The Owner's Soggy Trouser Leg

Now, I have a confession. The day was a lot more successful than I had feared. I nicked The Owner's boots to prevent him from getting blown off the bridge the other side of the cricket pitch, and then his keys to prevent him from getting blown off the bridge in Chippenham. The success was, that I managed to then get the missing items back, and then found, by The Owner, without arousing any suspicion that I may have been behind it. Now, for my confession, coz that wasn't it. I have a weakness, and The Owner has gone upstairs to change his trousers! The two things are connected. He ordered a take away and sat here and ate it. My weakness is not for sweet and sour chicken, can't stand the stuff! My weakness is not for rice, or noodles, can't see the point and the rice always gets in places I'd rather not divulge here. But he sat there with a bag of prawn crackers and I have a weakness for a prawn cracker (or two) and I, well, dribbled. Just a little! Not a lot you understand! And it just happened to be when I had my mouth above his trouser leg. He has made far too much of it in my opinion and has gone upstairs in a strop to change his trousers. Now, the good thing about being in trouble, in my opinion the best way of managing the trouble, is that you get it all over and done with in one go. You can't get into trouble when you are already in it so, well, he left his prawn crackers unguarded. Let's just say they are now not quite the prawn crackers that they were, "ex"-prawn crackers in fact, and I have taken myself off to the boot room as a precaution. More of a certainty really.

Warmer Inside!

I think I will be staying right here beside this today!

Windy Bridges

I was watching the weather forecast this morning, with The Owner, when I heard something which caused me to whirl around and look at him, looking for some kind of reassurance about what Weatherman Hoomun had just said. He said that it was going to be windy! So windy, in fact, that hoomuns should expect to get blown off bridges! Well I was about to go out on patrol when I heard this and I was understandable perturbed by what I had heard. At the far end of the cricket field there is a little bridge across the stream, now I can leap energetically across without having to use the bridge, but The Owner has to walk gently across and I really don't want to be around if he gets blown off the bridge! In fact, even if we go down behind the manor, there is still a little bridge made of railway sleepers that he will have to cross. I think I may take his walking boots and hide them somewhere, I will be in dead trouble when he finds them, but the trouble may be even worse if he gets blow off the bridge! Hopefully we will just go to B&Q instead. Oh no! I have just remembered that there is a bridge to go over the little river just the other side of town.......... and another one in Chippenham!!!!!!!!!!!! I may have to hide his keys as well!

On Christmas Lights

We are approaching that time of year again when hoomun behaviour takes some very strange twists and turns which I generally find unfathomable, more so than normal. In the village, near the pub (and I'm sure that those two facts aren't necessarily connected), some folk turn their houses into a lighting system worthy of the landing lights at Lyneham. Including having some hoomun that spends over a month all lit up sat on the roof! The down side to all this light is that when on patrol one can't have a moments peace and quiet to do - you know - doggie stuff, without being on display to the world. The Owner gets to shut himself away in the bathroom for a quiet moment reading the Sunday paper whilst he performs. I would like a few moments to myself to contemplate nature without having my activities all illuminated, but with those lights it ain't gonna happen.

So The Owner has been going around singing carols (and if I were Carol I think I'd have an opinion on the matter) and sounding generally far too full of good humour. Christmas is usually not The Owner's favourite time of the year, in fact The Owner normally uses another word in front of Christmas, one which I pretend not to understand and then Owners Daughter frowns at him very loudly and calls him Ebenezer. But all this jolliness was quite unnerving for a K9 as it would have to break at some point and this morning was it. The bread was still in the freezer and was singularly uncooperative when he tried to cut some for his toast so he managed to find just enough to cut two thin slices from the old stale loaf and put in the toaster. I think the toaster is treading on very dangerous ground at the moment, as it has developed a habit of burning his toast and this morning it did it spectacularly well, together with his fingers, the wall cupboard and his Pyrex jug and he has spent the day with his fingers bandaged and doing his best to extract every last ounce of sympathy from anyone fool enough to listen to him. I think tomorrow we are off to B&Q to get some new wall cupboards for the kitchen. I don't mind that at all as there is a burger van hoomun in the car park who I have managed to get the odd sausage or two from in the past, using the superior willpower of a K9 on matters relating to food. However I suspect the build and installation of these wall units could be a somewhat hazardous affair and may involve more bandages on fingers. I will report on proceedings over the weekend.

