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!

The Water Table

Forgive the slight blur on my picture but I thought it leant itself to a better image of frantic action, which there was! I was becoming a bit concerned about the continued lack of water in the pond and particularly after listening to The Owner the other night so I felt a more thorough search of the pond for the leak was in order. One evening last week The Owner was looking out of the window, glad that the rain was providing a further excuse not to get out and cut the lawns, when he sighed as he poured himself another very large sherry and said, "Well at least it will lift the water table enough to help the ponds!". Now I've sat and thought about that and I've snoozed whilst contemplating that, but try as I might I cannot get my head around it. How on earth do you build a table out of water?!?!? And how will that help the pond?!?!?!? And how do you lift a table made only of water???!?!? I think I need to select a particularly succulent Bonio and take to my bed for another nap whilst I consider this further. Still haven't found the leak in the pond though.

The Hussy comes to Visit

The other night, just before we went home for my tea, The Keeper from the farm, who is my mate, arrived to go and do his evening patrol of the farm. No need for him to do it as well, I do enough patrolling for the both of us but he seems to need to feel he's doing something constructive. On this occasion he had brought his little spaniel bitch who smelled particularly gooooood! Well, god forbid! The bitch was all over me! The Owner had to drag her off me!!!!! I kinda wished he didn't but you know how these owners get sometimes. So he took her back and put her in Keepers car and then had to drag me home. Man, did he grumble that night. I just wanted to go back and see if she was still up there looking for me! The following morning, when it was time for work, now I know what you're going to say, "let him open the door first", but I was so keen to get down to the farm and wait to see if the hussy turned up again that I ran straight into the front door as soon as The Owner put his hand on the latch to open it. I did have to stagger a bit whilst I regained my composure before I was ready to meet the world. Of course The Owner had no sympathy, he kept going around with his finger pressed against his nose and laughing at me. I think he looked like a camel! I spent the rest of the day watching in case she came back to see me. My friend Keeper is not so much my friend now, he turned up to patrol the farm the following night without her! Well he can patrol his own farm himself without my assistance from now on, I think he walks like a camel too!