The sun was out

I leapt (slowly with much grumbling and grunting and groaning) out of bed to greet it and tried very hard to make a plan that would make best use of it.
Did I rush off to take photos? Did I er, take the dog for a walk? Spring clean the house? Clean anything at all? Walk anywhere at all?
Did I heck.
I sat in front of this machine and relived yesterday's wet and wonderful visit.
I'm really not good at times and places. Get them in the wrong order - we could have done with this weather yesterday :)
And yesterday I failed to get my act together enough to get pictures of London.
But I did scribble happily in the train and I did see the London Eye and a few rather splendid spires and towers and the lovely arch of Paddington Station's roof (no bears, sadly).

I seem to have got a bit of the Eye and a bit of Big Ben in here as well as a bit of railway bridge near Waterloo station. Quite good value for one picture :)
And this very large person, overlooking some steps. I thought if I looked down the side of the steps I might see his feet, far below. But no. Well one big head is better than no person at all I suppose.

Well I must say trains have improved since I last used one. Quiet, clean, zooming along smoothly. I suppose it's different at rush hour but I don't do rush :) However there was one mobile phone conversation which lasted most of the way from Reading to Thatcham and somebody let loose a serious bit of unsociable behaviour. It's funny how you really can't tell who's responsible for these things - but it could have been the chap who was asleep I suppose. though I had my suspicions of the bloke opposite. I took a bit of a dislike to him with his natty grey and red stripe suit and the way he sprawled all over his seat and wriggled about and stuck his legs out into the aisle and generally acted as though the whole train was a bit of unacceptable personal space he was only using because he had to. Yes I know, that's how he felt. I just got the feeling he was a prat and an overbearing and ill-mannered one at that.

So as well as not rushing out with the camera, I undertook an enormous task today. Cleaning the dog's bed (he's coming on holiday with us and I feel that his bed in the confined space of a boat might constitute seriously unsociable behaviour).
I began with the hoover which made almost no impression on the deeply interwoven and embedded hair in the seams and corners. Then I tried the rubber gloves (usually an excellent way to get rid of animal hair) No go. Eventually, searching the immediate environment for a handy hair removing object, I found a paint stripping tool. This worked well! Followed by a fierce attack with rubber gloves, a quick hoover and as a finishing touch, a scrub with a whole packet of pet cleaning wipes. The slightly damp and limp looking bed was then hung out to dry and the last pet cleaning wipe was applied vigorously to the dog who looked startled and then horrified and rushed of to roll in the grass and remove the nasty clean-pet smell from his fur. (scientifically proven to reduce pet smells it said :)
Next, defleaing and deworming. This dog and his bed will be so clean and sanitised when he goes on holiday that I suspect the Northern dogs will think he's some sort of alien!
Meanwhile I'm considering forbidding him to use his bed. I don't want it to get all hairy again before we go :).But I decided to let him sleep in it after all :)

And now I'm going to go and curl up in my bed.

Sleep well :)