Monday's blog

I left the house at 3pm with the car packed mainly with filthy perished hessian and rubber carpet underlay from the living room and a few more black sacks. I dropped this load off in the pouring rain at the Thames Road re-cycling centre and drove to Iona's house via the new road, hardly being held up at the M25 interchange although the roundabout was solid with lorries trying to force their was onto the jammed motorway. I checked Iona's house was secure, but failed to find the dog lead. I drove to the Centre, but was stuck in a jam on Green Street Green Road for twenty minutes so the planned brief quarter of an hour visit became an even briefer five minute call. I noticed from the visitors log that Chris Richmond had visited earlier in the day. Isobel seemed bright and alert, but had completely forgotten that Chris had visited, despite being part way through a packet of wafer biscuits Chris had left. I explained that this was a flying visit and that I would return after sorting out Iona's dog, but this might be as late as eight o'clock.

I drove slowly to Shorne in appalling weather conditions with very limited visibility on the A2. The boarding kennels shut at 5pm and I was anxious not to be late, I arrived at a quarter to five and there was a long delay before Billy was produced in his cat (!) box. I carefully drove back to Iona's house and fed Billy. I could not take him for a walk as the dog lead was still missing but decided to sit with him for an hour or so to help him re-adjust - it is the first time he has been in kennels. This would give a chance for the rain and rush hour traffic to ease off, there was no point sitting in a jam on the way to Isobel again. It was almost 8pm before I got to the Centre. Isobel had long since eaten her tea of corned beef and chips and was a large part of the way through Chris' packet of biscuits, I helped her to finish them off as I had not eaten since lunchtime. Isobel was cheerful, but her speech was often difficult to follow although she was again persistent in eventually clarifying what she was talking about. We had a mug of tea each and chatted until 9pm when I went home.

Iona 'phoned after 11pm to say they had just arrived back at Luton Airport after a nightmare weekend on the Canary Isles; they would get back to Stone about 3am. She reminded me Billy's lead was red, not green as I had thought, and I immediately found it. I drove over to Stone and took Billy for a walk at midnight.