A Party’s Not a Party till Someone’s Been Sick
The honours, as usual, go to Miss Best Friend, who decorated the rug in an approved and traditional fashion this morning. The back story is that Dr Biswell and I shared a guineafowl for our Christmas dinner. This creature was marinaded for twenty-four hours in orange-juice, olive-oil, cumin and garlic, and then, as it grilled, was basted with butter. It was very nice, and there were increasingly pressing reminders from beneath the table that it would also be very nice for dogs. Miss Best Friend gets a little titbit after dinner to get her arthritis medicine down with. She is, however, supposed to wait until we are finished, but if there something smells really scrumptious she will begin, after a while, to moan with longing. This she was doing. When we eventually took plates through, I had a look at the cooking pan, and decided, in my nasty judgmental way, that there was far too much fat in it for an old dog, and took it out the back for the Rough Cats, who at this time of year need all the calories they can get. Miss Best Friend got my plate, with some scraps on it, which she clearly thought better than nothing, but inadequate to expectations. The Roughs, unfortunately, must have retired to bed, and I rather think that Miss Best Friend found the pan when she went out for her ablutions at the end of the evening. At any rate, today there has been much eating of grass and heaving, and general intimations that she feels no end liverish. There has therefore been a complete cessation of treats, which is rather a shame since the Northern Gentleman and Miss Eleanor came to lunch and there was a steak pan, but such are the rewards of Crime. They brought a variety of thoughtful and interesting presents, including a perfectly splendid book of their own construction called Hero of the Soviet Union, which tells us all sorts of things we didn’t know about Miss Kit. We were not aware, for example, of her background in rocket science, or that she was once friendly with Lord Lucan: ‘it is while working in the naked people’s theatre industry that I met my good friend Dick Bingham … we are having many jolly japes together until he leave England suddenly owing to great big misunderstanding ….’ All ends well. ‘In 2006, I retire to beautiful dacha in woods near River Deveron in Banffshire. Though I now sometimes having recumbency problems, I invent special bed called ‘laptop’ with lighted headboard, integral heating device, and 87 tiny shock absorbers.’ – it is, in short, a hoot. We had a lovely quiet afternoon, but around fourish, the light began to go and Miss Eleanor began to think about the drive back. It rained quite a lot yesterday, but today the thermometer has plummeted. It’s about minus six, and there is three inches of ice like armour plating on the track. The Professor and Dr Biswell went out after them to see that they got away, which, basically, they didn’t. It took an hour and a half, Miss T’s Dad in his huge car, and a tow-rope to get them out (backwards) over the fields. Once they got to the main round all was gas and gaiters, but the intervening stretch is terrifying. The Laird of the Pink Castle, also in possession of a large and powerful car, has very sportingly offered to bring us some fresh vegetables and we have said yes please, because we aren’t going anywhere.