Invasions

Two lots of creatures entered my domain today, and the field mouse wasn't the worst of them. It was bad enough though, and caused complete chaos to the kitchen as I tried to work out how to catch it. I was sitting on the sofa reading the paper with my morning cup of coffee when I noticed something dart under the fridge, and it wasn't a big spider. I shone a torch into the space, and two tiny eyes gleamed back at me. Hugo, I called into the garden urgently, mouse in the house! He came in at once, not knowing what I wanted but alert and curious. But I didn't want him to savage the tiny thing, just give me some moral support. I pulled out the fridge, and spotted the little fellow hiding in a corner where the skirting board was missing. But as I moved towards it it vanished into the space. There was no way I was going to share the kitchen with a mouse, even a cute one like this. It would have easily fitted into an eggcup. I hunted outside for a piece of wood, and found a length of skirting board in the shed. This I sawed down to size and forced into the space where it should have been. This effectively cut off the mouse's escape back into the house, but I assume it came in through a small hole and not through the back door which involves a high step. Can mice jump? I think not. Anyway, it was an opportunity to clean behind the fridge which I took. Eagerly. Not.

The second creature, or creatures plural, were at the bottom of the dustbin when it was emptied this morning. I had noticed a really bad smell out there during the week, I mean a really bad smell. The last time I smelled something so horrible was when rat poison was put under the hen house to catch the egg thieves, and they all died in situ. It took a while for the stench to pass. I looked into the empty bin, and there were maggots, lots of them, wriggling around. And the smell was still there. Poor dustbin men! The last time I found maggots was in the kitchen bin when my children were small. We had a double bin, and they were at the bottom of the outer one, without a smell. I nearly died of shock. In the house! In the kitchen! With my two beautiful clean healthy children. What sort of a mother was I?  Boiling water first, then and now, the whole lot tipped into a wild part of the garden, then disinfectant and more boiling water. It was job done then, but this time the smell lingers so I've left the bin open to the fresh air. I think I know what the culprit must have been: the remains of a leg of lamb from 10 days ago. I can still smell the rosemary.

The final creature story of the day involves the legitimate one, Hugo. His scar has all but healed up, and I was planning to leave his buster collar off tonight. But somehow, when I wasn't looking, he has licked it and made a small raw patch. It's not bad and is already scabbing over again. But that's it for the time being. I cannot risk him opening it up and causing an infection, so the collar will remain in place for now. Dear, sweet, affectionate little boy. We lay on the lawn together today as I forced myself to rest between weeding, and he snuggled right in to my body and tipped his head back to look into my eyes. For several seconds he just looked at me, and I looked back. Has more love ever been shared between two souls? Well, yes of course it has, but it was such a tender moment. More than enough for me.

Timings

Hugo's stitches came out today and the wound is looking heaps better. As I waited in one treatment room while they were being extracted in another, his unbearable yelps of pain forced me outside where I couldn't hear them. But when he returned to me all bouncy and happy the vet said it wasn't him crying but another dog! We still have to keep him on the lead for a further week, but at least we can go through the fields again. After the most recent harvesting many of them are still a feast for the eyes in their golden covers, hard to resist. When the rain has finished later in the week I plan to take off for a hike on my own with no whippet bouncing along on the tips of his toes, straining for a glimpse of a hare. It's not the most relaxing way to take in the sights.

Before: bruised and torn and shorn

After: calm and healing

Today I cut the lawn, and almost exactly on cue when I'd put the ride-on back under its covers the heavens opened. There is little more satisfying than getting this timing right. Earlier I'd sat with a sketch pad mapping out the beds as they are now so that I can plan where I want to move things. I will have a big sort out in the autumn with Nick as my spademan, and then hopefully everything will be in its rightful place and I can just add to the beds. I had a laugh to myself as I moved around the garden: a month or so ago I could have issued a challenge to find a weed; now the challenge would be to find a spot without a weed. But there are enough flowers to distract the eye, what with the dahlias, the roses, and a resurgance of delphiniums and lupins after the first finished batches were cut down to the ground. The wisteria has defeated me though. I've left it too long without cutting the excesses down, and they have now become entangled with the guttering and are resisting my fiercest tugs. Someone will have to get up a ladder. Not me though. My legs start to wobble when I get to the third step.

