Curtains for the bedrooms and curtains for democracy?

Before we left home, we had to prepare for the decorator who was coming in, in our absence. We moved all the books from the bookcase, the videos (yes, we are old-fashioned) and ornaments. At the same time, the kitchen was invaded by ants, and we had to leave ant traps down on the kitchen floor. That, I’m pleased to say was successful, though the high season for ants hasn’t yet arrived. For years we have ant invasions throughout the summer, so let's hope this brief incursion wasn't a forerunner of another bad ant year.

When we got back, we had to get everything back to normal. The decorator, who made a very good job, had not been able to reinstate all our pictures and ornaments, and had left all the furniture in the middle of the room, so that the paint could dry. It was not something we really wanted to tackle mid afternoon, having got up at 6.30 a.m to get to the airport, but we had to make our living room liveable in. The decorator popped in at 5.30 p.m. and helped us put back the heavy curtains, by which time, we’d managed to reinstate order. Just before we went away, we heard that the ProdicalD and family were going to visit, as it was half term. We arrived home on Friday, and she, spouse and GD2 – and another visitor, a three month old Labrador would be arriving on Sunday and staying till Tuesday. We had had new linings fitted to the curtains in our room, but had borrowed the curtains from the little girls’ bedroom. So this was another priority job, before our granddaughter arrived – to take down one set of curtains from our bedroom, put them in the girls’ room, make sure the newly relined curtains were the right length and put them up in our room. And there was the post to deal with (still dealing with it) and the unpacking and the washing (still dealing with it) and some food to prepare for the visitors. Now the ProdigalD’s come and gone, and there’s still a heap of paperwork on my desk – some of which is the four thousand words to add to my novel in progress, and also some comments on the second book I read on holiday.

We wondered quite how the dog would fit in, but she has her own cage – until she is house trained (Labradors tend to chew everything in site, when they’re puppies; that probably applies to many breeds.) She was actually perfectly behaved, very quiet, and only got excited when we went for walks. GD2 is a little nervous, as she snaps a bit – that’s due to teething. But I made a fuss of her, and GD2 gained a little confidence from seeing me stroke her. She is quite small at the moment – the puppy, that is, but I wanted to be sure she liked me before she got to full size. She has large feet already, and is apparently going to be huge. This is the time to make friends.

Even on holiday, we couldn’t avoid the political shenanigans, and the situation worries me. I am not alone in saying this, but the politicians can be divided into three groups – those who have done absolutely nothing to be ashamed of; those who took advantage of a bad system but stayed within the rules and those who did things that were frankly, criminal. Let’s get rid of the criminals; there’s no excuse for them. However, of the others, it seems they were given a nod and a wink, and told them to use their legitimate allowances instead of receiving a pay rise – and let’s face it – they’re not getting a huge salary for running the country. Now, they’ve had the rug pulled out from under them. There are many of us who’ve been told by accountants, or read in the papers, that we can use tax avoidance measures. Do we all rush to say, ‘No, we don’t want to avoid tax. We want to pay it.’? Do we heck! Members of parliament, like us, use the system. What worries me is that there are more important things than bath plugs? In fact, we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. These are people, many of whom are very talented and who have skills that we need to run the country. Are we going to chuck out half of them, both the deserving and the undeserving and end up with a bunch of honest amateurs, or even worse? I don’t think the Daily Telegraph was thinking of democracy when it published its scoop. I think it was thinking of sales, and what it has done has been damaging to democracy.