Tuesday 30th June 2009

We can see what stage our building work has got to without so much as setting foot outside the door. It isn’t that we’ve rigged up some clever little camera to watch it. It’s much more basic than that. Lorries keep going past our house with skips or digging equipment on the back of them. I’m guessing from the schedule this means that excavation is taking place. I wonder if they’ll find anything interesting down there.

Shadow seems to have recovered from her first visit to kennels and has remembered that she is not supposed to pee in the house. At least when we got in later in the week it will be for a shorter time and as it isn’t her first time she will know she isn’t being abandoned. When my Mistress picks us up next time, she needs to remember to wear long sleeves and body protection.

Alarmingly, the summer holidays could be a very long time. James has already resorted to tidying his room without being asked, which I presume was a question of looking for something to do rather than an overwhelming urge to be clean and tidy. Like all these things, it’s unlikely to last. In a moment of optimism, my Mistress started to line up all the jobs he might like to move onto after that, but he didn’t seem keen on any of them. It’s funny how teenagers would rather watch daytime television than do the things that would be useful to the rest of the family. Not that as the family pet I can really comment. Except by peeing on it to keep it in check, I haven’t even volunteered to cut the grass. I do bark at the mower every now and then, but that hardly counts.