Ring the Bells

 Ring the bells that still can ring,

 Forget your perfect offering,

 There is a crack in everything

 That’s how the light gets in.

I still have back pain. my back pain does not respond to pain killers, it is very obtuse about pain killers. I have looked up back pain on the Internet and apparently everyone has it. My back pain, according to NHS Direct, is not Cirrhosis of the Liver or Kidney failure. It might be bone cancer or shoulder illness but I haven't looked those up yet just incase.

BUGGER IT!!

Utah

Imagine living in Utah.

Back Pain

I have the very worst back pain. I can't move much and I am very hungry because the kitchen is downstairs. I think I might have lots of neurofen and a hot bath. I have back pain because in November I rode a big horse quite fast and I hurt my back, now I am saddled with back pain. O well.

Nice People

I take Evil to the vet.
I carry her to the car and I put an Ikea rug on the front seat in case she has any more accidents.
 Evil smells very bad, I am a bit worried that the vet will put her down, I am also a bit looking forward to it.
I drive up Camden Road and I turn into Camden Square, I drive past all the dead flowers tied to a tree outside Amy Winehouse's old house.
I am going to pick up some stuff from Abigail's flat on the way to the vet so that I can take it too the dump on Holloway Road on the way back home. Abigail is moving out of her lovely Camden flat which is too expensive and has, as  a result of the move, discovered some things that she and Ben don't need any more.
"That always happens when you move." I tell Ellie and I arrange to come to pick it up for them because they can't drive.
Ellie gives me an old laptop and some bits of Ikea desk and I load them into the car.
"See you on Saturday." We say, I drive off to the vet.
Outside the vet, I discover that I have no money for the  parking metre. I will have to take Evil home again or I will have to get a parking ticket.
Evil coughs ominously on the front seat of the car.
I don't know what to do.
A man standing next to by the metre asks if I am taking my dog to the vet and how much I need.
I tell him I have no money and the man pays for my parking. He puts £4s into the metre. I can't believe it.
"Well," he says smiling,  "if your little dog needs a vet, then she needs a vet."
 He walks away whistling.
Later, two small children examine Evil.
"What a lovely little dog," exclaims Samantha, who is clearly 12, but has introduced herself as a veterinary student.
"What a poor little thing." says the vet who is no more that 15 and has sparkling dark eyes and swingy brown hair.
"Do you think this is the end?" I ask them . "Do you think this is related to her congestive heart failure?"
"No," says the vet. "She's lovely." She says chucking Evil under the chin. "She'll be fine. Been eating a few things she shouldn't have, I imagine. Been scavenging I'm guessing, haven't you you naughty little thing," she says to Evil.
The vet gives me a dazzlingly white smile and some medicine for Evil. The veterinary student gives Evil an injection.
As we leave Evil does a liquid pooh just outside the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. She does it just as a group of very young, clean, brightly intelligent students are walking down the steps.
I feel very embarrassed because it is a pooh which is actually impossible to pick up.
"Never mind," says one of the students stopping to examine the pool of dark liquid. "What is it E-Coli?' Parvovirus?"
Next I go to the dump. At the dump, a man who is emptying all the nail drying machines from his nail salon into a non- recyclable skip tells me that his nail salon has been attacked by a rival business. He says they came at the dead of night and broke all the nail machines and stole the nail polish.
I am very shocked. I unload Abigail's Ikea desk and the old laptop. I put the laptop into the small electrical items skip and I go back to the car to get the Ikea desk.
"I've done that for you," says the nail salon man. "I put it into the wood recycling skip, you look about done in. What a lovely little dog you've got there, dear little thing. Cavalier is it?"
Actually most people are very nice.

Plumbers

I am still in my pyjamas when the front door bell rings. I am still in my round glasses which magnify my eyes two or three times and I am still wearing the purple polo necked jumper from TK Max pulled up over my nose.
 It is probably the postman at the door and he is used to me looking a bit odd in the morning and I am expecting a parcel containing two new ceramic valves for the kitchen sink which I am pretty sure will, when I have fitted them, stop the grinding noise when the loo flushes or the bath runs.
I open the door.
It is not the postman, it is the plumber who is very young and attractive, with him is a tall handsome Pole. They have come to check the plumbing and give us an estimate for a new shower in our small bathroom.
"Oh," I say,  "umm." I step back and usher them into the hall. The house smells almost entirely of dog pooh and Flash Liquid.
"You see, I am very not expecting you, because my dog is dying and so she shat all over the kitchen."  I look at my watch, it is 9.30 AM. "It took me three hours to clean it up."I tell the handsome young plumber and the tall Pole with the ice blue eyes.
"Stay here". I tell them, and I leave them standing in the hall while I run upstairs. I pull off the purple jumper and stumble round the bed in the darkened bedroom to look for my contact lenses.
"What's going on?' Asks John from beneath the duvet.
"I've been cleaning up the shit for three hours and now the plumbers are here." I hiss.
"Oh, I thought you were watching television." Says John.
I pull on my jeans, I slap my lenses into my eyes. I find a jumper that is screwed up on the bedroom floor and I put it on. My hair is very dishevelled but I can't imagine that it matters so I go down stairs to meet the plumbers.
When I arrive in the hall the plumbers are still there where I left them.
 Phew.
I show them the tap noise and I show them the shower. I show them the dog.
 "We can sort that all out," says the handsome plumber.
"What, and the dog?" I ask.
"No, we're plumbers." Says the plumber.
I show the extractor fan in the kitchen to the tall, blue eyed Pole who has told me that his brother is an electrician. He has also told me that he can tile and is a cabinet maker.
"Can he fix this when he comes to do the shower room electrics?" I ask the Pole.
The Pole runs a hand through his thick shining black hair. He fixes me with his ice blue eyes. He smiles showing big, white even teeth.
"Yes." He says.
"It still smells of pooh in here doesn't it? I say, noticing.
"I think you will see," says the Pole, "that your dog has done some more," and looking, I see that, indeed, she has.

