The Owner goes Walkabout

It was a normal start to the morning, that is to say normal for this household. Before the sun came up I heard Old Reg the paper boy throw The Owners Sunday paper at the front door from the gate, he's done that since I mistook him for one of the cyclists in brightly coloured shorts and top who frequent our road on a Sunday morning and provide me with great sport. Then I hear the loo flush upstairs and The Owner comes grumbling down the stairs to put the kettle on. Everything was perfectly normal. He sat there reading his paper shouting at no one in particular with some angry or witty repost depending upon the type of story he was reading. Normality would then have involved a second mug of tea, a rant at The Andrew Marr show and then we would have gone for our walk around the farm and a further attempt on my part top educate The Owner on the subtleties of badger poo rolling. But this morning, first mug of tea finished, he put his boots on. I thought we may be in for an early walk and then go out somewhere, that's what normally happens when he puts his boots on before his second mug of tea on a Sunday. But without so much as a bye or leave and without putting his trusty tatty Barbour on, he shuffles off through the misty morning field without me! Its now been raining for over an hour and I still haven't seen him come back. His behaviour has worried me more than a little of late and this even more so!

My confrontation with Blue Van Man & Tall Trailer Hosepipe Hoomun

Well I think I made some significant progress today. There I was shuffling back up to the office after lunch, actually it was The Owner who was doing the shuffling, I was flitting energetically from sniff to sniff. Back at the office The Owner was brewing for another shouting match with the computer screen and the water cooler which he seems to think may have sprung a leak, so I guess there then follows at some point a shouting match with Lady Water Cooler Office Girl, but that may yet happen another day. In order to get away from the noise I took myself off for a quick patrol and particularly to keep an eye on the pond. Well you could have knocked me down with an empty Bonio box! Behind me, yes behind me was the blue van, with a man hole cover up and a hose pipe in it and two men doing things! Well this needed further investigation so I went closer but they saw me. I think they were trying to divert my attention when Tall Hosepipe Trailer Hoomun gave me a Bonio. Well of course I had to accept but I kept a very watchful eye on them. It appeared to me they were putting water in the manhole but it didn't get very full and I checked the pond later and it did appear to be empty again. This detective lark is quite complicated, I think I may have to go back to looking for dead badgers and deer. I can feel a headache coming on. Speaking of which I need to go and check on The Owner.

The Blue Van Man

Aha! Now I am getting the picture! The water level in the pond was down again this morning when out on patrol, but look what I found there! With that long hose thingy on his trailer he MUST be the one behind the disappearing water. I have yet to work out what it does, that hose trailer on the back of his big blue van but I am feeling quietly confident I have found the culprit. I am not sure what the significance is of his van being blue. The Owner has a somewhat disparaging opinion of white vans generally and shouts at them a lot. That is until the White Van Man gets out of his van and walks back to speak with The Owner and it is at that point that The Owner starts looking behind him and tutting loudly. I need to find out if he has an opinion on Blue Van Man but I am beginning to suspect that when I unveil him as the water thief, the whole village will have an opinion on the matter. I will keep you informed!

Nieces Visit

The Owner's Niece came to see us yesterday, not sure how she managed it, she came up from the south and arrived from the north end of the village! So Niece brought this funny Black Little Girl Dog with her and I just couldn't work her out at all.

I took Black Little Girl Dog for a walk around the farm, to show her some of the things she may have found interesting, like badger poo and stuff like that and was she interested in it? No not a bit! I took her up the hill to my big black bath and showed her how to get in and how to splash around and stuff like that and particularly how to get The Owner very wet when you leap out again - not interested! I thought she may have been interested in a bit of cow poo rolling. No, not interested! However she did rather like eating the cow poo which Niece was particularly disgusted with and I thought may have been sick, not tried that myself though. I think she may need a bit more instruction yet in the art of being a Labrador.

