What a day.  We embarked on our hellish drive as soon as we could, feeling the load in the trailer was as secure as a knowledgeable knot-tier and rope wrestler could make it.  Trouble was, it had to be conveyed in a standing position, and it was tall, awkward and heavy.  An elliptical training machine was what our granddaughter wanted for her birthday and that was what we got for her - second hand, at a quarter of the price it commanded new.

And we even stopped here to pick up another 50-pound bag of peanuts to feed our ravine squirrels.  The price, since March, has increased from $50 to $70.  Mad, that's what.

But ours was also the task of retrieving it and conveying it.  The knock-down trailer that was stored in our garage had to be put together, and the thing safely secured within it, tied down to Kingdom Come.  Despite which when we set out on a sunny, hot and windy Tuesday we hadn't gone too far when it was necessary to stop and re-secure the load.  Stopping on the highway with heavy traffic is not quite possible, so the trailer had to be pulled onto side roads, also busy, and the hazardous and time-consuming work of re-tying proceeded.

Twice that happened, and that was two times too many.  But we did, eventually arrive at our destination, hot, harried and tense.  Then came the job of moving it up the graduated steps leading to our daughter's front door.  Most drives in the country and visits with our daughter aren't fraught with quite as much anxiety as on this occasion.  But, eventually, the two weight-lifters, father and daughter, managed to wrest the monster into the house and to place it where it was wanted.

Then it was a drive to the farm a half-hour distance where our granddaughter's best friend lives, to pick her up, load her suitcase alongside our granddaughter's, and haul the two girls back with us.  Where they will remain with us until the week-end, finding things to do, going to the hairdresser, shopping at the various stores a short walk from our house, and simply hanging out, as the young people are wont to say.

Thank heavens they're both avid readers, so they won't miss the absence of a television set in this house.