Shit

This morning I awoke to a deathly silence, deathly silence is very nice but I am used to waking to the sound of the neighbour saying "OY!!" I am also used to hearing the people over the road coming home at 4 am and shouting into their mobiles, I must have slept through that, and the neighbour, I realise, will not be awake yet,  as it is 6.30 AM. The most worrying thing about the deathly silence is that usually Evil is awake at 6.30 AM and when she wakes up she coughs copiously. I hear Maisie getting out of bed, I hear her sigh and stumble into the loo. I hear the loo flush and I remember that I have arranged for a plumber to come today to help with the resulting terrible grinding noise, then I realise that Evil must have died overnight, alone and grief-stricken in the kitchen, which is why she's not coughing. Maisie knocks on our bedroom door.
"Oh for god's sake." Says John.
Evil has poohed all over the kitchen." Says Maisie.
"Oh my God." Says John.
"How do you know?" I ask. "You haven't even been downstairs yet."
"I can smell it." Says Maisie. I can see Maisie silhouetted in the doorway. The light from the landing has surrounded her head with an aureole of gold. She looks like an angel.
"Oh fuck." says John covering his head with a pillow.
"I'll deal with it." I tell him, patting the pillow reassuringly.
I get out of bed, I find my glasses and I pull on a huge purple jumper that I bought on impulse in TK Max. It's a very warm jumper with a polo neck, but actually it's not very attractive.
 "I'll make you breakfast, then you won't have to go into the kitchen." I tell Maisie.
I warm up a raisin and cinnamon bagel and I make Maisie and me a cup of tea.
 I have pulled the polo neck of the giant jumper up over my nose and I step carefully around the pools of diarrhoea and vomit  on the kitchen floor. If I tread in any, I know I will literally die.
I wash my and hands four times. I haven't touched any diarrhoea but I sort of think it might be floating around in the thick atmosphere.
"It's OK," I tell Evil who is sitting, shivering, on the pee soaked Greek rug. "You're not well." But secretly I really hate her and I know from experience that she can read my mind.
I set about cleaning up the pooh. I get Flash Liquid kitchen spray and kitchen towels from under the sink. I get rags and copies of the Sun from the recycling and I get my steam cleaner from the laundry room.
I begin to clean up the pooh. I retch quite a lot but the purple jumper's polo neck is invaluable.
"Bye," calls Maisie and I hear the front door slam.
Much later I steam clean the whole kitchen floor and I decide to take Evil to the vet.

Zumba

Evil sleeps in the kitchen. I roll up the rug and I spread her towels on the floor. I find an old Greek rug, it came from Ios in 1982, it is a bit tatty so I wrap Evil in it and I tell her that sleeping in the kitchen is fun. Evil gazes longingly after me as I shut the kitchen door.
"Can't she just come and sit with us on the sofa?" asks Maisie, " I'll look after her."
Maisie is very sad because she had a Zumba class at LA Fitness today.
Her school have decided that the girls need to reconnect with themselves physically in a non- competitive way and that Zumba is the way.
They took all the girls to LA Fitness and placed them in a room entirely surrounded by mirrors and then they put on some music and made them dance and kick box like Colombians in a very tight spot. Maisie says that some of the girls were really engaged and connected and wore vest tops and that they knew all the moves and gazed at themselves in the mirrors. Maisie says that she and Polly stood at the back in a state of high cringe and couldn't help noticing that they were very tall and also enormously fat.
Eventually they managed to escape to a room full of bicycles that Maisie says "went by themselves" and sat on the floor feeling sad and fat.
 I am so glad I am not 15.
 I am also very glad that I have never been a Colombian in  tight spot.

Evil

Evil is very ill. She is doing lots and lots of coughing and every time she coughs, she poohs. She poohs out bloody liquid. I feel sick. Evil will have to sleep in the kitchen, she cannot sit in the sitting room with us as she poohed on the sofa. I love Evil, she is  a dear, big hearted, loving little beast but I feel quite cross with her. I mop pooh off the sofa. I obsessively wash my hands and I shut Evil in the laundry room. Evil doesn't want to be in the laundry room, she bangs the door open and just as I am  putting a nice kedgeree together in the kitchen a revoltingly sweet waft of pooh smell washes over me. I look down, Evil is at my feet sitting in a pool of brown liquid, gazing up at me longingly with bulbous brown eyes. I really hate her.