I don't like Monday

How I was feeling at about seven pm last night should give you sufficient indication of how our weekend went. As I sat slumped in the chair, it felt and indeed sounded as if the Royal Philharmonic had taken up residency in my stomach. Heaven, the sounds that were coming from my bloated tum! There was a certain musicality and rhythm to them but I could have done without to be honest. But then again, if I will stuff my face two days on the trot, what can I expect? A’s birthday lunch at the local Chinese did for me on Saturday and before I’d had chance to recover we were round at friends for roast pork, crackling and all the trimmings on Sunday. They were, it goes without saying, absolutely delish but I’m back on the straight and narrow today getting excited about celery. Mind, after the day I’ve had, I could do with a big comforting stew and half a fresh loaf ladled with butter to restore my equanimity.

I had everything planned out, you see. One project to start this morning, conference call at 11am, then a number of miscellaneous items interspersed with liberal coffee breaks to take me through to 5pm. Well, I was just ferreting around for some clean socks, ready to set the world on fire, when I sense that all is not well. I notice that Arthur has had a little accident, tell-tale dribbles on one of the dog blankets informing me that we really should have got up earlier. No problem, I’ll sponge it out and dry it in front of the fire. And then I realise belatedly that while my head was in the wardrobe, Arthur had actually climbed on the bed and done most of his widdly business on our duvet. And on our sheet. And on our mattress topper. There was no time to dwell on how strange this behaviour was (greyhounds very rarely soil their 'kennel' and the boat is merely a glorified floating dog-house) as it was all hands to the pump for a rapid bed-strip and an executive decision that we could do with a new duvet and topper, plus some extra fresh bed-linen. One conference call and emergency dash to Dunelm later, I’m back with a few bits and pieces (well, they just seemed to jump into my trolley) and I’m ready to remake the bed. I go to pick up the remaining, un-weed on dog blanket and discover that it is now a puked up on blanket instead. And in quite a major way too, so it immediately joins the old duvet and topper in the toxic waste bag. There are no further bedroom incidents other than me putting the duvet cover on, which is always a comical interlude

Now I don’t know whether this disruption to the bedroom was to blame or whether there’s just something in the air but the dogs have been a right royal pain in the arse all day. Growling, barking, pestering, snapping, most unusual for them and really, really tedious. Add in incontinence and barfing and they’ve been a real joy! No-one looked out of sorts so it wasn’t until dinner that I realised who the sick puppy was – Miffy was completely disinterested in her dish and she didn’t get a chance for a rethink as Monty decided that Monday night was double dinners night. However, judging from the grumbles and woofing coming from his direction, it’s obviously given him a touch of indigestion. Which is where we came in. Let’s hope a degree of quietude returns in the morn…