In Our Stride

Hugo is very sad today. All his buddies have gone home and he's left with just me. He's mooching around a bit, in part because of the heat, and the lack of a good gallop, but also the absence of  myriad hands ever ready to obey his commanding beak and stroke him; different warm bodies to snuggle up to and rest a heavy head on. "Is this it?" his body language is asking. "Just you and me again?" Big sigh. I sigh too Hugo, but just think how nice it will be to find the serving spoons in the cutlery drawer and not the utensils one! The sharp knives in their correct positions in the knife block! And, best of all, the loo lids permanently closed! I'm joking. I like the house to ring with laughter and conversation, meals to be jolly, lingering affairs and not plates on a tray in the summerhouse, with a book or crossword. Over the past ten days I've cooked three of the new Jamie recipes involving only five well-chosen ingredients, all rated a success. Summer pudding made another appearance. And there were home-made meringues, plums from our own trees, and wonderful white Burgundies from the cellars of King's College. I know I sound like one of those Facebook boasts: "Just eaten at Gordon Ramsay's at Heathrow on our way to Bali for three weeks! Here's a photo of me with Leonardo di Caprio who we met over lunch and is now our best friend! Christmas in Los Angeles with his family! Wish you were here (not) (only joking!) (not!)!!"

I got a lot of washing done and dried including all the bedding, now joining the Ben Nevis of ironing piles. Barely a stitch has been ironed for nearly four weeks save for in an emergency when a grubby gardening shirt just would not suffice. You can't appear in public looking like a tramp. I've seen the look on the face of the girl who takes my Sunday Times voucher in the filling station shop every week when I turn up in wellies, long muddy shorts and a once-lovely striped shirt covered in woodstain. I always use my best voice and thank her profusely but her smile is a mildly pitying one. But I have friends who wear make-up and smart clothes to perform a similar errand, and the mucky pup is closer to the real me.

Hugo has his stitches out tomorrow, and I must admit to being nervous of taking him on a proper walk. He's longing to be let off the lead, and I'm longing to oblige him. But I dread encountering other dogs now, and think I will have to put him on the lead whenever we meet one. I especially dread meeting his attacker. I know he is nervous too. But I refuse to be cowed. We've had the best fun up at Pound Farm, often meeting no one at all on our hikes, and I won't be prevented from this favourite activity by one aggressive bitch (and I say the word with resounding venom) and her neglectful owners. Fingers crossed.

Expectations

The nightingale did not return though I had half promised my visitors that it might. Instead we had unusually nice August bank holiday weather, and we made the most of it. When friends and family come to stay they always want to head to the coast, and these two couldn't wait to get into the sea for a swim. "It's lovely and warm," a young dad paddling at the edge of the water with his small son called enouragingly, but the swimmers did not agree. Freezing, was the verdict, but they are old hands at swmming in England's icy seas, rivers and pools, and they came out dripping but beaming from the rush of endorphins. We had walked down to the beach through Dunwich Heath, a lovely hike through the woods and the heather with a very nervous Hugo in tow. It was his first walk off the lanes since he was attacked, and he peed every few seconds, panting all the time. He relaxed a bit at the National Trust cafe where we enjoyed a proper cream tea, and he drank milk from a paper cup like a big boy. He was slightly better on the way back, but then barked aggressively at a small dog that got a bit too close and we had to apologise and explain to its owners. Oh dear, let this horrible incident not have changed my gentle, friendly little boy.

Disembodied seal

The picture of patience

Hot stone treatment

Yesterday they headed off to Dunwich beach proper for another masochistic swim while I invigilated a Michael Flint exhibition at Snape. I hadn't been expecting visitors when I put my name in this slot, but it was fine. While they spent a small fortune at the Westleton second-hand bookshop on the way home, I had to listen to the John Wilson Orchestra rehearsing their evening concert of Gershwin. I like most of the songs, they are very familiar and singable, but I honestly can't think of much worse than having to listen to the full blast of this orcheatra playing a 2-hour programme of such music. Every visitor who came to see the Flint etchings was happy to overhear their practice, but not me. "We're all different animals" one lovely man said wryly when he saw my expression as he commented rapturously. Yes indeed. Oh yes.

