Coleslaw

 In case you don’t know, Readers, coleslaw is a mixture of shredded carrot and cabbage in a creamy mayonnaise. It is intended as a side salad to go with a jacket potato or pizza, and the such like.  It is not intended to coat one’s fur.  At the moment, my tail is plastered in coleslaw which I am desperately trying to lick off but this is proving tricky as it is in all sorts of awkward places.

And how did I get coleslaw all over my tail? I hear you ask.  It is simple.  Young Lad was sitting on the sofa eating his Slovenly Pizza, and had a large portion of creamy coleslaw on his plate too. I heard someone walking past our house in a threatening way so I jumped up on the sofa and started barking at them, but accidentally sat down rather awkwardly on Young Lad’s plate. Luckily my tail missed the houmous and pizza, but did settle in the coleslaw.  Young Lad was annoyed as he really likes coleslaw but he was not prepared to eat any that had recently had my tail in it.

It’s been a hectic couple of days with a lot of going out and coming back in.  School holidays are exhausting, Friends, I tell you.  Take today.  She ‘popped into town’ first thing, then came back and told Young Lad to get off the bldyXbox and get in the shower.  They then drove to a town far away to buy Young Lad some new bldyexpensive trainers.  They returned home for half an hour, then Detention Friend arrived and She drove them to a park/astroturf for an afternoon of football and chips in the cafe.  She came back and dragged me out for a 3 mile walk, then got back in the car and went to collect Young Lad and his friends from the astroturf.  I tell you it just wears me out trying to keep up with who is in and who is out.

Add into the mix Lad surfacing from his room mid-morning, doing some more forced labour in the garden for an hour or so, then going to meet his friends in a town far away via the gym, and you will see what I mean.  Why don’t they just stay in?

I’m quite irritated about all the school holiday nice food that Lad and Young Lad are having, too,  They are forever having chips or other tasty fast food, and nobody ever brings me any.  Today She said money is tight so Young Lad was not allowed to have any fast food on their shopping trip – instead he was made to go into John Lewis for his lunch.  This is because someone had their bi-annual voucher for a free coffee and cake, so in the spirit of generosity, Young Lad had the ‘cake’ element of this promotion whilst She had a latte.  Cheapskate or what?  In fairness, Young Lad had the most enormous fruit scone imaginable which was probably more nutritious than six chicken nuggets and fries would have been, but I’m still not sure this constitutes ‘lunch’.   Plus I know for a fact that She made Young Lad get some extra butter pats ‘for the  enormous scone’ – these extra butter pats were put into a handbag and brought home.  This is theft and is an appalling example to set.

Young Lad was then made to walk round John Lewis admiring all the lovely things that people with more income than us can afford.  Not that anyone is jealous or bitter.

I’ve been out in the garden for my comfort break, Friends, and I have to say that Lad has done a very impressive job out there.  Really, it looks like Capability Brown has popped in – I feel Lad could have a career in landscape gardening, and this would take all the ridiculous pressure off these silly A levels, whatever they are. I will suggest it to Lad, when he comes home on the last train from his night out with friends.  Again.

It was a lovely day down at the river again – that’s five lovely days in a row – and we went over the bridge, checking for dead bodies as we’ve promised the Lovely Hairdresser that we always do this, and up into Top Field.  I sauntered round slowly, eating rabbit droppings, and was moaned at several times, to hurry up.  What is the need for rushing everywhere?

On the way back we met a lovely golden retriever – for one moment I thought it was dear Pippa, but this one was smaller and younger.  In fact it was a very bouncy puppy.  However, this bouncy pup had one problem – he was too scared to go over the new bridge.  Now I remember this feeling very well, from when they rather aggravatingly replaced the old bridge with a shiny new one, and I too was a little disinclined to walk over it at first.  The poor young pup simply wouldn’t go across, so they had the idea of making me walk across it in the hope that he would follow.  He wouldn’t.  We tried this several times with lots of silly voices and cries of “good boy, Hugo, follow Russell,” but Hugo was having none of it.  You can’t say I didn’t try to do my bit for the community – I walked back and forwards over that damned bridge for ages. It was boring as.

Friends, I have just growled and snapped at He and Young Lad.  I had no choice.  I was perfectly comfortable on the sofa and has just gone into a heavy sleep, when Young Lad started fussing around trying to find the TV remote control.  As it happened, I was lying on it.  Once they worked this out, He and Young Lad tried to remove it from underneath me, but this meant fiddling around under my back and I was extremely annoyed.  So I let them know by wrinkling my nose at Young Lad and snapping gently at He.  They got the idea.

Well I am fair worn out by all these walks and people coming and going.  I have taken a large section of the sofa for myself tonight – rightly so, I feel – and everyone else is squashed down one end.  With Gingercat.

See you soon,

Russell