Anyway, I had a day off booked to take Callum up to Fife where Al was busy dogsitting. Callum came prepared for the journey with a collection of Simpsons-related goodies (board game, notebook and comic) but in the end we spent most of the drive chatting. Subjects ranged from What Edinburgh Needs Most (Me: sunshine. Cal: a theme park) via Places We Would Live If We Had a Time Machine (Me: ancient Rome. Cal: ancient Rome and/or Asterix's village) to Does Rome Still Exist (Yes.).
We arrived to find a gorgeous sunny evening. Al had kept the dogs happy, losing only one shoe to Bridie, which he had finally located in the garden (where he had earlier saved a baby bunny from her Jaws of Death). He cooked me a burger and the boys then insisted I play Buzz, a game-show style playstation game. I didn't want to but they made me and then I beat them by 3,000 points, ha!
An early night and then a slightly less long lie-in than I had planned as the dogs were squeaking to be let out. Bridie proudly brought the previous day's bunny to the back door - clearly it had not been as unharmed as Al had thought, so I made him go and finish it off while I had a shower.
It was a bit rainy so we headed for the aquarium at St Andrews, which was very informative, though it made me sleepy by being extremely warm and dark and full of soothing whale music and relaxing fish. I'm surprised people didn't just snuggle up next to the koi carp for a snooze. We saw rays ('Cool'), clown fish, aka Nemo ('Cool') and seals '(Very cool'). Cal got to hold a star fish. We also found a set of scales which for 20p would tell you which sea creature you weighed as much as. Callum weighed the same as something really boring, a trope, I think it was. I was a small grey seal and Al was a blue shark. Not a blue whale. I got told off for saying that.
It was sunny when we emerged which immediately made me panic as we had left Bridie in the landrover. What if she was dead! I ran back to the car going through nightmare scenarios in my head of how I would tell Fiona and Ailsa that I had roasted their dog to death whilst looking at cute seals. We'd had to park miles away because of the boring ladies British Open Golf Championships. But of course when I got there, Bridie was just enjoying a pleasant nap and spurned the water I poured for her and didn't seem to bothered about getting out of the car at all.
I took her back to the Aquarium to meet the boys and we went into town for ice cream. Callum pointed out every ice cream dispensary we went past on our way to Janetta's - which was a lot. I reassured him that the ten minute walk would be worth it as Janetta's would have hundreds, if not thousands of flavours to choose from and was anyway the pinnacle of human ice cream achievement in all ways. When we got there he chose chocolate and Al chose strawberry. Dear Lord, they are creatures of habit those two. I had turkish delight though, and very good it was too.
Bridie had a bit of the bottom of my cone.
We walked back via the cathedral, harbour and castle. I told Callum the myth that if you put your hand into a certain spooky hole in the cathedral wall only a good person would get their hand back, so of course we had to go and try that (not so effective on a bright sunny day). Then I pointed out the pier and told them about the pier walk, which Al embellished suitably ('And sometimes they fall off into the water and break their legs!'), and the traditions of swimming at castle sands and not treading on the martyrs' initials. We popped in to the quad, where Bridie peed on the lawn.
In fact, Bridie was having a whale of a time. With Baffie left at home because of her arthritis, the Dark One had all the compliments to herself. Many small children stopped to pat her. Many little old ladies admired 'him'. A man waiting outside the ice cream shop compared her behaviour favourably to his own dogs. Bridie lapped it up. Maybe she only seems evil in comparison to the Golden One. She also got very concerned that our pack stayed together and was particularly worried when Cal went out along the breakwater to play on a rock and Al and I sat on a bench instead. She wasn't happy till Cal was back safely with us.
When we got back we sat with Baffie in the garden for a bit to make up for her missing all the attention. All in all, a lovely day and I was sorry to have to head home.
Once I got home, I realised that I couldn't stuff any more clothing into my bottom drawer. This struck me as strange since it only contains my sports clothing. I still nurture the impression that I am not a very sporty person. So I pulled the drawer out to investigate and discovered:
- A pair of running shorts
- Two pairs of running leggings
- A thermal running/ski-ing vest
- Thermal running/ski-ing long-johns
- An elasticated knee bandage
- A pair of jodphurs
- Four running tops with wicking
- Three bandannas
- Three charity run t-shirts
- Four bikinis
- A swimsuit
- A pair of tracksuit bottoms
- Padded cycling shorts
- A gym bag
- A running cap
- A pair of hiking trousers with zip-off bottoms
- and a travel towel.
Blimey! And that doesn't even include things like my wetsuit, riding boots and chaps, cycling and riding helmets and sports bras and running and hiking socks that reside elsewhere. Maybe I am quite sporty after all. I managed to fit everything back in by discarding a bikini that was held together by a safety pin (Jenny says I am not allowed to wear clothes held together by safety pins), the bandannas and the charity t-shirts, all of which will go in the charity clothes bin soon. In the meantime, maybe I should do some exercise.
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