Exit Woodburner - Bring on the Open Fire!

Well this answers the question about what The Owner was up to yesterday I guess! We came home early from the studio yesterday and it was still daylight and The Owner made a mug of tea (with no slugs) and sat out the front of the cottage reading his paper. The Log Hoomun turned up with a load of logs. Now I was confused at this because there was nowhere to burn any logs anymore! Log Hoomun I have never really had an opinion about either way really, true, he has never brought me any Bonios, but then neither has he ever upset me and he does always make a fuss of me. But today I did have an opinion. When Log Hoomun and The Owner had unloaded all the logs and put them all in the fuel shed he let me in the back of his van.... I like cars, they are my favourite! Log Hoomun and The Owner went to the shops and The Owner bought me a box of Bonios, which incidentally The Owner has forgotten to bring to the studio this morning, so if Log Hoomun drove us to the shops for Bonios there are two reasons why I should have a favourable opinion of him. When we got back The Owner went into the fuel shed and started throwing all the logs back out again! He also started using words that I pretend not to understand, I was shocked. When he had dug down through the heap sufficiently to get under the oil tank he dived under and emerged looking triumphant with the old log fire basket. So last night we were properly toastie and I had to re-learn old skills. The art of curling up in front of a real fire and going from sound asleep to wide awake and the other side of the room quicker than saying "Bonios three times a day would be nice please!" every time the fire spits. Not completing that little task is just too painful to consider, and I have been there! Looking forward to another evening in front of the fire. Happy days!

He's Evicted MY Woodburner!!!

The Owner is up to something this morning and I have yet to understand what. I heard him come grumbling down the stairs this morning and put the kettle on, empty the tea pot and burp loudly. The excitement on my side of the door is mounting as the next stage in the process will be to open the door to the boot room and then let me up the garden to relieve the pressure a little before BREAKFAST! Nothing unusual so far you will be thinking, and you would be right. Kettle boiled, tea made, he wanders off into the lounge, more burping and...... well you don't want to know the other noises he made as he wandered off. As I am enjoying the breakfast chomp I can hear him in the lounge making noises at the wood burner. More excitement from me at the thought that the wood burner has been stoked up and will be roaring nicely when I have finished breakfast and go in to explore the living room and see what I may have missed on the lounge carpet last night that may be edible. There never is, but I live in hope. Nearly finished breakfast when I see The Owner come wandering past struggling under the weight of a big black metal box leaving a trail of dust on the carpet behind him which will probably command the attentions of that ruddy Dyson in a short while. I thought nothing of it, until I wandered into the living room..........and............no!........... IT'S GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That metal box he was carrying was the wood burner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is he doing????????????????? When we left for our morning patrol and the studio there was just an empty grate and a pile of ash where, until last night, was the object of much of my affection. Has he lost the plot again? I am beginning to think so!

Thoughts on a Slugs Humour

Now I know very little of the behaviour of Slug or his family but I am beginning to suspect there may be a sense of humour there somewhere. Yesterday you may recall that The Owner shared a beautiful moment with Slug, as two species met, eye to eye. The Owner responded a little harshly and threw Slug (and the mug he had slithered up to warm his belly) outside in the cold. This morning when The Owner and I arrived at the studio he threw the door open wide and strode confidently inside expecting a slug free environment. He made his new mug of tea and went and sat down at his desk as usual to examine the contents of his inbox and probably swear a lot if usual behaviour is anything to go by. I was right, he did swear a lot, but not at the contents of e-mails on his screen. There, at a pretty precise angle of forty five degrees across his mouse mat, was a silver slug trail. He is now on a mission to find the culprit and the normal clutter on the desk has all been moved, examined, and then put back in place and all to no avail as yet. I have been kicked off my comfy cushion, twice, and it has been lifted shook out and put back again. I do appreciate the humour of leaving a slimy slug trail across the mouse mat but I am getting a little tired of being moved and then re-moved as The Owner searches for Slug again. I think I may wander home and see if the wood burner is any warmer.... and free of slugs!