The Right Note

I stepped into the garden to wait for the kitchen floor to dry just as dusk began to descend, and for the first time heard a nightingale singing in the field maple behind the pond. Just as my ears became attuned to the sound and I realised what it was, a pheasant arrived in the field next to me and started squawking at the top of its voice. They alternated for ten minutes or so as I willed the pheasant to go away, but then a fat wood pigeon landed in the tree and the nightingale flew away. I have to admit to being slightly underwhelmed by its song which I think is inferior to that of the skylark. I'm baffled as to why poets and song writers have held it in such high esteem. Nevertheless it was a special moment, and I hope the bird returns at the weekend when my visitors might educate me in its charms.

Perhaps my disappointment lay in the fact that it wasn't the brilliant, the wonderful, the luminous Renee Fleming who last night brought the wow factor with knobs on to Snale Maltings, real star appeal. She sang Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs, as sublime a piece of music as has ever been written. Many sopranos have sung and recorded these pieces, including, in my own collection, Kiri te Kanawa and Jessie Norman. Their voices are gorgeous too, but it's Renee's timing, her pacing, that brings out their extreme, almost unearthly beauty, their poignancy and pathos. She draws out every note, every phrase, lovingly stroking them with her vocal chords and her tongue, then releasing them gently into the auditorium. It's a seductive performance, her voice and diaphragm in immaculate control, her intelligence showing such sensitive insight that the listener can't fail to hear it too. I wish I had left when she did, but I was working and could not. She was followed by an Elgar's symphony that might have been powerfully played by the massive LPO but was for me a clash of two vastly different cultures. I wanted silence after her, to relive what was one of the most magical musical experiences I've ever had. My friend Tessa stopped to talk to me at the start of the interval. "I can't believe how emotional I got," she said. "I had to fight back my tears." Me too Tessa. If I hadn't been on duty I'd have put my head in my hands and sobbed.

All this was a far cry from the events of last week which began with Hugo being badly bitten by another dog and ended with a wedding. The latter was lovely, but poor Hugo found himself up in surgery having a general anaesthetic before being stitched up and confined to very short walks and the dreaded Elizabethan collar again. Brave, long-suffering little boy, he has licked and cleaned every part of his body when he has been freed, heavily supervised, from the collar for short periods, but he has studiously ignored the wound which he has been told he must not touch. It has nearly healed up now, a week later, and the stitches will come out on Tuesday. To coin a phrase, it has been a catalogue of disasters since I got him 18 months ago, but this time it was neither his nor my fault. Through it all he has behaved like an angel. If he sat in a tree and sang I couldn't venerate him more highly.

Whippet Eyes

I bought a new, quite zany necklace to wear with a new outfit, but it wasn't right so I planned to send it back. Internet shopping, the only way I can bear it. It was a long soft tube of bright red sparkly 'stuff', maybe plastic, maybe not, cleverly tied so there was a large, intricate knot that sat on the chest. I thought it look amusing. This morning I came down to find it on the sofa with Hugo, see-through wrapping torn to shreds, necklace chewed. He must have thought it was sweets. "Oh, you're a very bad boy," I said, and his tail stopped mid-wag as he slid to the floor and crept into his other bed. I ignored him for a bit while I made my tea, then spoke to him again as I sat on the sofa. "What a very bad boy to eat Mummy's necklace, and now I can't send it back. You might as well have eaten the contents of my wallet." He hung his head in shame, obviously horrified that the hideous, garish thing had monetary value. After a while I called him over in a quietly severe voice, and he came reluctantly and sat in front of me. "Why are you such a bad boy?" I asked him, and he looked at me with those gorgeous hangdog whippet eyes and my heart melted. As he gazed beseechingly at me his front paws slipped on the hard floor and he slowly sank to the ground, legs splayed out in front of him. Oh Hugo!

I now have some fine pink underwear, four knickers and two bras. They are not deliberately pink, but somehow got into the wash with a pair of red trousers, and that did for them. The machine was only on at 30 degrees too, practically cold, so that must have been a powerful red dye. I feel a bit uncomfortable wearing them, a tad frivolous. They are definitely not me. I'm hoping they'll return to pristine white after the next, hotter wash.

