End of Summer

The summer season is now officially over and we have about a week before the autumn seekers show up. We went out in style this morning with 14 guests and even Jack got a curtain call by guests who had read the blog prior to their visit and asked to meet him. When I went to get him my husband said, "but we're watching Arsenal". For those of you not in the know, that is an English football side. Jack ignored me completely and sat unmoving on the back of the sofa behind Peter's head. "It's alright Jack," said my husband, "I'll record it for you." Reluctantly he trotted over to me but was mollified when he realised we were headed to 'the big house' as the inn is called in our family. No pets allowed. We all live in cozy chaos in the cottage next to the inn and so it was with a great deal of excitement that he bounded into the sunroom to be cooed over by three ladies who admired his polka dotted belly and newly grown mullet hairdo and whiskers. He's not an entirely normal looking Jack Russell, it has to be said, but he has his charms. The ladies in the drugstore drive through window like him and keep biscuits for him. He's used to the drive through window at the bank where they give all the dogs biscuits and so when we went to the drugstore he expected his treat and was quite put out when all we got were pills. Since then he gets a biscuit there too. He won't eat them of course - well, look - there isn't time to play bad bikkie in the car and we won't eat one without the game which, it appears, has changed since I saw it last. Peter gets up first and that's when they play bad bikkie in the kitchen. Recently when Jack has asked me for a treat I make an attempt to please him by crawling on the floor and poking him with the biscuit but clearly it has become more complicated and he just looks at me with a "come on, play it properly" look. There's a lot for me to catch up on now that summer is over.

Blood pressure test

I'm not a very doctor-y sort of person. The circumstances have to be pretty dire before I put myself into the hands of one. However, since breaking a tooth I've been feeling mortal. So when I felt sort of lightheaded and off kilter, I asked my husband to take my blood pressure. I don't even know why we have this machine but we do - I think it has something to do with the exercise bike I pile my ironing on - anyhow, I thought I'd use it. He wrapped up my arm and started pumping. What the .. "Take it off! Take it off!" I shouted, headlines like," Woman explodes in Maine B&B, glasses found in New Hampshire" appearing in front of my bugged out eyes. "I can't it's automatic!" he shouted back, at which point the thing cut off and peace was restored. Having doubts as to the wisdom of being thrust into a state of panic prior to a blood pressure reading became moot when I realised that we had no idea what the reading meant. That was a couple of days ago. This morning, waiting for guests to arrive at the table I thought I'd check out the numbers on the computer. So I got this chart on screen which said to make a line between the 2 numbers to find out ....something. So I did. The only thing on the chart below my number was a section called 'coma' and under that, 'DEATH'. I figured that if my blood pressure was so low when I was in a panic that my chances of making it through breakfast service were slim. Hoping I wouldn't croak before the pancakes were ready, I tried to stave off panic by thinking who to leave my All-clad pots and pans to in my will. I decided on my current guests, as a little thank you for calling 911 when I fell over dead in the kitchen. After everyone left I summoned my husband to tell him the bad news. I showed him the chart and my position on the bottom of it next to coma. I told him about the All-clad pots. He pointed out that I was drawing a line between the same set of numbers and that if I did it correctly I was in the normal zone. "Normal as far as your blood pressure goes, that is," he amended.