The Gastropod Mollusc Emerges!!

The Owner has had a less than perfect start to his day and so I am expecting mine to get worse! In recent weeks he has informed me that there has been a slug in the studio overnight. I was a little disbelieving at first as I had witnessed him going up the stairs to bed each night, I had heard him snoring away all night long and I had seen him come grumbling down the stairs again the following morning. So how could he have known? It turns out that the strange silvery marks on the carpet are not actually down to me at all, but are the "evidence" of the slugs nocturnal perambulations around the studio carpet. You would think with that much "evidence" (The Owner has been watching far too many crime dramas recently) as to where the slug had been it would be a straightforward process finding where it was. Even I couldn't find it! So each morning the carpet was further covered by the remains of a slimy trail and The Owner became more depressed that we couldn't find it. This morning he found it!! You'd have thought he would have been pleased, but oh no! There has been much huffing and puffing and yucking and I think it may be the calf sheds for me today for my own safety. We got to the studio as normal this morning and, as normal, he makes a mug of tea (I never get one unless Owners Daughter or Small Boy are here) and settles down to read his emails and other hoomun stuff. Placing his big mug on the desk beside him he absent mindedly took a sip periodically. It was during one of thise sips that I witnessed one of those beautiful moments when two species really connect. Gastropod Mollusc and Hoomun, eye to eye! It seems that Slug, as we are now on first name terms, joined by a common bond of being on the rough end of The Owners morning temper, had apparently felt that he liked the sensation of the warmth of the mug through his belly and slithered up the side of The Owner's tea mug. Slugs eyes, by his very nature, are on stalks and so were The Owner's when he realised what he was looking at and was about to take a sip from. There has been a lot of yucking over the last half an hour and the tea mug has been thrown out and so has Slug. I'll be in the calf sheds if anyone wants me.

Visiting the Stone Thing

Yesterday was a bit of a strange day really. We set off, as if on patrol, about mid morning as far as I can tell but we stayed on the roads up past the farm which left me a bit confused as normally any patrol that stays on the roads and goes past the farm is heading for the pub and as far as I can tell it was far too early for that. Even in The Owner's surreal world! Then we jumped over the hedge and across the fields. I hadn't been across here before so I had to have a few wee's up hedges and stuff, just in case The Owner got lost coming back. He was carrying something with a lot of red on with him as we went, something I also hadn't seen before. We eventually re-emerged back on to the road up near where Vic R seems to come from and went up some steps and found a big stone thing which The Owner wouldn't let me wee up. He gave me a very hard stare and I reasoned that it was probably not worth the trouble I would be in if I tried. Sometimes you get those feelings when it gets into your mind to do something, have you ever noticed? The Owner sat there for a while swinging the red round thing by his side, seemingly lost in thought until Vic R appeared and a lot of other people also carrying red things. They all stood around the stone thing whilst Vic R spoke a lot and sung a bit and then he must have said something wrong coz there was a bit of an uneasy silence for a couple of minutes and one or two seemed a bit upset by the whole thing. I have noticed this kind of behaviour when one of the two ladies from the village has passed wind and everyone tries to pretend they haven't noticed. (Except the times when someone decides it would be better to blame me for the smell wafting around.) Even The Owner stopped his grumbling for a couple of minutes. Then everyone went up and put their red things on the steps of the stone thing and then talked a lot. Now I reckon they are all going to be in trouble later as when they all left none of them thought to pick up their red things and left them on the stone thingy. Now I've seen the terrible state Church Warden gets himself in when the kids leave stuff in the churchyard that shouldn't be there and it really is not a sight for the faint hearted so when he comes and finds this little lot I feel sure he is going to have an opinion on the matter and it won't be a very positive one!

