A Lull In The Storm

The rain is falling steadily and pretty aggressively, but at least its not hammering at the windows any more.

The trees in the back garden are being whipped around like fat ladies in an aerobics class, reaching first for the sky and then for their toes, but they aren't thrashing malevolently like hefty bullies looking to uproot and do damage, any more.

The guinea pig cages have been blown over. These are solid, heavy, wooden structures not meant for one person to move, not even when the ground is firm. Now our sloping garden is a foamy mudslide and I can't even get them to stand back up, although maybe thats for the best.

There has been a mass exodus - all guinea pigs gone. Mercifully no casualties are in evidence, however both the boys and both the girls have simply disappeared - hopefully to somewhere warm and safe, like round the back of next-door's shed, up against the fence and out of the wind.

We may never get them back; alternatively, taking the longer view, we may eventually get back several more than we bargained for.

We have lost a recycling box - which is annoying (in a very convenient, unemotional, safely diverting way), because I spent ages with expensive sticky backed plastic and a scalpel, decorating them to be personal to this house. If you do them boldly enough, even the coldest, sleepiest recycling man cannot fail to notice - although if one does miss the message, you get somebody else's filthy boxes handed back, while your own end up in the next street.

I'm not afraid of a bit of dirt, its just that some people don't see the point of rinsing a tin, just to throw it in the recycling, and trying to clean out somebody else's two-week-old caked on baked beans, soup and cat food, is, well, pleasant to avoid.

I imagine our box has, indeed, ended up in the next street. I just don't know whether it was taken by the wind or by someone desolate called Bert on his electric recycling milk-float looking thing that doesn't like these hills and lets the rain squall in.

Posting now, before the internet connection or the phone line (same difference) goes on the blink.

Have a nice day!