ominously spongy and by the ratcheting up of the hellhounds’ concentration I would say The Time Is Now.  She’s easy—so to speak—she’s always been a shameless flirt** and now that she no longer wants to rip off the offending personal protuberance she seems to have reverted to her usual attitude which includes assuming there is the customary fun to be had caroming about the place and bouncing off hellhounds and furniture and why won’t I let her pursue this splendid and familiar course??  Furthermore Darkness, long proof against hellterror charms, is finally falling into line and I WON’T LET HER PLAY WITH HIM?  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??  A powerful aversion to the prospect of puppies is what’s wrong with me.  Chaos is still fairly la-la-la about the whole situation—Chaos, as previously observed, is chiefly interested in Chaos***—but Darkness is seriously lovelorn.  Aaaaaaaaand has stopped eating altogether.†

AND IT’S RAINING.  And raining and raining and raining AND RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINING and rainingandrainingandrainingandrainingandraining and. . . .  Okay, it has been raining (and raining and raining) but I have MOSTLY been able to bolt out during brief cessations of the wet stuff whomping down from the scary-looking overhead and get my assortment of furry disasters hurtled.  I’ve mentioned here before that I’ve been mostly keeping (feeble) control of The Situation by making sure everyone is well hurtled,†† especially the hellterror, because she doesn’t get to riot around indoors as much as she’s used to.  Today I haven’t been able to get the multitudes out nearly enough.  YAAAAAAAAAAH.†††  Furthermore Pav’s even worse than the hellhounds about rain—come on you little madam, you’ve got fur dense as Goretex††† you are not going to melt—and there gets to be a limit to how far you’re willing to drag a four-legged breeze block that is causing further crater-like potholes with every resentful, resistant step.  She’d far rather go back indoors and RUN AROUND WITH THE HELLHOUNDS.  NOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Tomorrow has to be better.  Although the flood warnings are proliferating and getting closer and closer and closer and closer and we have a fresh prediction of gales tonight . . . .

* * *

* Whose idea was rain?^

^ God, you ratbag.  Don’t you know about subsurface irrigation systems?+

+ You ought to.  Presumably you invented them.

** Motto:  ‘whatever it is, flaunt it’

*** The reason he’s so stuck on me is because I am the Source of All Good Things as well as a few bad ones that he’s always trying to talk me out of.  Eating, for example.

† My hands are frelling chapped from the need to wash them thoroughly after each mouthful I stuff down a hellhound throat.  I only do one mouthful per hellhound at a time and go away—sometimes they eventually get bored and finish on their own.  But this makes for a lot of hand-washing.  Sigh.

†† As a result I’m a lot more thoroughly hurtled than seems to me at all necessary, especially when I’m a little dubious in the rude health department^ to begin with.  I tell myself that the more superfluous calories I burn off tottering after critters the more chocolate I can eat.

^ Rude, yes.  Health, no.

††† It’s funny, although with little ha-ha-ing to be had from it, we’re actually not that far off the standard daily hours of hurtling.  But there’s something very claustrophobic about the continuous thudding of the rain on the roof and the streaming of water down the windows and a louring grey sky so very low that you feel if you stretched your arm over your head you could poke a hole in it with your finger^.  Maybe it’s just watching the flood warnings creeping nearer and nearer—Warm Upford is already under water, for example, where we used to live—and wondering if the dog-food and chocolate delivery lorries are going to be able to keep to schedule.

^ Thus no doubt releasing a bruising cascade of additional rain

‡ AND FRELLING FRELLING FRELL DOES SHE SHED.  She sheds significantly more than both hellhounds together.  Wash hellhound blankets:  clean washing machine filter after.  Wash hellterror blanket:  pry open filter door^ wearing your flak jacket and shatterproof goggles and stand back.

^ I have raved here previously about the design idiocy involved but at least there is a filter:  most average UK-available washing machines don’t have them.