Queen Karina is almost 12 years old and has decided that she should, in the manner of Cleopatra, be carried hither and thither. She alerts the household with a sharp bark when wanting to descend the stairs or get onto the bed. The bark continues relentlessly until such duties are complete. Usually this is Rob’s task but of late he has become deaf to such alerts and struggles to follow direction when I ask him to rush to the top of the stairs to bring her down. This is a great source of annoyance to me since I am usually busy doing something in the kitchen or taking the waters in Bagno Sattin, and am loath to interruption. This fine morning I was complaining to Nonna Biba about the perfectly capable dog calling at the top of the stairs, and Rob decided that Biba and I were plotting Karina’s demise. He grabbed a couple of pairs of underpants and the dog and glared at us suspiciously telling us he could not live in a household like this and was going to call the police to sort it all out!!! No amount of persuasion could convince him that we were not planning to “off” Karina, so I slipped him a Xanax and am now monitoring him from the camera above till the plot is forgotten. #icannotmakethisup