It's a gorgeous day and I'm looking longingly at all the delicious jobs that I want to do in the garden but cannot. Yesterday I did the Times crossword in well under an hour which would normally have been a matter of triumph but only left me feeling cheated of the wrestle and tussle I usually enjoy for longer on a Saturday, the hardest day of the week. Finishing it is great, but still having a few clues to wrack my brain over is even more fun. I've read books that would have kept me going for weeks, and revised Italian until my head aches even more. I've even dead-headed a few dahlias, but the job I really want to do - hoeing the big bed - must remain untouched until I'm better. Nothing for it then but to lie in the sun with the Sunday paper and nod off from time to time. "Wake up Denise it's time for your medicine." Thank you nurse.

Pace Yourself

I suddenly remembered the last occasion on which I felt like this - heavy, sore head, aching eyes, exhausted body - and looked it up here to discover the circumstances around it. Sure enough, there was the long paragraph listing all my physical accomplishments followed a day later by these now horribly familiar symptoms. With my depleted immune system I obviously can't go at it in the garden the way I do sometimes without paying a high price. I'm wondering now if a nice blood transfusion, red or white cells, can't remember which, would speedily restore me to normal health. I need to be a leech, and drain the blood from a healthy creature to feed my own body. The words 'incubus' and 'succubus' spring to mind, but I think they mean something different. The trouble is that when I'm working, hoeing, for example, as I was last week, I'm enjoying the work so much, and the transformation it brings, that I completely forget to take breaks. And this is the result. QED.

The other night at Snape I bumped into a woman who was in my Italian class a year or so ago. "Buonasera", we both exclaimed, and had a little chat about things, in Italian of course. You can do that when you speak the language. Won't I think about returning to the class, she asked. I miss you. I thought the teacher had given up, gone back to fulltime teaching, I told her. But no, they have a new teacher, a real stickler who pushes them through their paces. No more tea breaks, she said, it's all slog now. Well, this was music to my ears, and I immediately knew I was ready to return. Next morning I rang the people who organise evening classes and asked about enrolling. But only those still on the course got priority booking. I would have to wait until the open booking starts at the end of August. Fair enough, I said, my disappointment apparent. So I was thrilled when they rang the next day and said I could go on the priority list since I'd been in the class before. I'm so excited. You reach a sort of hiatus when you're not actively learning, and though our conversazione afternoons are fun and will continue, this is the boost I need. Hail Wendy well met!

Action!

The best thing that's happened to me in yonks was buying an electric version of the pumice stone. Two minutes, less even, on each foot and all the hard skin had gone leaving me silky smooth. I'll never need to visit the chiropodist again. When I read the reviews of these contraptions I was doubtful, but they works like magic. I'm thrilled skinny.

Hugo is out of his buster collar, and I've rediscovered the pleasure of kissing his head and his face, denied me for over a week. He's licked and scratched all the bits he hasn't been able to reach, and thankfully they did not include his eyes which appear to be fully recovered. To celebrate his freedom, and to get rid of his sweaty smells, I stretched the hose pipe all along the lawn in the sun, and when the water inside was hot I gave him a shower. He went berserk afterwards, hurling himself aaround and rolling in the grass to dry off, and I just stood with the camera, snapping his antics. At one point he travelled nearly the entire length of the lawn on his tummy. He smells good again now, and his coat is soft and glossy. I thought of my delight in touching and holding him when I watched part one of a programme I'd recorded. It shows an experiment with small children matched with old people who have given up a bit on life and whose physical, mental and emotional faculties have gone downhill. After two weeks the joy and innocent happiness of the 4-year-olds had spread to the geriatrics whose mood and mobility showed a marked improvement. Holding a small child's hand is one of the greatest pleasures you can have, one octogenarian stated. The message was obvious: keep active, be sociable, and above all have a toddler in your life. I panicked a bit then, not having regular access to anyone younger than 38. Would Hugo do as a substitute, I wondered? He doesn't do cuttin' an' pastin', nor colourin' in, but when it comes to cuddles and fun he's nearly as good as a child.

