That Chiminea Moment

t's been a busy week, and a bit stressful too what with rumblings from she-who-must-not-be-named, so I was looking forward to a holiday weekend and a bit of an unwind. The chiminea was lit at about half past seven and we sat outside for a couple of hours, feeding it logs from time to time, enjoying our various drinks with a very acceptable wheat beer for me, and smoking the occasional cigar. The kids came out too, and we all just chattered and joked and generally had a bit of fun.

As the dusk grew deeper, the bats started to appear with their strange angular bodies and drunken flight paths flitting across the sky. The fire died down to glowing embers and it was time to go inside for pizza and more beer. I made the mistake of opening a second bottle of wheat beer and I zonked out sometime around eleven o'clock, waking up at one with a random Keanu Reeves movie still playing on the tv. I staggered up to bed, leaving the cats in for a change so that Frank would have a chance to stalk the mouse that he had brought in earlier and then lost in the dining room.

I woke up a few hours later with a raging thirst that was only quenched by a can of cola from downstairs, and then I played Zoo Keeper time attack mode for an hour listening to a soft rain pattering down outside before nodding off again, only to be woken by the alarm at twenty past six because I had forgotten to switch it off. Doh!

Frank had done his job and presented us with a headless mouse on the mat in the hallway, and Barney the dog was ready for his walkies in the soft rain.