Level 2 Chi Kung.

A hard frost today and, returning from the school run, I noticed this last rosebud, struggling gamely on and looking gorgeous all rimmed in white. I fed the dog and started to tidy the kitchen but Sherlock showed no interest in breakfast and came whimpering up to me with his tail firmly between his legs. I stroked his beautiful silky ears and talked nicely to him but he wouldn’t be cheered up. This generally means that he wants a bath, so I put my gardening clothes on and ran him a bath. With his woolly coat long for winter, it took ages and, as usual, Mr Holmes lapped up the attention, happy to stand or sit placidly in the water so long as I sit there stroking him, telling him he’s handsome and hand-feeding him an occasional piece of kibble. After having done Chi Kung, followed by a really brisk walk to school and then dog bathing, I really needed a nice hot shower, so I was just waiting to make sure the water had a chance to get fully back to heat before I turned on the shower … when my phone pinged to tell me that I needed to be at Dashi’s school for a parent teacher meeting in 30 minutes. Now it takes about 40 minutes to get to Dashi’s school on public transport – if the traffic’s not too bad and you run to the bus stop, so if I left immediately, looking like a wreck and smelling like a damp dog, I could have made it only about 10 minutes late. I did the sensible thing and phoned the school to ask for a telephone conference instead of a face to face. Unfortunately they said they didn’t have the facilities to do this but were happy to re-schedule to next Monday. Although I am unlikely to get carried away and bath the dog again so soon, I have set the alarm 3 hours ahead of the meeting – just in case.