I've just finished reading Precious Bane by Mary Webb, a book that has haunted my unconscious since I was 8 and watched a dramatisation on a very early TV, with a very young Patrick Troughton as Gideon Sarn. The harelip scared me half to death, but Prue Sarn is a heroine in the mould of Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet and Dorothea Brooke, albeit a less refined one. Webb's style captivated me from the beginning, and her descriptions of the natural world and the hardships and tragedies of rural life in the early nineteen hundreds was worthy of Thomas Hardy. Virago brought out new editions of her books a few years ago and I intend to buy and read them all. What a find. I'm hooked.

Easy Pleasures

I've been fighting some kind of bug for a week now, but I think it's got the better of me. It seemed to ease off into the evenings, so I've continued to do my duties at Snape, and honour social engagements. Now I wish I'd given in sooner, accepted offers of help and put my feet up. I'm cancelling work tomorrow, and biding my time for a Snape concert on Sunday. I had to go to Waitrose this morning because the earliest slot for delivery I could get was Saturday and the cupboard was bare. Panadol, Vitamin C and fruit were at the top of my list. I bought a bottle of Metatone too. I have to be well by next Friday. Biggest day of my life, practically. I GOTS to be fit.

Echoing my distress has been poor old Hugo, still wearing his buster collar a week after his eyes got sore. We've been backwards and forwards to the vet and he's put up with all kinds of invasive treatments from injections to drops and pills and cream, not to mention having his eyes flushed out and the lids scraped on several ocasions. He hasn't had a proper walk all week which has suited me, because after several hundred yards I'm exhausted anyway. And it's not as if he didn't cover great distances when he chased hares for three hours last week! We're a sorry pair, and at least one of us has had a glut of treats in an attempt to cheer him up. I like to think he has a rich inner life, as I do, and can think his interesting thoughts as he is confined to barracks. It's hard to tell though. He's not revealing anything to me.

There hasn't been much to cheer about, but the garden has one highlight even despite the horrible weather. After a lush period of productivity and colour until the beginning of July followed by a few weeks of bareness there has been a great flourishing of flowers and everything is looking wonderful again. I dreamed of reaching this point as I struggled with rafts of weeds for the first two years of its existence. It's not perfect, of course it isn't, and it would have benefited from my input over the past week. But I have to say it is looking fabulous and it's a real pleasure to have it to enjoy. As I slowly scan my eyes across the beds and the now healthy lawn, greedily soaking it up, I feel it feeding my soul and my imagination. So these photos are for posterity, and to remind me of how far I have come outside while I wilt indoors.

Skin Deep

The view from my house has changed from golden to muddy beige now as the farmer has scored the earth ready to receive a massive boost of manure. By no means all of the fields have been harvested - I can hear a combine ploughing slowly up and down a few lanes away - but mine are well into the next cycle. With the boy firmly on his extension lead, sniffing wildly and jerking his head up and to the side as he caught a glimpse of something in the distance, we crossed from side to side for a change instead of keeping to the wide margins. I need to be prepared in case he makes a dash for it, and not allow him to pull me over or drag the lead from my hand as usually happens. He still has his buster collar on so I don't know how far he'd get. Yesterday a vet called Michael Something (the Something had a lot of v's and z's and w's in it which makes me wonder if he'll still be here next year?) took Hugo into another room to flush his eyes out and pick the scabs off, and when he came back he looked like a myopic Viszla with pale pink surrounding skin instead of black. All night I kept waking up with a feeling of dread, and each time I remembered his eyes and prayed they'd return to normal soon. This morning they looked much better, so hopefully he'll be signed off later today. And I'm hoping, too, that my Tesco insurance will be better than the last lot.

On Sunday I made a huge summer pudding for my guest, and afterwards wondered why it had to be so big. Old habits die hard I suppose. I did what any sensible person would do, and put it in the freezer for the next lot of visitors. Now I'm kicking myself, and wishing I could have a fat slice every day, and use up the rest of the cream at the same time. But I'm nothing if not disciplined, and I shall not weaken now it's been put aside for a better use. It's not as if I haven't been indulging myself. Yesterday I went to see The Prisoner of Xenda, an absolute hoot in the local Aldeburgh theatre, and beforehand I treated myself to a child's portion of fish and chips, a packet of Payne's mint poppets from the cinema across the road, and a large glass of Sauvignon. Proper replete I was afterwards, greasy and happy.

