You ask a simple question and you get a whole life story. “Why did you get the shoes with the ladybirds on them?” seemed like a fairly simple question to ask. A boy would say “Dunno” or “’Cause I liked them.” Or “They were the only ones they had.” Actually, a boy wouldn’t have chosen them. With my mistress however, nothing is that simple. Apparently when she was a small child there was a ‘Ladybird Shop’ where she used to be taken for clothes and also apparently Loughborough near where she used to live, has a notice on the platform saying ‘Loughborough – home of Ladybird Books’. As if that wasn’t enough I then got an explanation of how there is a notice on Leicester station saying it is where Thomas Cook started his first excursion from. This was followed by the story of how he chartered a train to take supporters from other parts of the county to a ‘temperance’ meeting in Loughborough and there we are back at the ladybirds. I only asked about her shoes! It seems ironic from what I know of modern day excursions that it all began with taking people to a meeting supporting not drinking alcohol. I wonder what Thomas Cook would think.
With the weather having been so good, I am fed up that my mistress wouldn’t let us come in her little car with the roof that goes down. She had been thinking about it but then my master’s suitcase got ‘damaged’ in transit and she has had to bring a spare one for him. Her little car doesn’t have a boot big enough to take a spare anything, so that wasn’t an option. Maybe I can persuade her to bring it next time, but then I bet it will rain non-stop if I do.