A short holiday for Dolly and Teddy.

We are up at six thirty this morning, as I have promised to collect Dolly and Teddy by a quarter past nine, so that Pip can get off early to visit her sick mum. After a breakfast of smoked salmon and cream cheese on rye toast and a shower, we set off for Cherry. It is another cold, clear day with a bitter wind still blowing from the North. Today is Andrew's birthday, he is forty five, and away in London on business, so I text him to wish him well, before leaving home. Pip has prepared a carrier bag with tins and packets of biscuits and dry food and put these in their dog basket, which I load into the boot, before fetching Dolly and Teddy. After parking on Newbald Road, we follow our usual route through Newbegin Pits woods, which are a bit claggy again, the wind, when we are fully exposed to it, is not quite as strong as yesterday, but is colder. Andrew's birthday is about mid winter, so it is supposed to be cold, I Intend to walk for a little longer today, but Normy has other ideas, so we compromise by rounding Newbald Pits woods and then following the path below the ridge, back to the car. When we return to Tickton, Dolly and Teddy are excited to be on their holidays and scamper about before settling down on the sofa, that I have covered with an old fleece. Norman decides that he prefers their bed to his and moves home to the front room. I have an open packet of mozarella cheese that needs to be eaten, so I mix up some pizza dough and leave it to rise, while I make another batch of sultana oaties. As these cook, I prepare my pizza, coating the base with tomato purée, a coating of Mozarella, and slices of Chorizo with a few olives. When the oaties are cooked, I set them to cool on the hob, turn up the oven to 220 degrees and pop my pizza onto a stone base platter and leave it for fifteen minutes. Freshly made pizza is not difficult to make, but it is infinitely better than any store bought or frozen product. After lunch I finally tackle my problems with Orange Mobile, I have been unable to log onto my account, and thus unable to check two high recent bills. After navigating through the inevitable voice processing menus and a period of Muzak , I eventually speak to a human being, first I check when my current contract expires and am told that it ended last week, so I change to a SIM only contract, that saves me twenty pounds a month and then I am transferred to their billing team. My higher bills, I am told by a smug, over familiar and unnecessarily agressive young guy, results from two causes, calls to my brother in Holland for New Year and to my cousin, Michael in Germany, which are not included in my monthly allowance, and are punitively expensive, and exceeding my allowance, which is mainly down to Leslie's daughter and son in law, who inevitably want to chat for half an hour when I call them. Caveat emptor, applies, the punitive charges for international calls and those in excess of contracted allowance, are there in the very, very, small print. In future, I will call Margaret and William on the land line and do the same for International calls. Around four thirty I feed the dogs, Dolly and Teddy leave a little for later, and before I can stop him, Norman has hoovered up every last scrap. Meal times will need to be segregated in the future. We later, set off for an evening walk round the fields and once we cross the little wooden bridge, I let Teddy off the lead and he races off across the field, but returns after fifteen minutes, when called. We turn around and Dolly is allowed a run, not a wise decision, as the rabbits are emerging as dusk falls and she hares off after them, swimming the dyke and then hunting in the fields beyond. Eventually she returns, just as Norman, Teddy and I pass the stables, by now it is nearly fully dark. When we arrive home, I fasten their leads to the garage door handle, fetch a towel and then dry them individually, before returning them to the bungalow. The four of us settle down on the sofa and I finish my book about Lincoln, breaking off for a supper of mushy peas and smoked sausage about seven thirty. I turn in around ten, Norman opts to sleep in his basket in my bedroom, while Dolly and Teddy prefer to remain on the sofa.