It has been quite odd as people have gone home. My mistress has immediately not only stripped the beds and washed the sheets, but dismantled the beds and packed everything. She says she feels as though she is having a closing down sale and ‘everything must go’. She has even resorted to giving away the electrical things that work in Belgium and won’t work in England. It’s another of those cross-European things, everyone’s the same, unless they’re different. The television system in England doesn’t work here and the one here doesn’t work in England. The voltage is different so the English kettle takes a month and a half to boil here, and the steamer leaves all the vegetables hard. We have so many adapter plugs we could go to a car-boot sale and just have a stall of those when we get back, unless we can find a house in England fitted with Belgian sockets, but I doubt that that will be the case.
Dismantling the basket-ball hoop has been the biggest problem so far. Basically, it has been trouble from the start. It was hard to assemble, it blew down and got damaged and now it’s refusing to be taken apart. It just goes to show that inanimate objects have minds of their own too. You should never treat them with indifference, as they will revolt, and our basket-ball hoop is revolting!
My mistress is full of cold and is not a happy person. I go and nuzzle her every so often but there is only so much a dog can do in these situations. She opted out of the ice skating, which is a shame because she was looking forward to it but it was good for me as she stayed at home and kept me company.