Small Boy and The Damson Tree

Small Boy arrived yesterday with Owners Daughter and I was so pleased to see them I did my silly run out around the tree in the middle of the lawn and back twice. You may have noticed I have elevated the status of the bush to tree as it seems to have done quite well this year and is now blocking the path to the front door. It blocks it enough to make Postmans arrival at the letter box on a wet day a somewhat soggy affair.

Sorry, I digress already in my story. After much excitement and a crafty sneak of Owners Daughter’s crust from her sandwich at lunch time, an afternoon of great activity looked promising! Small Boy was detailed to retrieve several of The Owners tools from all around the garden, behind hedges, up trees, wherever Small Boy had left them after using them on his last visit and from where The Owner had been completely unable to locate them which always seemed to be a matter of some frustration for The Owner. His frustration was helped little when Small Boy went up the garden and found them all so easily. The Owner then began compiling a list of many other tools which had gone missing over the years to see if he could find them with the same consummate ease. Small Boy was then sent up the damson tree to pick damsons, although I am not sure what they are as they are above head height, an area which tends to bother me little. Small Boy complained bitterly about his task and when The Owner informed him that small boys were always sent up the chimneys in years past it did little to improve his demeanour. Small Boy, up a tree, picking Damsons, seems to involve throwing twenty or so to the floor and then putting one in the bag. When I say on the floor, I really mean they have to be first bounced off my back or The Owners head before hitting the floor. It would seem also that damsons stain quite a lot and I can see many purple blobs staining my back. Fortunately The Owner is unable to see the top of his own head and is therefore oblivious to the effect it has had on the top of his head. I hope it stays that way or I fear his cheerful demeanour since Small Boy and Owners Daughter arrived may vanish. He has been out today and returned smelling of hospitals again. Unsure yet if I should be worried about that but I will keep you informed....

Thoughts on Febreze

The Owner has discovered a new best friend and I have discovered another worstest friend. Something akin to The Dyson! I would like to point out that earlier he had already been terrorising me with that nemesis of mine as he laughs like some kind of maniacal despot (well, how I would imagine one would laugh having never actually met one) as he chases me around the living room carpet, destroying all my hidden bits of chewy stick I had brought in from the garden and thought I had hidden.

I thought my moment of torture was passed until he informed no-one in particular that Owners Daughter and Small Boy, who has been conspicuous by his absence this weekend, were running very late from their planned arrival due to Owners Daughter taking too long to put her face on before meeting her public this morning. This fills me with a sense of dread as he then has nothing to fill his time as previously planned. I believe you hoomuns have a saying about the devil finding work for idle hands or something like that? On this occasion the devil found a spray tin of Febreze to fill his idle hands with! All things, including me, my comfy cushion and my duvet (silk, obviously, as I have breeding, had I mentioned I was born and trained on Lord Bath's estate) were sprayed liberally with the stuff. He justifies it to me by saying Owners Daughter is coming but he is now prowling the house looking for something, anything else, to spray. He has now got another menacing look in his eye as he looks at me and I think I may yet be getting another liberal application of the devils spray. He is already calling me 'The Fragrant One' again! I think I may go and find some dead badger to roll in!

Pigeon's Morning Visit

This morning I am not happy! This morning The Owner is not happy! This morning, perhaps for the first time ever we are unhappy about the same thing and from the same perspective! 


Last night The Owner took me to the pub, perhaps predictably on a Friday evening but that is the kind of predictability I can cope with. Barmaid Hoomun was there yesterday evening although she is not the cause of OUR ire. Barmaid Hoomun I like, because she tends to give me little treats when The Owner isn't looking. But I am a K9 of some breeding, and not a little learning in hoomun terms, so although I can't speak hoomun, I can type it and I can certainly understand it, even some of The Owners more colourful language. So why does she have to talk to me in such an infantile way? "Does Jacky wacky want a Bickie Wickie?" ?!?!?!?! Just give me the biscuit and cut the cackle! Some hoomun behaviour I will never understand! 


Sorry, I digress already. When we came home last night the sun was just setting over the manor and it does throw all kinds of golden light on the trees at the top of the hill opposite. This kind of scene tends to cause The Owner to wax lyrical and he grabs MY laptop and goes upstairs and sit in THAT window where the roses grow if I haven't managed to kill them first by weeing on them. Having been allowed up there once I can see that the view may have a certain appeal to a hoomun. So he sets himself up at the window, glass of wine to one side and MY laptop on the wide window sill. He was up there for some time and only came down when his wine glass was empty and required refilling. You'll notice the omission of the return of MY laptop, that'll be because he left it up there then! On the window sill, in front of an open window! This morning, Pigeon landed on the window sill and hopped up on to the nearest thing to a perch it could find, MY open laptop!!!!! The Owner opened one eye from his slumber and roared from his bed in a non appreciative manner, to which Pigeon responded by depositing last nights supper from it's bottom all over MY laptop and flapping off out of the window. I am looking forward to my next encounter with Pigeon who is currently sat on the electric wires out of my reach saying "Coo" at the spectacle of The Owner and me working together to try and clean the keyboard. Anyone got any wet wipes? I may have a use for them.

The Owners Been in Police Custard!!

The Owner has one of his headaches that could erupt at any moment into a full blown hamstring injury. He has not had a good day, bless him! You may recall from my last missive he was trying to find his hi-viz jacket and was intent on volunteering for the village Speedwatch.

