The luck of the draw.

Norman is becoming less greedy, or perhaps he is unwell. This morning he slept through my leaving the bedroom and the aroma of frying bacon, sausage and black pudding failed to penetrate his consciousness. With a strange guilt, I ate my breakfast, unperturbed by his usual begging and whining, before capitulating and hurrying to the bedroom to ensure that he hadn't died in the night. The snores from his dog bed quickly reassure me, he wakes, stretches and wags his tail when he sees me, strolls to the kitchen and leisurely consumes his mini full English breakfast. We pick up Dolly and Teddy and arrive on the Westwood for nine thirty, the sky is overcast and it is much cooler, a steady breeze blowing from the Southwest. I am dressed in shorts, sandals and a polo shirt, and had I brought a sweater, I would be wearing it. Norman is delighted to see his friends and trots along beside them, like a dog ten years younger than he actually is. I soon realise that the spring in his step is the result of Dolly being in season. These are the dangerous few days and she and Teddy have to be forcibly discouraged from copulating, as we progress round our usual route. Back at the car, Dolly goes on the front seat, whilst the boys are confined to the back. They have both been neutered but it doesn't stop them making the effort, or of getting stuck if they do. Back in Cherry, Dolly is locked into her cage and Teddy and Norman kept in the garden, while I put in another hour or so of weeding. The garden is already looking much better, and soon, too soon, the vigorous growing season will be over as Autumn takes hold and the long descent into Winter begins. I drop Normy back in Tickton after noon and find myself poolside for twenty to one. I swim 400m backstroke sharing a lane, then 400m fly partly shared, pushing off when the other swimmer comes in, until an adjacent lane falls empty, and I can complete the leg in peace. This is followed by 400m freestyle and then 4 x 100m medleys. There is just time for a 100m backstroke warm down before the pool is cleared at 1:30pm. A decent session, strength and fluency are flooding back, but I must remind myself not to do too much too soon. I drink tea and eat some oaties in the cafe before driving home to make lunch for Normy and myself. The sky is clearing and it is becoming warm again, so I make salad, beef burger and oven chips for lunch. One quarter pounder for me and one for Normy! We eat in the garden sat in the sun and afterwards I complete a puzzle before gathering Norman and driving to St Giles croft for tea with Rosemary Major. She has invited us to view her extensive garden, which I admired a couple of weeks ago. We arrive at four thirty to find Rosemary chatting to a chap who has been washing down the external paintwork on her house. It turns out the fellow is a triathlete and I bemoan the fact that every triathlon is biased in favour of cyclists. What I mean by this is that equal time should be spent on swimming, running and cycling, but because swimming is more technically challenging than the other disciplines, it only receives half the time allocation allotted to cycling. We end up chatting for a quarter of an hour, and I give him the web site for "Total Immersion", which does special swimming training for triathlon. Rosemary's garden, is extensive, but in imminent danger of growing beyond control. She employs a gardener one day per week, but in the summer months, it is not nearly enough. I promise to put her in touch with the father of a friend of Clement's called Ben, who lives nearby and is a landscape gardener. Rosemary's husband was a professor of modern history at the University of Hull and died from prostate cancer a few years ago. Rosemary is about seventy five, at a guess, and a friend of Felicity. Her husband died and I survived prostate cancer through an act of blind luck. My next door neighbour, Leslie, who I have coffee with every Sunday, developed the disease fifteen years ago and was fortunate not to have the aggressive strain. As a consequence, I learned chapter and verse about the disrase during his sequence of treatment, and reacted promptly to my own symptoms and a raised PSA reading. My cancer was aggressive, as was Rosemary's husband's, unfortunately his had spread throughout his body before he was diagnosed. Mine hadn't had time to spread. Despite this somewhat gloomy aspect of our discussion, Norman and I had a pleasant visit and sat outside in the garden enjoying the late evening sun and drinking ice tea, before driving home around seven thirty. Norman has his dinner and we walk down to the lane afterwards, the little girls are back from their holiday and come over to pat him on our way out. Once on Carr Lane, Norman does his business, which I retrieve and deposit in the bin, before turning around and running for home. It is a quarter past eight when we get in and already dusk is falling. It is only a month to the equinox and the start of Autumn. I make some oatmeal biscuits and Brie for dinner with a glass of wine, which I take into the Garden Room and eat, whilst reading a couple of chapters of Andres Neumann. I am the first one to take the book out of the library and when I check the return date, discover I should have taken it back today. Tomorrow I am looking after Louis again and will probably take him to the seaside, after we have walked the dogs. To bed at ten forty five.