Just another day of infamy

 

I think Niall's car takes the weevilly biscuit, but we'll get to it in due course.

            The badness of the day began with a phone call.  I was bundling hellhounds into harnesses earlier than usual because I had a dentist's appointment this afternoon and I had some errands to run in Mauncester first.  I almost didn't answer the phone because it was going to be the plumber managing to fit me in today after all, and I didn't have TIME to be fitted in by even a plumber I've been chasing for at least two months.  But since it's been two months, clearly I'd better cooperate. . . .

            It was Peter.  He had a dentist's appointment this morning* and he'd just missed his bus.  Could I run him in?  GRAH GURG ARRGH BLAG NO.  NO.  ARRRRRRGH.

            I'll be there in a few minutes, I said.  I finished bundling hellhounds into their harness, and bundled them into the back of Wolfgang, picked up a Man in Black waiting ominously by the side of the road opposite the mews, and shot off toward Mauncester. 

            Peter said, I can be back in. . . .

            No, I snapped.  That's much too late.**  You can take the bus home.*** 

            So Peter went off in one direction, and I went off in another, effulgent with hellhounds.  I'd decided I'd try to do a few errands now, since I clearly wasn't going to have time later, but I needed to run a little of the overnight build-up of jollity off the hellhounds before I expected them to mind their manners† on crowded pavements. 

            It was a beautiful morning and there are some very nice walks around the outskirts of Mauncester if you manage to avoid the aggressive off-lead dog brigade.  We started off along the river, and then took a turn (partly to avoid some off lead dogs and their attendant morons) to climb Citadel Hill.  We got about halfway up before we met the first fence.  There has been a row about Citadel Hill going on pretty much as long as I've lived here;  farmers want it for grazing, and irresponsible dog owners want it for letting their slavering nightmares off lead for fun and mayhem.  Citadel Hill is huge.  I could see if the dog walkers wanted to lobby for a fenced off area where their dogs could riot—a lot of cities have dog play areas—but nooooo they want it aaaaaalllll so their dogs can be freeeeeeee.  Spare me.  Anyway.  The farmers have won, at least this year. 

            On the fence there was a large sign that said CATTLE IN THIS FIELD.  Uh.  I don't like taking predators through fields with cattle;  cattle are too sodding big.  I've been chased by heifers, and haven't enjoyed it at all, and people—and dogs—do occasionally die of being trampled.  I don't want to contribute to that statistic.  So we turned around and sidled through some undergrowth (still avoiding dogs with morons). 

            But, as I say, Citadel Hill is enormous.  The main entrance is farther along.  I had a good look around, and mainly what I saw was a hillside covered with lying-down sheep.††  And I thought I remembered that we could circle to yet another gate and eschew the cattle-infested section.  So we had a glorious if literally breath-taking slog to the top of the old hill fortress, toiling up wave after wave of grassy ramparts, scampered (slightly rubber-legged) across the top, with the wind tugging at us in several directions, down the far side . . . to another gate in another fence a short stone's throw from the one we'd turned away from about twenty minutes ago, also saying, CATTLE IN THIS FIELD.  I stood there staring at it, and wondering if they'd done something funny with the fencing or I was just remembering wrong, but why is there now a narrow cattle-ring round Citadel Hill?  To a dog walker this is a bit like being expected to walk under a portcullis when you can smell the oil boiling.  And as I stood there, a Very Large Hairy Black Cow ambled into view.  Followed by another.  Followed by another.  Followed by another. . . .  Not only are they large, they have horns.  The crescent-moon type.  The type that, with suitable decoration, Charlemagne and Roland would have wound at each other.  I would much rather have them in the hands of epic soldiers several thousand miles away in another century, than on the heads of cattle between me and escape. 

            We cast back and forth along the fence a bit, but clearly what there was was this gate.  (So much for my memory.  I should know better than to think I might have remembered something useful.)   The Four Large Hairy Black Horned Cattle have settled down to eat a tree that happens to be slap next to the gate hellhounds and I need to get out through.  We stood there for about five minutes while I dithered. . . .

            Eventually I cranked hellhounds in to ultimate short lead, and we marched through the first gate . . . eased quietly past the cattle . . . and the second gate STUCK AND WOULD NOT OPEN.