A Slug's Humour

Now I know very little of the behaviour of Slug or his family but I am beginning to suspect there may be a sense of humour there somewhere. Yesterday you may recall that The Owner shared a beautiful moment with Slug, as two species met, eye to eye. The Owner responded a little harshly and threw Slug (and the mug he had slithered up to warm his belly) outside in the cold. This morning when The Owner and I arrived at the studio he threw the door open wide and strode confidently inside expecting a slug free environment. He made his new mug of tea and went and sat down at his desk as usual to examine the contents of his inbox and probably swear a lot if usual behaviour is anything to go by. I was right, he did swear a lot, but not at the contents of e-mails on his screen. There, at a pretty precise angle of forty five degrees across his mouse mat, was a silver slug trail. He is now on a mission to find the culprit and the normal clutter on the desk has all been moved, examined, and then put back in place and all to no avail as yet. I have been kicked off my comfy cushion, twice, and it has been lifted shook out and put back again. I do appreciate the humour of leaving a slimy slug trail across the mouse mat but I am getting a little tired of being moved and then re-moved as The Owner searches for Slug again. I think I may wander home and see if the wood burner is any warmer.... and free of slugs!

The Owner and Slug

The Owner has had a less than perfect start to his day and so I am expecting mine to get worse! In recent weeks he has informed me that there has been a slug in the studio overnight. I was a little disbelieving at first as I had witnessed him going up the stairs to bed each night, I had heard him snoring away all night long and I had seen him come grumbling down the stairs again the following morning. So how could he have known? It turns out that the strange silvery marks on the carpet are not actually down to me at all, but are the "evidence" of the slugs nocturnal perambulations around the studio carpet. You would think with that much "evidence" (The Owner has been watching far too many crime dramas recently) as to where the slug had been it would be a straightforward process finding where it was. Even I couldn't find it! So each morning the carpet was further covered by the remains of a slimy trail and The Owner became more depressed that we couldn't find it. This morning he found it!! You'd have thought he would have been pleased, but oh no! There has been much huffing and puffing and yucking and I think it may be the calf sheds for me today for my own safety. We got to the studio as normal this morning and, as normal, he makes a mug of tea (I never get one unless Owners Daughter or Small Boy are here) and settles down to read his emails and other hoomun stuff. Placing his big mug on the desk beside him he absent mindedly took a sip periodically. It was during one of thise sips that I witnessed one of those beautiful moments when two species really connect. Gastropod Mollusc and Hoomun, eye to eye! It seems that Slug, as we are now on first name terms, joined by a common bond of being on the rough end of The Owners morning temper, had apparently felt that he liked the sensation of the warmth of the mug through his belly and slithered up the side of The Owner's tea mug. Slugs eyes, by his very nature, are on stalks and so were The Owner's when he realised what he was looking at and was about to take a sip from. There has been a lot of yucking over the last half an hour and the tea mug has been thrown out and so has Slug. I'll be in the calf sheds if anyone wants me.

