Patients

I wasn't sure what I'd come down to this morning, but I needn't have worried. The boy was lying in the same position as I left him last night, head in its sharp cone collar resting on the edge of his bed, the eyes of a martyr staring patiently out. But when he saw me his reaction was rapturous - not the desperate reunion after a week in kennels or the normal morning delight, but a swirl of ecstasy as he wound himself around and up my legs, trying to lick my face as if he knew he would be allowed to now that his teeth have been cleaned of their smelly bacterial plaque. I managed to get the cone off and the rapture increased and didn't stop until I held up the measuring cup for his breakfast and he trotted over to the cupboard where I keep his food, tail wagging furiously. Is it really going to take 10 days until he can run off the lead again, and lick his remaining parts when he likes? It's hard to believe. I've taken him out a few times since for a pee but so far he's not been interested. Each time he looks at the field longingly, and back up at me. But it's not allowed. Stitches might break.

Across the lane the farmer has been burning ancient hay bales on the meadow in front of the big barn. The wind is blowing from the north this morning, and a chilly one it is too, so being upwind of the flames I wasn't getting any whiff of smoke. But the fire seems to be dangerously close of the downwind barn and the bales that are already being stored there. Ah well, I'm sure he knows what he's doing. Although the night was hot and I slept mainly outside the covers, it's not summery yet outside. I've put the cone back on Hugo, intending to leave him while I get on with things, but even now he is following me wherever I go. Climbing the stairs more slowly than usual, he bumped the cone against the odd step, and kept knocking into the wall as he tried to manoeuvre around, still wagging that tail every time he saw me. But a bit of extra discomfort will at least keep his long tongue away from those stitches. He's very long-suffering, big sighs escaping every few minutes as he curls up on the kitchen sofa next to me. He's my little soldier, my Trojan hero. He is.