A bit of a day

Christ, well, it's been an action-packed 24 hours. Went to put the boys' jim jams on as usual when I got home from work last night and checked the charge on the electric fence, also as usual. Less usual was the significantly depleted charge, a telltale indication that Something's Up. Arses. On the coldest night of year too.

Grabbed torch and went off down the field, getting more bamboozled with every step on the basis that the fence seemed intact. The current on T's side was fine, then nothing on Q's. Clearly something was awry.

There followed what turned out to be the pleasant interlude of the evening, taking the pooch for a walk in the dark and collecting Sid from the station at about 7.30, then back to the troubleshooting. Soon enough the inescapable conclusion arrived that all the work I had so proudly done on Sunday in replacing knots with proper metal joiners, was completely wrong. ARSES! It's one thing to be out all night on the coldest sodding night of the year, so cold that only two woolly hats will do, so cold that my thumb actually came within a hair's breadth of dropping off, so cold that we could no longer feel our feet and so damn cold that it took approximately six hours to defrost afterwards, and quite another to do all that knowing that it's All Your Fault. What a twat! What blondeness! What pointless fuckwittery! I must say that good humour was maintained throughout, which must constitute some sort of miracle. There's only one thing to do in that sort of situation and that is to completely give oneself over to the piss taking that follows. And giggle a lot.

And so it was that we clustered around the woodburner to defrost, we ate some food and watched a programme about downhill skiers and then went to bed rather later than usual. This morning I felt like I'd been battered comprehensively with a big stick, and Sid felt much the same. Then he twisted his ankle very badly walking to the station this morning and a kind resident came out to offer assistance - bless her. I think it was the resonant "Fuck! Oh fuck! Arrgggghhhhh" that drew her from the warmth of her house, although I can't be certain. The ankle quickly swelled and I wanted to get him home but not, he had to get to work, and is still there as I write.

And the final ramification of these nocturnal noodlings was that I managed to fall asleep at a station two steps along the line from where I ordinarily like to get off, slept through the penultimate station without realising an unbeknownst to me jolted awake at my station but convinced myself it was the one before. However, there's no escaping the message from that pit one gets in one's stomach at times like this and reality hit when we pulled in at the next stop and I saw that I had missed my station completely. On then, to the next main station from where I could get a return train, and back home, eventually.

Some days are best left behind as soon as is humanly possible.