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.

The Owner's Wet Trousers

Yesterday was not his best, The Owner I am talking about, it started out pretty much as it continued and I only fared a little better. As he closed the boot room door on me last night he was unusually comforting to me, ruffling my head as I walked past saying "Never mind old boy, perhaps we can have a better day tomorrow!". We had a certain amount of rain overnight the previous night which also continued through much of yesterday, so puddles were plentiful and deep as we left the cottage for the morning shuffle to work. He dragged the wheelie bin down to the gate and I sat just inside the gate until he had put it out in the lay-by and then he called me out. There were a couple of cars and a tractor coming from different directions, so he stood in the lay-by and waited and I sat beside him until the traffic had passed. It happened that the point where the car from out of the village and the tractor from the direction of the village was right outside the cottage and the road being not the widest road in the world, the tractor driver, without slowing, put one wheel through the edge of the lay-by. Right through the puddle as it happens! The Owner after shouting a few words that I pretend not to understand, turned and shuffled back in doors to change into a clean and dry pair of trousers and a dry coat. I on the other hand do not have that luxury, I only have the one coat, although at this time of the year I am doing my best to leave most of it over the carpet. So him with dry clothes and me leaving a trail of water on the floor wherever I walked, we left for the studio for the second time that morning. There is still no water in the pond although being the lowest point for miles it does seem to have its fair share of puddles on the road near by. As we approached the pond there was another van approaching at some speed, it was white so I felt The Owner would have had an opinion about the driver which was less than favourable. He stepped onto the grass bank to get out of the way and I did my thing and sat down beside him. White Van Hoomun drove through the puddle by the pond at great speed and I was right, The Owner did have an opinion that was less than favourable. So for the second time in less than an hour he is wet through and I am just wetter than I was previously. Being closer to the studio than the cottage and presumably because he had no more dry clothes at home, we continued our shuffle down to the studio. During the next hour or two, from the vantage point of my comfy cushion under his desk I could see The Owner's foot with water steadily dripping onto the floor. Last night it was dark when we went home and although I can see very well in the dark, I suspect The Owner can't. A car headlights appeared in the distance and he stepped sideways with the kind of steps that people make when they can't see where they are putting their feet and he stepped straight into a rather deep puddle at the edge of the road. There was much swearing and then silence for the rest of the day. I hope today is a little better for him.

The Water Bucket

Life round here this morning has been a little difficult so far. The Owner has had to change his trousers already and my duvet from my bed in the boot room is hanging on the line to dry off a little. But the good bit is that we have a lovely clean kitchen floor and the boot room looks lovely and clean. I suppose it all started last night really, the wood burner was warm and wasp free and outside it was raining and cold. To wee, or not to wee, that was the question. Not a difficult one as it turned out, if I tried to ignore it I felt I could probably last until morning and so opted for the warmth of the woodburner. By the time morning came around I was getting quite desperate, made worse as it happens by the rain overnight, with the water falling off the boot room roof into the gutter and then into the large bucket outside the back door. The bladder still hasn't recovered from the incident last year following the visit from the hounds and the sound of running water only serves to exacerbate the problem. When The Owner opened the door and let me out there was a certain sense of urgency as I ran up the garden to relieve the pressure a little. Whilst up there I could hear The Owner rummaging around in my food bin back in the boot room and so, pressure relieved, I made my way rapidly back to the cottage in anticipation of breakfast. Now this is where my morning started to unravel so early. It had been raining overnight and as I ran across the little courtyard (The Owner calls it the mews coz he wants to sound posh) I slipped a little on the wet concrete and slid straight into the big bucket full of gutter water right outside the boot room door knocking about five gallons of water over. The water hit the inside of the partly open back door which turned it neatly inside the boot room and all over The Owner. That which wasn't soaked up by my duvet or The Owners trousers , and the the boot room not really being designed as a vessel for holding five gallons of water, turned its soaking attentions on the rest of the inside of the cottage. As I said, we have a nice clean kitchen floor now, a carpet that goes squelch every time you stand on it and a duvet hanging on the line dripping. Now I am no domestic goddess, but I feel sure that won't be dry for tonight. The Owner seems less than happy with me at the moment, I might make myself scarce for a while.