            No, this is not written from my hospital bed, with hellhounds in traction across the room.  We got through eventually.  We got through eventually in one piece.†††  We were also nearly half an hour after Peter back to the car.  He was mild-manneredly reading his newspaper.

            Dentist from R'lyeh was running late this afternoon, of course.  I then spent an hour and a quarter in the frelling chair‡ to essentially no effect whatsoever:  I was supposed to come out with a full set of teeth on the lower right, for the first time in two or three years . . . but the D from R decided that the teeny-weeny transmitter that is going to make me a mindless slave of the star-spawn wasn't working properly, and sent my new teeth back to the lab and me shambling home to mourn and detox from the sixteen gallons of anaesthetic.  With a fresh appointment in my diary to do it all over again because it was so much fun the first time.

            I had just enough time to take hellhounds for a final sprint before Niall was picking me up for us to go put the fear of handbells into a fresh vestal—I arrived at the mews perfectly on time to Peter telling me that Niall had phoned and Peter had told him he wasn't sure I'd be back in time or not—AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH—and when I tried to ring Niall his PHONE WAS BUSY.  Having then wasted several minutes trying to ring to say I was here, I was late bolting down the extra-long grand-house driveway and met him driving in after me.  As I climbed in, panting, he said, in the best laconic British manner, I'm going to have to get out on your side.  The driver's door just fell off.

            WHAT?

            It's okay, he said.  It only fell off halfway.  I lifted it back into place and—locked it.  And got in from your side. 

            I don't think you've heard much about Niall's car.  For as long as I've been a frequent passenger it (a) has  leaked and (b) has no indoor lights (yes these two idicyncracies are related) and a few weeks ago he and Fernanda spent two hours sitting by the side of the road when the gearbox fell out.  I was supposed to have been on that journey to handbells.  My good fairy was looking out for me that evening.  I stayed home.  But I think possibly the car is trying to tell him something:  like 150,000 miles is enough. 

            Three miles down the road the petrol light came on.  Fortunately we were going in the right direction for the only petrol station in rural Hampshire open past six p.m.  We stopped.  Don't get out the driver's side, we said to each other.  While the tank was filling we felt the driver's door all over and compared it to the passenger side and decided it didn't look too far out or low or twisted or bent or likely to fall off in the middle of the road.  We got back in the car and kept going.  Thoughtfully.  It's noisier, isn't it? said Niall.

            Yes, I said.  But it's not any noisier now than it was when I got in this evening and you told me the door had fallen off.

            Oh, okay, said Niall, cheering up.

            We got there.  We rang handbells.‡‡

            We got home.  Nothing fell off.  Niall is taking his car to the garage (again) tomorrow.

            You will forgive me if I don't practise my knitting tonight.

* * *

* Different dentist, mind you.  He has the Nice Dentist who threw me to the mutant lions and tentacled loathsomenesses of Dentist from R'lyeh when she decided she couldn't cope.  My teeth are probably even beyond Lovecraft's imagination.

** You leave your car at the edge of town, if you have any sense.  You do not want to get tangled up in the one-way system in the medieval heart of Mauncester.

*** I am a cow.  This is not news.

† Their what?  What was that again?

†† It was raining by midday.

††† Well, three pieces.  One Darkness piece, one Chaos piece, one hellgoddess piece.

‡ Mostly I have not noticed the physical excesses of yesterday.  Except for the hour and a quarter I spent lying in the Cthulhuan chair.  During which I swear every muscle groaned and my bones were on fire.  I think I may have a little problem with tension. 

‡‡ We were hanging out in Caitlin's kitchen while she made tea^ and I happened to notice that she had the line for Pudsey Surprise on sixteen [bells] lying nonchalantly on her counter.  Pudsey looks like a snake that's just been plugged into a power socket at the best of times, but on SIXTEEN??  Oh, she said off handedly, we're going to try for a peal this weekend in Birmingham.  And I'm helping teach this woman handbells??????

^ There were also excellent flapjacks.+  I'll come back to Caitlin's house any time.

+ British flapjacks are a kind of sweet chewy oatmeal bar.  Usually there are dates and nuts and things too.  Mmmmm.