The End of British Summer Time

The Owner appears to be in a strop this morning. I am assuming it is to do with him forgetting to change the clocks last night and getting up before Old Reg The Paperboy had delivered his Sunday paper. He seemed to have had a strop in the night too so why he didn't change his clocks then I shall never know. Predictably at two this morning the usual fidgeting starts upstairs, until half an hour later when he gives in and comes grumbling down the stairs to have a wee. I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity and I bounced around by the back door until The Owner let me out. Well you know how it works, you rush out to the first bush and whilst weeing on that a sniff passes by on the ample breeze that was blowing at the time. So I went to explore that and then I thought I heard a twig break down in Dingly Dell. So I went to explore that. Then another sniff... and a bit more exploring and so on until, after half an hour I suddenly realised I was actually half way across the cricket pitch field and thought it better to return to the new cottage and find The Owner. I started off with a gentle canter but by the time I got back it was a full on charge bordering on a demented badger run. As I entered the cottage The Owner was not waiting for me at the door, so I continued on through the kitchen and into the living room where The Owner was sat on the settee doing an impersonation of the statue "The Thinker". Although I don't think there was much thinking going on as he appeared to be asleep! Well I soon put that right when I landed and rammed my nose under his armpit and looked up at him. Well I don't know what he was grumbling about. If he had put his clocks right in the first place, given that it was two in the morning, I would have been back half an hour before I had left!! Given that it was The Owners fault, you would have predicted that I was to be punished in some way for his mistake. But how? It is Sunday so The Owner had his bath this morning and as he climbed out he swept me up in his arms and dropped me in without ceremony. I didn't feel too bad about it as when I got out and did a quick demented badger run around the carpet in the living room, I noticed the door to the stairs was open...... so up I went. Then I noticed his bedroom door was open too! He is now throwing his bed sheets in the washing machine, which I can't understand as he only changed them yesterday. He is still grumbling at me and frowning very loudly too. Hoomuns, huh!

Coffee on the Table

As eleven o-clock arrives I start to get excited, as it means coffee time for The Owner and that also means it is Bonio time for me. K9's are not known for such but I feel a "Woop Woop!" ought to be required at this point. The suspense was starting to get to me a little if I am honest as half past eleven was fast approaching and I had not seen him move. He was still up there, at the desk above me, banging on the keyboard and grumbling... a lot. It was then I had a terrible thought! What if I had gone to sleep and missed it? What if he has already had his coffee? I was frantic! Suddenly he threw the mouse pen back in its stand and gets up, picks up his "very special blue mug" which doesn't have Piglet, Pooh or Tigger on it, (so it is obviously still in one piece) and makes his way across to the coffee making stuff. I sit and watch as the palpable excitement in the air builds to a crescendo as he gets his cafetiere and the spoon and the coffee and spoons the coffee in. One......two.....and three coz I'm worth it! He then laughs at his joke, as he does every morning, the same joke - same laughter. Then he fills the cafetiere with hot water and puts the plunger in the top. As I watched intently, dreaming of Bonios, I couldn't help but wonder if he shouldn't have taken the spoon out of the cafetiere before putting the plunger in. He was on the phone by this time so his concentration levels, poor at best, were now at an all time low. As he chatted and laughed he absent mindedly pushed the plunger down. I thought to myself "He shouldn't have done that". And I was right! As the plunger went down the spoon opened the side of the filter in the plunger and allowed a stream of coffee and grouts to pass up the side and out of the spout and all across his desk. The harder he pushed, the farther the coffee shot across the desk unnoticed. After a few more minutes chatter on the phone he leant on the desk with his elbow and noticed the dark lake now residing on his desk and said a few choice words. Words that I pretend not to understand when he says them to me as I have breeding obviously. I rather got the impression that the lady hoomun client on the other end of the phone new exactly what they meant and was none too impressed to have heard them. I also get the impression that he hasn't got that contract after all. This may be an afternoon for keeping below the radar I think. I didn't get a Bonio either!!!