The Wasp Burning Stove

The Owner tells me off frequently for bringing things in from the garden, you know the sort of thing, little treasures for burying under my comfy cushion, manky piece of wood for chewing up later and various other little delights. I am thinking at the moment he is rather wishing he followed his own advice. You may recall how yesterday there was an absence of heating oil in the tank and therefore acorresponding lack of heat in the cottage. There was also a distinct lack of logs for the woodburner in the shed rendering a distinct chill across the cottage which he was clearly not prepared to endure for another evening. I have to say that his resolve was something I heartily approved of when he came home early and spent half an hour rooting around in the woods up by the barbie looking for sufficient fodder for the woodburner for the evening. He came struggling down over the lawn dropping more wood than he was carrying and disappeared back up to the woods for a second load. It was then that he thought he had struck gold when he happened upon a big bag of charcoal left over from a barbie in the summer and came rushing back to the cottage carrying his booty with the look of a small child who had just managed to nick his big brothers favourite toy. There was furious activity in the living room with paper being ripped and wood being broken up as he laid and then lit the fire. It was about then when I noticed an advancing army across the carpet. The bag of charcoal had become the home of preference for a colony of a thousand or two wasps who had hibernated for the winter. The warmth from the woodburner and the movement of being carried from the garden seemed to have upset them somehow and they were marching across the carpet to have it out with the first thing they saw moving....me! They seemed to have altogether far too much attitude for my liking so I went for a patrol and left The Owner to it. By the time I returned, he had most of the situation under control but he has been a little restless ever since. Anything that sounds remotely like a buzzing sound seems to put him particularly on edge. I bet he wished he hadn't brought them in. I bet even more he wishes he had ordered oil and firewood!

The Bovine Dinosaurs

This evening I am cold and wet, with the imprint of The Owner's yard broom still tingling on my shoulder. For those of you with not enough original thoughts in their minds, no I have not been rolling in anything badger! The Owner had had a difficult day, I could tell by the ferocity with which he threw his mouse pen back in it's holster and his glasses across the desk. I knew we were in for an extended patrol as we always do when he throws his mouse pen like that and I was right, off we went across the fields and as we went he began to feel better. You can tell, because his grumbling got a little less verbose as we walked. The fingers of dark cloud extended lazily across the sky as the last vestiges of daylight disappeared and the world around us became cloaked in an eerie white glow. A host of celestial bodies cast their combined light across the cold slumbering world around us as we headed for the warmth of home and the promise of a long awaited belly filled with food. Well that's how it should have been except it's damn cold in here as after only the first flush of frost, the oil has run out, because he forgot to order any oil throughout the summer again. As we crossed the cricket field, with the twinkle of light from the porch lantern a welcome and almost intoxicating sight in the darkness. I ran ahead in excitement at the prospect of my tea and through the gate into the paddock, next stop, the front door! I n my excitement I had forgotten about the two barren cows in the paddock and they were lying in wait for me, either side of the gate, in the gathering darkness. Well, to say I pooped myself in terror as these two bovine dinosaurs emerged from the darkness either side of me with a loud "Moo!" would be a masterful stroke of understatement! In my panic I fell and rolled through fresh cow poo and I have to report it hasn't the same satisfaction as a good old dollop of badger poop! I am now cold, wet and in the boot room and The Owner is wandering around the cottage with three jumpers on and every once in a while he stops, looks at me, goes "Moo!" then laughs to himself as he carries on his wandering. I think he looks like a camel, he walks like one as well.

Nettles on the Nose

Today I was duped! Duped I was! By someone with no scruples! I have no idea what it means to have no scruples but The Owner always shouts that at the telly when he seems displeased with the Andrew Marr Show. Together with words like "Slimeball" and "Mandleson". I am not yet sure who duped me but I am suspecting it may have been Monkey Dog Thing as he has not yet exacted any kind of revenge for me encouraging him to wee on his lady owner's car seat some time ago and I am keeping my eyes open still. We are now past the final flush of summer and autumn is exerting it's cold and windy grip around the farm. Our nettles, which I have given a particularly wide berth since I wee'd over one and it stung my boy's bits, are mainly died down in the garden, so I don't tend to pay them any regard. Walking to the studio this morning with The Owner through the wind, which is fortunately clearing the smell of hospitals from his crusty old Barbour jacket, when a waft of a sniff caught my attention from a small patch of weeds. As you would expect from a dog of my breeding and nature it required investigation so I sniffed it. Then I sniffed it again, a bit closer this time and it was then that I discovered how I had been duped. Someone (and I suspect it to be Monkey Dog Thing) had wee'd on some nettles (Presumably from a distance.) and I had just had a good sniff at it and I had now got a very sore nose. I am thinking Monkey Dog Thing may have got his revenge.