ash

here you can see my boy and i enjoying a peaceful cuddle by the fire. i love lying by the fire, especially since i got the arthritic hips. there is something about the heat of a fire that soaks right into an old dog's bones.

the one downside of the fire is the maintenance. every morning herself gets up and waggles a little lever at the front, making an unholy racket. this is known as 'riddling' and shakes all the ash down to the little tray at the bottom. then she pulls out the little tray with a metal handle on account of it being a bit hot, carries it (rather dangerously i feel, given it is full of hot ash) across the room and out to the front, where she deposits the ash in a metal bucket to cool down. it has to cool down before it goes on the compost otherwise the earthworms that live there would have a sort of pompeii experience which would not be good for morale.

anyway, the whole procedure inevitably causes a bit of a mess on the hearth. this morning the peeps were sitting around waiting for my boy's taxi, discussing troutage and what was to be done about it. himself had the decidedly unhelpful idea that my boy should say "get over yourself, woman!" to the trout. herself pointed out that this might result in the taxi being withdrawn and that when she went back to work the job of getting my boy to school would fall on himself so he should keep such clever ideas to himself. himself turned his attention to the ash.

"you need to clean that up." he observed. entirely reasonably in my view. after all it was herself's mess. there was, however, something in his tone of the lord and master giving instructions to the little woman that rankled.

"uh, oh!" said my boy, no doubt remembering the teabag incident.

herself roared with laughter. "you should hear yourself!" she said, "sitting there on the sofa giving instructions on the running of the house while you are out at work!"

"well, you are just sitting around all day!" retorted himself. funnily enough, sitting around is not something i have seen much evidence of.

"like you do during the school holidays, when i have to go out to work!"

"that's different, i'm on holiday then." said himself.

"well i'm off sick! i'm supopsed to be resting!" herself then delivered her parting shot, "i am so blogging this!"

"you mustn't! my colleagues will see it!"

well, readers, if he hasn't worked out by now that telling her to do something makes her do the exact opposite...