The Crackly Fire

The Owner is now running a tab for me on to which he adds the cost of all my misdemeanour's and then subtracts anything I earn and bring into the house. I am not hopeful of too much being subtracted from my tab to be honest but today I fear I may have added the cost of the "Finest of Chablis". May I just explain that when I was given my P45 as a gun dog (with breeding) from Lord Baths estate it was because I didn't like the bangs the guns made, they said I was "gun-shy". Unlike The Owner, of course, who is not shy of even the merest drop of gin. Well we have had the fire lit tonight, in our new cottage, using some odds and ends of logs he has been hacking up with Owner's Mate's chainsaw. Odds and ends tend to crack and spit a lot I have noticed, but he lit the fire and settled down with a bottle and a glass on the floor beside my comfy cushion so I curled up there too. Hopeful of a half hours fuss, or a Bonio, or better still..... both! Things were going well as we shared a moment of bonding. You know, Owner and K9 thinking as one. Well, the fire did a very good crackle at this point and I leapt forward without thinking and jumped on his lap....... which unsettled his glass..... which knocked over his bottle........ which fell on his Winnie the Pooh mug...... which split into two halfs........which spilled his cold tea from this morning all over the carpet...... which mixed with his wine on the carpet and made a right old mess! Now his cheap £3.99 bottle of Asda home brand "Dry White Wine" has immediately become a £15 bottle of chablis and has joined his Winnie the Pooh mug on the tab he is running for me. I suspect that the hire of a carpet cleaner will yet be added to that. Unable to earn in my own right I may have to conspire to get enough on to his tab to offset my own. I will keep you informed as to my progress.

The Hedge Munching Dinosaur

I have this morning encountered a dinosaur! And I would like to point out that although there are those who have been heard to mutter in disparaging tones that The Owner is a bit of a dinosaur, on this occasion it wasn't him. I had heard Tractor Driver Hoomun out in the fields since early this morning doing things. I have never managed to work out what he is meant to be doing or how he gets away with what he actually does do out there. He drives his tractor out into a perfectly good green field and then thrashes around for a while, and by the time he leaves there is not a blade of grass to be seen!! Now I have seen The Owner get in a frightful bait with Small Boy when he has been riding his bike around the lawns at the old cottage and just left a few tyre tracks across the lawn so how Tractor Driver Hoomun has managed not to get Farmer Hoomun in the same frame of mind over his efforts I am somewhat mystified. The good bit about Tractor Driver Hoomun is that when he stops for his lunch he tends to leave crusts laying about and I can avail myself of them later on patrol. Anyway, I digress. I could hear Tractor Driver Hoomun doing things in the fields behind the new cottage so I sat on the lawn making a mental note as to where I thought he was going for reference when on patrol later. I could hear him working his way down the field and then turn across the back of the hedge that runs all the way across behind the cottage. He was making lots of noise out there when suddenly, a dinosaurs head appeared over the top of the hedge and began to eat the hedge!!! Although I have to say he ate it in a lovely straight line across the top from end to end. I also noted that the dinosaur was a very messy eater as he spat most of what he tried to eat all across the lawns. I know this from first hand experience because until I moved out of the way a lot of it was coming in my direction! I think, with that much mess, he will be needing a rubber mat much larger than the one my dish is on indoors. I decided to go indoors, quickly, just in case I get the blame for either the mess on the lawns or the hedge which was now much shorter than before. Now, where is that new box of Bonios?????

Trouser Trumps and Botty Burps

After the days start not going so well with the whole jumping in the bath thing from The Owner, I was hopeful of better things to come. Well, water mopped up and buckets emptied his mood was beginning to thaw a little and a cup of tea was poured and he came and sat on the carpet next to my comfy cushion to drink it. I was in for a pleasant half hour again I thought as I drifted off into slumber. Well you know how when you drift off to sleep, there comes a stage where the muscles all relax and you are just about aware of what is going on around you but can't really be bothered? Well, I was vaguely aware of a slightly strange sensation in the nether regions but ignored it until The Owner jumped up and started yukking and phewing very loudly and appeared to be a different colour than when last I saw him in the light of day. It would appear that in my semi slumber state I had let out a bit of a botty burp.... whilst my botty was, kind of, well, snuggled up against his leg really. He flounced around the kitchen for ages after that spouting nonsense about fresh air being in short supply round here this morning. Although it is fine for him to dispense with the botty burps and move straight on to the full on trouser trumps, followed by "Oooooooooooooh scuuuuuuuse meeeeeee!" As if that makes it any better or any less toxic than my own were. This was lining up to be a very long day, even by my standards.

