Creature Comforts

Creature Comforts

I know that I shouldn't value material things and that people and experiences are far more important, but I can't help it, I miss my STUFF. 

I miss my radio, and my books, and my cooking utensils and my clothes. I miss my hair drier and my garden fork and my wifi and my sofa. And I miss the telly.

There, I said it. 

I know it won't be long, in the overall scheme of things, before we regain our creature comforts, and I'm not complaining, honest, but it does rather seem at the moment that it's more about the creatures and less about the comforts. 

There's not much to be getting on with in our rented cottage, except tending to the tomatoes and peppers in the garden, so most days are spent either walking the dogs, or fretting about not leaving them in the vehicle for too long (fortunately it's not too hot at the moment and the Landrover stays pretty cool with its white roof and vertical windows) whilst we drink coffee and/or beer.  The evenings are spent playing Contract Bridge on a loop (I'm winning).

The dogs are all OK, although Woofta has been showing his age (14) for a while now, and is pretty decrepit. We took him to the vet this week because his breathing has been deteriorating. It wasn't a huge success because as soon as we took him through the door of the pristine, state-of-the-art animal hospital he recognised it immediately for what it was and started trembling from head to toe. 

Woofta DETESTS the vet. Any vet, it seems, even pretty young Portuguese ones he's never met before. The poor vet, who was lovely, couldn't get anywhere near him because he turned into a Devil Dog, snarling and snapping at her if she so much as looked at him. He was so distressed when we attempted to X-ray him that he became cyanosed and we had to abandon the attempt. She prescribed some heart tablets anyway but they're not making a jot of difference. 

He keeps buggering on though, with a sniff sniff here and a widdle widdle there. He's always been Top Dog, despite forever being the smallest in the pack, and he retains his position through sheer force of personality. We love that little dog and it's painful to witness his decline. 

Gwilym, meanwhile, is trying to get us deported. He's attempted to murder at least three cyclists, by going for their pedals (because they whizz round and round provocatively) and then he tried the same trick on an old boy who was phut-phutting along the edge of the lagoon on his moped. On another occasion he ran up to a fisherman who was bending over fiddling with his boat and stole his hat OFF HIS HEAD and sprinted round the beach, killing it, and refusing to give it back. He imagines that life is one huge game, staged for his benefit. Only his cuteness allows him to get away with it. (So far.) 

The cats are cool, as cats are wont to be. Fat Babs and Titty seem to have almost entirely resolved their differences. Odd, because they have wanted to kill each other for five years. 

ME: Fat Babs and Titty have stopped fighting. Have you noticed?

RICH: Yes. They almost seem to be friends. 

ME: I know. I saw them kissing each other in the kitchen just now. ON THE LIPS. 

RICH (slightly shocked): Are you saying they're lesbians?

*rolls eyes*

We've also acquired a couple of extra, unwanted creatures.

There's a mosquito (who I've called Mozzie Marianne). She wakes me up by buzzing right in my face, waiting for me to expose the tiniest bit of vulnerable flesh so she can strike with her venom. Vicious little fecker. She doesn't bother with Rich and it honestly feels like a personal attack. She's had me twice but I don't think she likes Marmite. And Rich has bought a swatter so the big-nosed parasite and her Mozzie Munter clan had better go and find something useful to do with their lives, other than needlessly irritating people and spreading disease. (What is the actual POINT of mosquitoes?)

We went for a walk in the woods the other day, and collected a load of pine cones. And ticks too, it would seem. 

The animals have all been treated against ticks but that didn't stop one from crawling up Richard's trouser leg. Fortunately he felt it creeping up his calf at lunch, and squished it. Ticks are insignificant looking little creatures, like flattened money spiders. But the creepy little perv crawls ever upwards, headed towards some warm, dark, body crease, preferably in the groin region, where he engorges himself on your life blood until he's just a huge fat body with tiny stumpy legs sticking out. Like Violet Beauregard when she turns into a blueberry. Nick the Tick, I call him. Gluttonous little parasite. 

Rich has had prior experience of them, being a forester, and when we were camping in Poland he had one embed itself in his buttock, which the girls and I thought hilarious at the time. I pulled it out and its head came off (and is still there, I presume, in his buttock). One of our friends, Steve, also a forester, discovered one on his foreskin. It was huge and purple and engorged. (The TICK was. *rolls eyes again*)

Anyway, I started to itch, imagining I had a tick crawling on me somewhere. Kept checking. As I wandered through AKI, (the Portuguese equivalent of B&Q) scratching, I gave myself a good talking to about psychosomatic itching. Then I spotted something crawling up the side of my nose. MY NOSE ON MY FACE. 

I did a River Dance amongst the lighting section, slapping myself repeatedly on the face, threw the little bastard on the floor in disgust, and jumped up and down on it.  I don't think I can ever go in AKI again.

Not really mentioning the house purchasing thing, for superstitious reasons (not that I'm superstitious), but things are progressing, I think, and hopefully we shall soon once more have somewhere we can call home. 

Touch wood. Fingers crossed. *checks knickers for ticks*

PS. Weather = sunshiny with mental spells (like you, haha).