A gypsy life. Oh, and a dog's life!

The daughter has swanned off to Italy. Her fiancé's cousin is getting married there. This is what you do nowadays apparently: you go off and get married in a foreign country. Everyone wants to be Brad and Angelina. Unfortunately not everyone has a home in the south of France in which to get married. So you have to go off to Lake Garda or somewhere similar. And your guests leave the children with the grandparents! 

So yesterday I went round to the daughter's house to collect her car for my use while she is away. (After all, I will be driving her kids around.) I got there to find that she and the fiancé were not packed. Truly this is last-minute-ism carried to an extreme. What is more, this is seriously not my daughter. She usually resembles me much more than this. In other words, she has usually made a list of what she needs to pack and has packed it the night before. Neither of us is not like those who are packed a week in advance but, unlike her father who would happily pack just immediately before departure, she generally is better organised than this! Madness has clearly set in! 

The next bit of evidence of unpreparedness was her asking me to look up times of trains to the airport!!!! Surely this should have been done days ago! We found one, we got to the station on time (having completed the packing) and I was on the point of setting off to go about my business. I had a list of things I was going to accomplish while I had the car. Just as I pulled out of the parking lot, the daughter and the fiancé reappeared, all in a fluster. The train had been cancelled!!!! Why did the website not show this? Was it a last minute cancellation? Why was it cancelled anyway? I suspect staffing problems. On more than one occasion, I have had trains cancelled in this part of the country because they did not have a driver or a guard available to work that train. And they say there is an unemployment problem?! My eye!! 

Outcome? A trip to Manchester airport. Not on my schedule but there it was. And so, they were off. 

And for the next few days I will be living a gypsy life, to-ing and fro-ing between houses. No doubt you have a question: Why have I not moved the grandchildren lock, stock and barrel to my house? Well, thereby hangs a tale and a tail. 

There's the independence factor. Grandchild number two has just started secondary school and is walking to and from school every day with a friend. We would rather not disrupt this newfound self-reliance. But the major (and recently added) complication is the puppy dog. 

Ever since the faithful boxer dog became terminally ill and had to be put down about a year ago, the children have pestered for a replacement hound. The excuse for not doing so has always been the unfairness of leaving a small dog on his own in the house while the adults were at work and the children in school. An excellent bit of reasoning in my view. 

Then, when the summer holidays started the daughter, in a fit of madness as far as I can tell (there's the madness again), went out and purchased a puppy: small, scruffy-looking, wiry haired, some kind of terrier crossed with something else, cute and funny but still A PUPPY! 

The children were delighted. Grandchild number two declared, somewhat over-dramatically that the black hole in her heart left by the demise of the faithful boxer dog had finally been filled!!!! 

And all summer long the puppy has been used to lots of people being around him all day long, making a fuss. For various reasons of the older granddaughter's college timetable and the fiancé's leave from work this continued even after term started again. The puppy is at the stage when he needs to have a bit of exercise, have a sleep, have a play, maybe have some more exercise and so on. Not to mention, of course, food and water. 

Not wishing to transfer all the puppy equipment to our house, this blogger finds herself involved in puppy care, a style of puppy care that involves going over to the daughter's house mid-afternoon to ensure that the puppy is not lonely, in need of a wee, a drink, a bit of love, etc. And so I go to and fro, sleeping at the daughter's house but returning to mine during the day, well most of the day, and for meals and such. (I prefer my own kitchen! I hope readers don't have a problem with this!) 

Now, I would never harm or hurt a small creature like this but I am seriously not a doggy person. I am not given to picking them up and hugging them, as the grandchildren do all the time. Neither am I a fan of kissing small dogs and letting them lick me, especially on or near my face. Above all, I do not appreciate picking up doggy-poo. So I am faced with a dilemma. 

On the one hand I am severely critical of those who allow their dogs to do their business all over the place and just walk away from it. On the other, picking up said business, albeit with my hand in a plastic poo-sack, is something I find quite repulsive. Up to now, I have managed to avoid the problem. Yes, I have walked the puppy but he has not needed cleaning up after when I have been alone. If I am accompanied by grandchildren they are happy to be poo-collectors for me. 

So far so good. But tomorrow is another day! And so is Saturday!