Washing The Bathroom Floor

The Owner was up early this morning and in surprisingly good humour. However, I think I may have changed that. He made himself his morning tea and fed me and was unfazed by the lack of milk and his need to retrieve a slightly solid pint of milk from the freezer that lurks in the shed and growls at anyone who goes near it. He brought his mug of tea, made with lumps of frozen milk, and sat down on the carpet beside my comfy cushion and ruffled my fur as he watched the telly. Apart from a few derogatory comments sent in my general direction whilst he was watching an item about a very large slug, it was an overall pleasant half an hour. With much sighing and puffing he got up off the floor to take his mug back to the kitchen then turned to the bathroom to run his bath. There was a general comment hurled at me about still being curled up and still asleep, suggesting that it was time I went out on early morning patrol of the perimeter. Whilst he faddled around in the bathroom I ventured outside and down into Dingly Dell. After so much rain of late, imagine my excitement that there was actually water flowing along the bottom of the stream bed, so I went rushing back to find The Owner. I felt he would have been pleased too. Across the lawn I raced, around the big tree that he has his washing line tied to and down on to the concrete path. I jumped the gully and over the door mat at the back door. I was really getting a good head of speed going here as I went through the back door, along the hallway where I sleep and in to the bathroom at a fair rate of knots. This was where it went slightly wrong. Well, OK, so it all went completely wrong at this point. The Owner was bent over stirring his bath a little to get a few bubbles going and I was going a touch too fast to stop in the space available. I was cold and wet and my nose was even more so, The Owners legs and bum were not! This seemed to induce a response far more excessive than was warranted in my opinion as he launched himself into the bath. There was much splashing and bubbles and water were going every where! I thought "he was not going to be very pleased about that!" and do you know what? I was right! I think he must have got soap in his eyes or something. He is now in there grumbling and surrounded by lots of towels, all wet, and several buckets, all full. Well the floor was getting a bit dirty anyway and needed a good wash down. He does seem to be glaring in my direction quite a lot, I think I may keep out of the way for a while.

My Hair in His Phone

The thunderclap hasn't happened yet, but I think I am in trouble....twice! This afternoon The Owner was talking on his phone, when it stopped working. I don't do phones as they seem to be just trouble as far as I can see, judging by the way The Owner shouts at it or about it. But I could tell trouble was brewing when it stopped working. There was much angst as he tried in vain to get the recalcitrant device to show any signs of life. He gave up in the end and we came home. He then tried plugging it in to the charger unit as he told no one who cared that it may have a flat battery. Still no signs of life. Next step was to pull the cover off and explore its insides and I knew that this was going to end in trouble, so I chose that moment to go up the garden. When I came back The Owner called me, so I came bounding in in the hope of a Bonio. He had that strange expression on his face as he held his phone aloft and extracted much of my hair from within his phone in a very exaggerated fashion. He also pulled out what he told me was a SIM card and put it on the small table along with his battery..... and my hair. I naturally had to investigate a little with a quick sniff of the table. A short while later The Owner is getting a little frantic as he doesn't seem able to locate the SIM card which seemed to be important somehow. I joined in his search a little to try and locate the missing SIM card. It was at this point that he started staring at me and appeared to be laughing. It would appear the errant SIM card had become stuck to my nose and I have absolutely no idea how. Unusually I was not in immediate trouble but I feel sure it will come. Oh yes, and the phone, minus my hair, is now working and trilling every few minutes as normal again. I think I shall give the badger poo a miss tonight. Don't want to antagonise him further.