Birthday

This has been quite some birthday from beginning to end.   It is now half past five in the evening.   I have just lit my pumpkin and put it on the front step.   I shall now write this post and then I shall flake out on the sofa and do no more.

It started out pleasantly = nice morning, sunshine, no need for an early start, I got dressed and showered at my leisure and then took Tess for a walk.   Shortly after I got back I had three phone calls in rapid succession - all birthday calls.   At half past eleven I left to collect W to go out for a birthday lunch (scampi, chips and peas).   Luckily I for some reason shut the door into the bedrooms and the sitting room so that Tess had the hall, the dining room and the kitchen to roam in.   I had to be back by 1.45 because S was coming to take Tess for a walk as usual.

I arrived back home to find a large box on the door step with twenty cream roses in it.   But on opening the door all thoughts of roses were driven from my mind.   Poor Tess had had diarrhoea.   Everywhere.   She had gone to the patio door to go out and done it there.   There was then a trail across the hall and down the corridor. Of course I couldn't blame her.   I donned rubber gloves, got out the Astonish stain remover, a bowl of warm water, a scraper,cleared it all up as best I could, washed everywhere down, applied Domestos thoroughly.   Then I went into the hall to pick up fifteen birthday cards.   When I picked them up I realised that they had come through the letter box and fallen on a large patch of diarrhoea I had missed.   Every birthday card envelope was covered and I had to don rubber gloves and start again.   By now it was time for S who took Tess out of the way while I finished cleaning up.

At this point two more lots of birthday flowers arrived = I had run out of vases and each room already had two lots of flowers in it.   I had to root out jugs to use.   There are now flowers everywhere.   All my birthday cards were extracted with care from the soiled envelopes, the rubber gloves were binned, everywhere was cleaned again.  A day and a half if not two days all rolled into one.   Three more telephone calls before I could sit down.   So I am now going to rest.   My post on Venice and on my sitting room will have to wait until tomorrow.