The Next Plane To San Diego

L’s on a day off today and as I cycle in to work, she takes herself off on a nine-mile training run. We both get soaked of course but only one of us gets to slide into a hot bath afterwards. Now that summer is well and truly behind us, I must get myself some new overshoes.

San Diego has a problem with seals occupying a beach area that is reserved for children. They plan to move the seals on, as humanely as possible. Their method is to pay someone to walk along the beach with a public address system broadcasting the sound of barking dogs to scare off the seals. I’ve just emailed them, telling them I’m willing to put MD on the next plane, he’ll sort it out for them, he clears the local duck pond every morning.

Daughter is out at a ‘foam’ party tonight and I’m supposed to be playing tennis, so L’s planning a quiet night in with her book. Unfortunately I’ve got bad news for her. Tennis is cancelled, as much as I’d like to further test my squeegee powers, it’s simply too wet. As I cycle home, I discover that there's also a nice side wind, which would have added to the tennis experience should we have gone ahead.

The dogs have been lying low all day, pretending to be asleep, in case someone dared to suggest a walk in the rain. A walk that L, after her nine-miler, probably wasn’t capable of taking them on, but they don’t know that. They liven up a bit when I get home and after the rain has stopped.

Taking them on the park though was a bit of waste of time, as someone lost one of the balls, they have one each. I think it was MD but I can’t prove it, it could have been either of them. One ball doesn’t work because MD accedes to Doggo seniority, oddly one of the few times he does, and always lets him fetch the first ball I throw. That is when Doggo can be bothered, quite often I’ll throw it and MD ignores it because it’s Doggo’s and Doggo just shrugs a ‘can’t be ar**d’ look at me. It doesn’t end up being much fun for any of us.

So we walk around in circles but its well and truly lost, then just as we’re leaving the park we find a ball, it’s not ours but it’ll do as a replacement, problem is by now it's nearly dark.

They say women spend on average a one year of their lives getting ready to go out. That’s in total, not each time. As Daughter gets home covered in dried foam and with a wrecked hair style, you wonder why.