The Hussey

My goodness! We've had days of rain and I have been getting quite wet sat in the hedge guarding the pond, waiting for Tanker Driver to return. Then this morning, on our journey in to work (I call it a journey, but for The Owner it is really more of a shuffle) there it was! In the bottom of the pond! A foot of water! I feel I should have heard from the boot room if Tanker Driver had been during the night. Maybe I just slept too soundly? I will try to keep my ear to the ground and listen better tonight. Earlier this afternoon whilst The Owner was shouting at his computer screen about the England cricket teams shortcomings all was otherwise quiet. When without warning and giving the impression of a whirlwind, The Hussey launched herself through the door at me. The bitch is possessed! She came through the door and jumped on me, flinging her every womanly wile upon my person. The Owner jumped to my rescue in his biggest display of activity all day (he will have to go and have a lie down now) and tried his best to protect me. Keeper came flying through the door as well and grabbed The Hussey and dragged her from me. It was all very messy for a while and I now have a soggy ear. It just ruins my coiffure!

There's Water in The Pond

It was only moments after five this morning when he came grumbling down the stairs. How do I know this? Coz HE has to have the old grandfather clock boing boinging all night long "To add a sense of time to the cottage". He has a nice little digital clock on the cooker that adds all the sense of time you need to the cottage and it does so quietly!

HE can't hear it from his bedroom, however this piece of torture equipment is right outside the boot room door. Tick tock tick tock boing boing! I have already planned to wee up it enough to cause it to rot and then fall over. A bit long term I know but you have to be a bit subtle sometimes. Anyway, he grumbles around the kitchen and makes a cup of tea and then goes for the next stage in his morning ritual of shouting at the telly whilst watching BBC Breakfast News, except its too early even for them, so he falls asleep. Well that made good use of the early start then didn't it! When he did eventually wake up again he spent far too long getting ready, all I do is a quick shake and wipe my ears with my paws and we're ready to face the world. After more rain last night and yesterday there are so many posts to wee up as you would imagine. I was having to pace myself for fear of running out before we got to the office. As we passed the pond I noticed that someone had thrown a bottle in during the night and I marked that down for exploring later in the day and carried on. I was half way towards the farm when it suddenly dawned on me, it was floating! The bottle was floating! There was water back in the pond! There was room for more, agreed, but I think Tanker Driver must have come back in the night and put some back. I frankly don't believe all that nonsense from The Owner about tables made of water, it was definitely Tanker Driver and I shall be hiding in the hedge today and watching for him to return with more water. I will keep you informed!

Abandoned on the Cricket Pitch

Yesterday, as previously reported the weather was good here and The Owner took some cans of beer and after the suggestion of a hoomun friend of his grabbed one of the picnic chairs left after a barbecue at the cottage in preference to him sitting on the floor and fidgeting through the entire match.

Armed with his new best friend, the picnic chair, and a pack of Fosters, he deposited himself just outside the boundary under the tree to watch the match. It was not long before these early mornings he has been inflicting on himself and me started to take their toll as his eyes became as heavy as his beer can, which he dropped as he fell asleep. It was a good match with plenty of boundary shots and other stuff and I had learned my lesson from previous matches and despite the fact that I think the home team really needed my help I refused to pick up the ball and take it back to the bowler for them. To be honest, The Owner saw none of it after slumber overtook him completely. They finished their game and The Owner was still sat in his picnic chair, under the tree, sound asleep surrounded by the foam from his fallen can of beer. They packed up the wicket and cleared all the boundary markers and The Owner was still sat in his chair asleep! So they all laughed loudly as they jumped in their cars and rushed off up to the pub to celebrate another sound defeat and left The Owner still in his chair and still very much asleep. Well that left me with a dilemma, should I go with them up to the pub and try and scrounge a morsel from an empty crisp packet or two, should I stay loyally by his side and run the risk of copping the flack when he wakes up with a stiff neck and is looking for someone to blame, or should I go home and see if I can sort myself out some tea? I opted for the tea at home but after an hour and the clouds were beginning to gather on the horizon I thought I ought really to go and check on him. Anxious not to get too much flack I sat by the gate into the field and waited. The gathering clouds having gathered and were now looking for someone to dump their contents upon, settled upon The Owner and dumped in some style. He eventually came round and realised that the rain was near monsoon levels so shuffled off home grumbling, dragging his chair and beer cans behind him. The good thing was he then fed me! Two meals in one night! Result!