Changing Tack

Around twenty cyclists in yellow jerseys whizzed past the house this morning, and I probably wouldn't have noticed them but for the ten conversations being conducted simultaneously amongst them. It was like a swarm of locusts, or a group of Italian teenagers, a wall of sound. I looked up as they approached, and every one of them saluted me with a "Good Morning!" as they flashed past. By the time I'd thought of something clever to say they were well out of sight.

Our lives are very restricted at the moment, what with the buster collar and the sore eyes. Poor Hugo is still suffering, his eyes sore looking despite all the drugs I've thrown down and onto him. The skin around the eyes is cracked and red, but at least they are clear now and he can see. Back to the vets tomorrow for another look. He's desperate to have a good scratch but he can't, and so he paws madly at the collar trying to get it off, or comes and rubs it against me trying to get some relief from the itchiness. My legs are black and blue from being whacked into countless times, but I don't have the heart to push him away. As soon as I sit down he plonks himself up beside me and drops his head on my lap, or my keyboard, and then he stretches further onto me, making himself comfortable. But if the only pleasure I can offer him is a good rub and scratch of his dear black body and head, I'm glad to give it.

I've had two quotes for my new shower room out of three so far, both way about the £3000 mark which I had hoped it wouldn't reach. I'm going ahead with it anyway since it will be a big advantage to have another bathroom, and one with a power shower in it, when the house is full, especially at Christmas. I hope the family won't be expecting lavish gifts this year. I laughed when I told them all that the new bathroom would be their Christmas presents, but I'm not sure they thought I meant it.

I did!

Heart Ache

Yesterday was a bad day, one of the worst. OK, it wasn't as terrifying as the time Kitty, aged 13 months and only hours after we'd seen her father off on a business trip to NY, suddenly couldn't breathe and I had to rush her into hospital in the early hours of the morning with her small chest heaving, desperate she'd die before I got her there. Or when Olivia aged seven contracted chicken pox, mumps and measles then a kidney infection in quick succession and was so ill, just skin and bones, that I thought I would lose her too. Throughout the morning as I hunted for Hugo I kept saying, "It's not the girls, they're safe, it's only a dog," but I knew it wasn't true. He was gone for three hours, and all these thoughts and others raced through my mind leaving my head throbbing and my nerves stretched like cello strings. Where could he be? He ran off after two small hares when I left him off the lead for two minutes while I took a photograph. I must have covered 50 or more miles, driving backwards and forwards down all the lanes, scanning the fields with my binos. He'd never been gone this long, and I believed one of three things must have happened: he was lying in a ditch with a broken leg and couldn't move; he'd been run over by a car; or he'd been stolen. Every thought made my stoamch lurch. To make matters worse most of the fields are still unharvested, and I would never see him if he had collapsed. And there was a fierce wind blowing that nearly knocked me off my feet a few times. How would he fight his way home against that, tired and maybe hurt? I went across the lane towards Sarah's drive at noon when he'd been gone for more than three hours, and suddenly there he was beside me wagging his tail. Oh god, was there ever a sweeter moment?

He was not unscathed. The vet had to administer two injections and give me pills and drops because his eyes quickly swelled up and looked raw and painful. Soon he couldn't open them at all. They are still bad this morning, gungy and tight and it took a while to bathe them open. All the time he lay quietly though I could see it was hurting. Some sort of allergic reaction. The main thing is that he's back, he's safe, and his eyes will get better quickly thanks to antibiotics. Me? I'm still shattered, absolutely wiped out. All night I kept dreaming I was changing a tiny baby's nappy and as I turned to get something the baby rolled onto the floor. At least that never really happened.

Somehow this picture cheers me up. It's not the face of pure evil but of someone puffed up with so much hubris, arrogance, ignorance and ego that he's potentially as dangerous as the worst criminal in history. But he looks so comical here. The Donald.