The nice little man who came to do some odd jobs for us is coming to do a few more. He can’t come for a couple of weeks, which is a shame but my Mistress was happy with his work and has decided to wait for him. She has asked that her old basketball hoop is put up on the side of the house. At last she might be able to use it. The old post, base and back board got damaged when it rather enthusiastically toppled over on our old drive in Belgium. They still brought all the broken parts back to England with them and have stored them in the garage for two years, although that was mainly because they never fully understood the tip system in Belgium and weren’t quite sure what to do with it. Quite apart from that it is very difficult to get a 10 foot long post that can no longer be dismantled into the back of a standard car. It has gone into the skip, which saved them the problem. Although as we only live half a mile from the tip I’m sure we could all have walked it round there.
I brought some of my Mistress’s dog papers into kennels with me to read. I found a section on whelping and I have to say by the time I’d finished reading it I felt a little green round the edges. Some of the equipment it recommended having looks most confusing. I’m sure my Mistress will be ready when the time comes. She might even be in Switzerland at the right time to be there when a litter is born, which would be very exciting. I did think the little table scales for weighing the puppy looked quite cute. I wouldn’t mind getting some of those, but I think I’d like to be out of the way for most of the rest of the process. I think I might be like one of those fathers that faints in the delivery room and needs medical attention himself.
I had a quick word with my Mistress as she was travelling yesterday. How about that, a volcano erupted in Iceland which led to her having to sit on the floor of the train to London. The whole chain of events was that the volcano sent up a big cloud of ash which meant that planes couldn’t fly. The airports were closed for all domestic flights so more people caught the train. The train was full before it got to York and my Mistress didn’t have a seat reservation so had to sit on the floor. The annoying bit was that the only reason she didn’t have a seat reservation was because the website wouldn’t give it to her on that type of ticket. Last I heard she was heading to France to see whether the strike by French railway workers was going to stop her getting any further. The good news was that Flöry had six puppies so my Mistress is excited about seeing them too.