Having presented himself for duty his offer was spurned as it was generally felt the way he was salivating with excitement as he pointed the speed gun at Manor Cleaner Lady as she passed by on her bike was perhaps inappropriate. Undeterred, he returned to the cottage and after much rummaging at the back of a drawer produced a hair dryer. Armed with his new 'speed gun' and his hi-viz jacket he set up camp outside on the road pointing the hair dryer at passing motorists. It was all going well until he decided to make a citizens arrest of one driver who turned out to be the Police Hoomun Inspector who's foot I wee'd on when he was asking inappropriate questions about The Owner when he went walkabout. After they released him from Police Custard, which sounded quite a messy thing to be in from what I could hear of it, The Owner decided to take me for a walk up on the hill. When I say walk, it really entailed me being on a lead running flat out beside The Owner, who is on Small Boy's bike. Up the big hill we went and that was when his day took a big turn for the worse. As we rounded the corner of the woods to come back down the hill, I thought I saw Lady Chocolate Lab down by the gate at the bottom and took off with a certain air of excitement about my general demeanour. I thought The Owner was joining in as no matter how hard I ran he kept up with me, whooping and shouting as he went! Well how was I to know that Small Boy had taken the brakes off his bike when he was here last. When we got to the bottom of the hill, well it wasn't Lady Chocolate Lab after all, which was just as well what with the mess he made of that gate. If my understanding of the things are correct, the five bar gate can now be considered a ten bar gate. Well I thought Farmer Hoomun may have been pleased at the increase in value of his gate but I must have missed something from the theory somewhere as Farmer Hoomun gave The Owner a bill and they always seem to upset The Owner. We may also have to visit Halfords before Small Boy visits next weekend as I don't think he is going to be too pleased with what The Owner has done to his bike! I am getting the strangest vibe from The Owner this evening, I think I may take myself to the boot room as a precaution.

The Speed Survey in the Village

I am thinking I may be in trouble here if the truth came out! It was an easy mistake I think, one hardly worth mentioning I think. But I think the ramifications could well be far reaching and one such ramification is building as we speak. I was on patrol the other morning up near the pub.

I couldn't go in as I was on my own and didn't have a lead (pub rules are that dogs must be on leads and under the control of a responsible adult.............probably least said about the last bit, the better). 'Twas then that I came across the object of an hour or so of my amusement and attentions. Laying in the road, well stretched across it actually was a big rubber snake, two of them in fact. So I bit it! The snakes appeared to be coming from a grey box that someone had chained to the telegraph pole and when I bit the snake it clicked, as if in some kind of protest. So I bit it again! And it clicked again! So I tried the other one and that clicked as well! This was fun! So I pounced on it and bit it at the same time and it clicked quite a lot at this so I did it again..... and again. This was fun. At one point there was one car came past and it clicked at that as well. But that was just Lady Manor Hoomun on her way to do the flowers at the church. I had great fun with that until it died and fell apart and I lost interest. I am thinking that I may have inadvertently been responsible for destroying a speed survey of cars going through the village and in some way responsible for it recording an abnormally high volume of traffic and doing some impossible speeds through the village. Oh dear! But it was such fun at the time! It gets worse! Because of these results Police Hoomun has given the village a speed camera and they are looking for volunteers! I am feeling a little apprehensive about the way The Owner is looking for his hi-viz jacket with a purposeful look in his eye. I will keep you informed.

More Leaking Eyes

Oh Saint Bonio preserve us! This hoomun behaviour trait is confusing me more than ever although I am getting some kind of a handle on it I think. He, The Owner, is in there now, with his eyes leaking again! The reason I think I am getting a handle on this strange hoomun behaviour is that I have been watching the TV and noticed something in common with both incidents.

Last time it was DIY SOS, and this time it is Village SOS. So, it is clearly something to do with SOS, I thought! Now a proverbial spanner has been thrown in the works of my thinking. At the moment he is watching a video called "The Colour Purple" which also appears to be having the same effect on his leaking eyes. I am thinking a frantic visit to the doctor demanding the attentions of Speshalist may ensue. Watch as I might I cannot see any reference to SOS in The Colour Purple but I will continue my observation and see if it comes later in the film. I will keep you informed! I think I had better go and find him a kitchen role or it could get messy!

4X4 Driver's Windscreen

Well........... I LIKE Sundays!!! Particularly Sundays like these. The Owner has done his housework which did reveal one or two misdemeanour's which I had hoped were forgotten some time ago and I was eventually allowed out of the boot room. After The Owner, (who has been going around singing, which is rather worrying) had done an hour down at the studio we, retired to the seat under the trees up the garden.

Now, I don't understand Squirrel particularly but I had worked out that Squirrel, who had been scattering his nuts, (metaphorically speaking) over the garden path was particularly vexed about The Owner blocking his path back to the nut bush and had a lot to say on the matter, fortunately, most of which The Owner didn't understand. So we retired to the cricket field with a collapsible chair and a bottle of beer which was extravagantly large in my opinion. Now, you have heard the saying "What goes around comes around!"? Well today was it! I was once castigated for retrieving the cricket ball and today when some hoomun from another village smite the ball verily (it is Sunday after all) in a perfect arc straight into the bramble bush they called for me to get it out for them. Well there were prickles in there and I am a delicate soul!!! So I took myself back to the pavilion in the hope of a sandwich at half time. That was when 4X4 Driver came into the car park paddock. Everyone else parks there! But no, he has to go through to the cricket field and park! So this gentleman from the other village who it seems is very good at swiping the ball verily, took another almighty swipe at the ball, which looked kinda dangerous and indeed it was as it cleared the boundary fence that bites my nose when I have sniffed it, and went straight through the windscreen of 4X4 Driver's car. There was a lot of angst at this point so The Owner and I came home quite quickly. I do like Sundays!