Vic R Must Have Said Something

Yesterday was a bit of a strange day really. We set off, as if on patrol, about mid morning as far as I can tell but we stayed on the roads up past the farm which left me a bit confused as normally any patrol that stays on the roads and goes past the farm is heading for the pub and as far as I can tell it was far too early for that. Even in The Owner's surreal world! Then we jumped over the hedge and across the fields. I hadn't been across here before so I had to have a few wee's up hedges and stuff, just in case The Owner got lost coming back. He was carrying something with a lot of red on with him as we went, something I also hadn't seen before. We eventually re-emerged back on to the road up near where Vic R seems to come from and went up some steps and found a big stone thing which The Owner wouldn't let me wee up. He gave me a very hard stare and I reasoned that it was probably not worth the trouble I would be in if I tried. Sometimes you get those feelings when it gets into your mind to do something, have you ever noticed? The Owner sat there for a while swinging the red round thing by his side, seemingly lost in thought until Vic R appeared and a lot of other people also carrying red things. They all stood around the stone thing whilst Vic R spoke a lot and sung a bit and then he must have said something wrong coz there was a bit of an uneasy silence for a couple of minutes and one or two seemed a bit upset by the whole thing. I have noticed this kind of behaviour when one of the two ladies from the village has passed wind and everyone tries to pretend they haven't noticed. (Except the times when someone decides it would be better to blame me for the smell wafting around.) Even The Owner stopped his grumbling for a couple of minutes. Then everyone went up and put their red things on the steps of the stone thing and then talked a lot. Now I reckon they are all going to be in trouble later as when they all left none of them thought to pick up their red things and left them on the stone thingy. Now I've seen the terrible state Church Warden gets himself in when the kids leave stuff in the churchyard that shouldn't be there and it really is not a sight for the faint hearted so when he comes and finds this little lot I feel sure he is going to have an opinion on the matter and it won't be a very positive one!

The Dyson Is At It Again

Yesterday it seemed obvious from the start that someone was coming to see us. The Dyson was dragged out of hibernation from under the stairs. That put The Owner in a bad mood, I thought, straight away, and so early in the day! Well, when he put all that stuff in that cupboard I remember quite distinctly forming the opinion it may be a little unsafe to push it all in and shut the door quick, but The Owner had clearly forgotten exactly what was behind the door as he opened the door with a flourish and promptly disappeared under a deluge of odds and sods that came tumbling out. I beat a hasty retreat to my comfy cushion in case I was blamed in some way for the fall-out which was quite fortunate as it happened because I found a crumb from a discarded Bonio underneath it. The Owner started pushing my nemesis around the carpets and it confirmed some of my suspicions about its intent. On the carpet and presumably out of The Owner's gaze, was a handkerchief which the Dyson devoured with great gusto and promptly blocked the pipe. There then followed much grumbling as he removed the blockage and cleared up some of the dust and my hair for the second time in as many minutes. Minutes later it turned its attentions to some length of speaker wire which wound itself around the brushes and prompted the use of words that I pretend not to understand. Now this all did not bode well for a peaceful day, however I may have been wrong as Owners Daughter turned up and had a box of Bonio's in her car boot and perhaps a little bizarrely, two bananas! I never did discover the significance of the bananas but I am very aware of the significance of a box of Bonios. Of course the significance of a visit from Owners Daughter is that everything is turned off and not left on stand by and The Owner has been grumbling more than a little at having to get up and turn everything on again after he has settled down with the squidger which never seems as efficient at turning things on when the appliance it relates to is turned off by Owners Daughter.

Checking the Sky

After yesterday witnessing such strange goings on the other side of Swindon, which the hoomuns around there seemed to accept as perfectly normal, it has been preying on my mind and to be honest I didn't sleep a wink last night thinking about it. I watched intently as the bus picked up the kids this morning to take them to school and it certainly didn't show any signs of lifting all its wheels off the ground and heading to the moon. Yet yesterday I watched a massive bus on big legs and wheels with funny things poking out the side, which frankly would have made it impossible to get round the corner in the village by the church, take on loads of hoomuns and then jump off the ground into the sky and head to the moon with altogether far too much noise for my liking! The Owner seemed to accept it as normal as well, but that doesn't mean much as anything he does seems to fall far short of being normal as far as I can see. I didn't see the big bus come back down to the ground so I have to assume that it is still up there somewhere and I have spent much of my time today watching, just in case it comes back down here somewhere. I may need to have an opinion if it tries to land in the village!

Terminal Five!

