It's all very taxing...

So hard to get comfy, when a certain person is (finally) filling in her tax return, and one's favourite chair is being used as a temporary filing cabinet...

Another taxing matter this week has involved listening to this same certain person wandering round the house spouting some poem about a mouse. Apparently she rashly committed to learn this off by heart, to recite at a Burns Supper at our neighbours' house on Saturday evening. (I expect I'll be able to hear them laughing at her pronunciation all the way from across the street...)

But how would you like it if you kept being addressed, most inappropriately I might say, as 'Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie' ?

I asked Gail why she didn't instead select another excellent Rabbie Burns poem 'The Twa Dogs, A Tale', which clearly has far better subject matter. She replied that remembering the forty-eight lines of 'To a Mouse' were proving hard enough, and 'Twa Dogs' is five times the length. Well for shame Gail, that's just no' trying is it?  And I'm told that Kirsty, another neighbour who'll be at the Supper, can do the whole of 'Tam O'Shanter' (225 lines).

Oh and going back to the subject of taxes, did you know that Scotland's bard worked as an exciseman for the last eight years of his short life? He even wrote a poem in defence of his profession, sort of. (Kirk and State Excisemen)

Just one more thing.

The observant amongst my readers might have noticed the funny coloured stains around my eyes in the photos above. I've had a wee eye infection this week, hence a rare trip to the vet and a prescription for some drops. You would hope Gail might be all sympathetic, but no, she just looks up from the computer, frowns, and says  "I do wish I could claim you as an allowable expense Bertie".