And breathe......

Revolting weather today, so Baggy decided to wash her hair to give her a bit more confidence to face Hormonal Hannah's Stress Management course this afternoon. Hannah was getting Baggy in a panic that she would go to the wrong place and miss it again, even though she had phoned to treble-check the venue. So to side-track her, Baggy tracked down The Domestic Goddess and set her to doing some cleaning. Poor Minty Mutt was most put out, but it was pouring with rain and Baggy didn't want to get soaked. Clever Bird was determined to get The Goddess to "reclaim" the sitting room, which once again has been taken over by stuff: filing, shoes, kitchen designs, novel-writing research books, maps from the car, bits for Cal's lorry (that he buys and never seems to take to work with him!), packing boxes for Creative Clara's Realuv Etsy shop, abandoned jewellery, Minty Mutt's toys, more books, Hinge and Brackets' meeces, riding stuff, stuff-stuff. A mess.

The Goddess did an okay job, but the rain stopped, so Furry Mama dragged Baggy out to throw the ball for the mutt. It's all very well there being tons of stuff, but finding somewhere to relocate it, in a house the size of a cornflakes box - not so easy! A fair amount of it ended up in Baggy's woman's cave. Every time The Goddess took something to the "cave", Baggy trotted after her with his ball; The Goddess got very distracted. Then Clever Bird noticed the time. Freda Fretter wanted Baggy to get Hannah to her course early enough that if it was the wrong venue she'd have time to find the right one. Furry Mama settled Minty and shot next door to check on Jack-the-attack-cat, who she's looking after.

Three miles into her journey the estate agent who manages Baggy's Dad's house called to say that the tenant had just told him that he wasn't there to let the gasman in (again), over an hour after the gasman could already have been there. However, his very, very large dog was there and he didn't know how he'd react to someone going into the house! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - Furry Mama has met the mutt twice, he is a very large softy! "Could you (Baggy) please phone British Gas?" Urrrrm, nope, she couldn't, as she was in the car without their phone number - besides which, what exactly was she supposed to say to them? Hannah gave Baggy a hot flush, followed by a bit of a meltdown. Freda Fretter called Calum and ranted. Then on Cal's and Clever Bird's advice, as there was zero that she could do about the situation, Baggy tried to "let it go". Clearly the tenant has decided that now he's been given his notice, he doesn't need to be helpful in any way; not that he's showing any signs of actually moving out. LET IT GO! And breathe.

The Stress Management course was at the same venue as last time, so Baggy took Hannah in and found her a seat near the exit where she felt safe. Then (having heard it all before, four weeks ago), Baggy tried not to fall asleep. By the time she got home, she felt as though she had been run over by a steam-roller, but without the bonus of a flattened stomach. Plus she was ravenous. The Goddess decided to rustle up beefburgers. Previously when doing this they turned out to be rather tasteless, so she bunged in quite a lot (she thought) of salt, then added chilli-flakes for good measure. Result, still completely tasteless burgers, that every now and then burnt her mouth off. And breathe - fire..........