Well, what a morning I have had already. I have been beyond Swindon and discovered that it is indeed a very strange and wondrous place! Early this morning, very early this morning, The Owner came grumbling down the stairs. It was so early that I had barely finished my dream of a bevvie of lady chocolate labs carrying me shoulder high to a secret room that had the walls stacked high with Bonio boxes. I had not yet had time to get on to the one where I gamble carefree through the meadows and wake myself up when I hit my head on my food bin in the boot room through the urgency of my twitching. I wasn't about to complain as he then fed me. Then Phlee Dog Owner turned up in his car and off we went..... past Swindon! We arrived at a place that I think was called Terminal Five, which is a very strange name for a place, then Phlee Dog Owner jumped out, grabbed his bag and ran off through the crowds and left me and The Owner in the car park! I fancied a quick patrol of the big field but I couldn't find a way through the fence and it was far too high to jump over it. As it turned out it was probably for the better as there were what I thought may have been big buses although they were very high off the ground and they had funny flat arms coming out of their sides, I don't think they would get one of them down through the village picking up the kids for school in the morning. All these people were getting on them and then they drove off, albeit a bit noisily, and then this really big one went very fast and very loudly down this big road and then suddenly the front end was pointing at the sky and it was off the ground!!!!! All of it's wheels!!! Off the ground!!!! I last saw it heading for the moon, I think! There was also a K9 called Sniffer Black Lab and he was totally out of control. He went round sniffing at all these people in a manner that most hoomuns seem to disapprove of, when I do that I usually get a sharp slap across the nose and a disapproving look from The Owner. Anyway, there was this lady hoomun with a big bag and Sniffer Black Lab went up to her and did paws and then she got tied up and taken away somewhere. When I do paws I usually expect a Bonio, I now realise that the other side of Swindon it must means something very different. I think I ought to remember that, it may come in very handy! We didn't see Phlee Dog Owner again but I think he may be very cross with The Owner when we see him again, The Owner took his car and he drove home again. I am a bit worried about those big buses still, I have been keeping a very wary eye upwards as the moon has now disappeared from the sky and the bus must be still up there somewhere looking for it. It is a very strange place the other side of Swindon and I am not keen to go again.

The Owner's New Camera!

The Owner has a new camera! Need I say more?

Halloween and all things related.

As I study hoomun behaviour, every once in a while I think I am getting the hang of it and then I get thrown another curve ball and I finish up in deeper poo, and not the kind I can get my shoulder down in either. Tonight was just such an occasion and I am now in the boot room but the back door is open so I have been able to get out and reap the spoils of my earlier misdemeanour. Top of my list of unfathomable hoomun behaviour is "Halloween". Now what's that all about then? All evening the hoomun kids from the little estate in the village have been banging on the door demanding treats from The Owner. I was understandably anxious that The Owner may have given them one of my Bonios but he did give them a little hoomun treat which was a big mistake as it turned out. Word got around and half the neighbouring towns kids from around the county were beating a path to our front door. After the fifth group of kids banging on the front door The Owner was showing signs of losing his charitable bon hommie so I thought I would help out a little and I lay in wait up the top of the garden. A car pulled up in the lay-by and I waited until they got up to the front door before I launched my charge. Silently racing through the cherry orchard, round by the satellite dish letting out my fiercest bark as I arrived in the porch....... well I didn't know he had ordered a chinese take away to be delivered did I? Chinese Delivery Yoof stood rooted to the spot in terror and dropped the bag with the take-away all over the porch floor. The Owner didn't seem pleased to see his tea all over the floor as it happens. Chinese Delivery Yoof seemed unable to understand the mistake either and he seemed to imply that The Owner may be needing to get someone else to deliver his tea in future. So as I said, I am in the boot room but the back door is open. So if you'll excuse me, I am off to have another quick lick of the front porch floor. The Owner has cleared up but I think there may be a bit more flavour to be extracted from the stone floor.