Monday 17 November 2025: Squally weather

Storm Claudia arrived on Friday in the relatively early hours. I knew there was a storm brewing out at sea, but I didn’t know it was expected to make landfall.

The dog had let me sleep until 7am. Sometimes the poet will get up with him during the night and take him out, but for the previous few nights he (the puppy) had been sleeping all the way through. (Tis like having a baby!) I put him out and the rain and he came dashing back in again through the patio door. So I picked him up and took him to the other door, but I couldn’t even open that door the wind was so strong. Back we went to the dining room door.

This time, in only my nightie and slippers, I took him right out to the lawn before rushing inside again. He rushed right after me, so I put on a cardigan, took him out again, closed the door behind us, and STOOD THERE watching him, in icy cold hard rods of windy rain. The spaniel pretended he was still fast asleep…

I got back into bed and we all woke up another hour later when we got up. We had a late and lazy start because the poet was taking me to the hospital for a mammogram. It’s better that he takes me anyway, so he can drive around in circles while I attend the appointment. Otherwise, I could be driving around in circles and be very late for my appointment.

Before we went the poet attended 2 Teams calls and I wrote up Friday’s blog post, chose the picture, and published it. I did my weekly finances and my weekly backup, and put a washload through. Then we were ready to go. We put an extra blanket in the back of the car for the dogs, and the puppy’s new car restraint. This was the first time we had the dogs in the back, on the back seat in the car together.

This was a step we had to take as I can’t keep travelling with an unrestrained puppy on my lap. He didn’t like it very much, but he did eventually lie down and look at me with his puppy dog eyes every time I glanced over my shoulder. The spaniel is fine. He’s used to getting in a car, but he’s also used to having a walk at the end of it, and he wasn’t having one of those this time. Not in that godawful weather.

Proper autumn, it was. Proper November. Cold wind, icy cold rain, leaves damp underfoot, grey sky, no daylight. Autumn.

We found a car parking spot straight away and I hiked back to the hospital, raincoat zipped to the neck and hood right down over my eyes, getting there in plenty of time. I had no signal on my mobile phone and thought an update I’d done in the morning had nuked it.

They saw me bang on time, and it really was literally the 10 minutes they said it would take. The mammogram was horrible and hurty, but it has to be done, and now it is for the next 5 years, all being well. I made it back to the car parking payment machine a whole minute OVER the free 30 minutes.

Phone signal returned (must have been the location inside the hospital), paid the bill, back to the car in the squally rain, back home.

Next step was to leave them at home together. We thought we might leave them with the run of the kitchen and the conservatory as there’s less for the puppy to wreck in those 2 rooms and the spaniel can jump up on the furniture in the conservatory if he needs to get away from the puppy. We were going to do this trial while we had a walk around the block, but with the weather as bad as it was, we thought we might go for a drive around the block instead. But not on Friday.

We had our midday breakfast and went back to work. My job was editing, still. By the time our ‘dinner’ break was upon us, my eyes and my back were tired, so it was nice to get away from the desk and have our dinner at the kitchen table.

I wrote the week’s shopping list out and the poet made a plum crumble, under my supervision and excellent direction! He took the dogs out to play in the back garden, but they all came running back in again. Yup, it was still storming outside and none of them wanted to be out in it.

I hung up some washing (indoors!) and put another load through and dragged myself back to work, where I stayed until tea was ready. (Chorizo and rice followed by plum crumble and Greek yoghurt.)

I was geared up to do some work at the weekend as the poet was happy to do the shopping again. I think when it’s that or rake leaves and chop bushes in the garden in that rotten weather, the shopping might be the best option.