I am not impressed today! Yesterday, someone who had hitherto been my friend, nominated ME for the ice bucket challenge. I will now be joining Barney K9, when next I visit, to leave a little present on the lawn I think. I had the feeling that it was really The Owner she had meant, but she definitely said Jack Labrador. That was all the ammunition he needed to form a little plot in his mind. So this morning, before breakfast, unaware of what exactly an 'ice bucket challenge' involved, I had had my wee on the roses (yuk and phew) and was sat in the middle of the lawn contemplating nothing in particular when I hear The Owner puffing and wheezing his way along the path behind me. When suddenly, there was a deluge of ice cold water thrown over me. When I turned round (quickly), he was grinning from ear to ear and fumbling to try and get his camera taking a picture of me. "There you are Jack!" he said triumphantly. "At least you have done it now." Forgive me if I am missing the point here, but what exactly had I done, apart from get very wet and cold? I went back inside contemplating exactly how much worse the day could have got, dribbling water from my coat as I went, when my question was answered for me as he whisked me off my feet and dropped me into a warm bath!!!! "There you are Jack!" he said, "That'll make you feel much better!". Well I am sorry if I sound ungrateful, but I felt perfectly fine until some oaf dropped a bucket of icy water over me, and to cap it off he then dries me off with his comedy duck beach towel and records the event for posterity. Feeling inspired by his effort he is now outside chasing Barney K9 round the cricket pitch armed with another bucket of water, however Barney K9 saw the result of his earlier efforts and is having none of it. His long lead has become entangled with the electric fence in the course of his efforts to escape and whilst Barney K9 is not feeling it because it is either earthing out before it gets as far as him or he is just too dense to notice. When The Owner does catch up with him he may well grab the lead and then.... Oh there was the shout! Yes The Owner has just stopped smiling and will be in momentarily looking a little less perky.
Following on from yesterdays post concerning The Owner backing himself neatly into a corner so that he has to go and play a round of golf an a 'non-tropical' tropical monsoon.
We cut a lonely furrow as The Owner's golfing partner, resplendent in the very latest waterproof technology outfit, and The Owner, also resplendent but only in his very wet brightly coloured jumper and Rupert Bear trousers, made their way across the golf course to start their round of golf. My mate Barney K9 and I ambled reluctantly along behind as the loud guffaws emanating from the warm dry clubhouse slowly became drowned out by the sound of heavy rain falling on sodden grass and on my equally sodden back and head. We arrived at the first tee and The Owner tipped the water out of his big heavy bag full of golf bats and selected one to start his game with. Half way down the fairway (are you impressed with my detailed knowledge of the golfing terminology?) there was a big old thorn tree which my mate Barney K9 and me felt would offer a little protection from the monsoon currently driving across the golf course. The Owner wildly flailed at the ball, which landed somewhere above my mate Barney K9 and me in the thorn tree and slowly worked its way down through the branches until it went plop in the puddle. So Barney K9 picked it up and we carried on our waiting activities sat underneath the tree. Eventually The Owner and his Golfing Buddy Hoomun arrived and spent quite a long while shuffling around in the grass as if they were looking for something. Barney K9 and I wandered on and found shelter at the next green sitting in a deep sandy bunker. Shortly after, a golf ball landed in the sand at my feet, so I picked it up this time. Eventually, The Owner arrived and appeared to be looking for something in the grass near the green. I'm not sure what but he never found it. He went and tipped the water out of his bag he keeps his golf bats in, which had filled for the second or third time so far and extracted another new gold ball and carried on his game with an increasing sense of despair about his general demeanour. I managed to pick up a second ball in my mouth and Barney K9 managed to get three in. The Owner tipped the water out of his bag again and produced another new ball announcing that this was his "last ball!". Barney K9 and I wandered, dripping with water, to the next green and took up our vigil again. The Owner swung wildly at the ball, which was partly submerged in water on the tee and managed to connect to it in a very fine manner as the ball tracked a particularly good pathway through the rain and landed with a resounding plop in the little hole in the middle of the green. I did wonder whether I should go and get it out for him but it was full of water and I was quite wet enough already thank you. Barney K9 also declined to help as he already had three in his mouth so we sat and watched as The Owner and Golf Buddy Hoomun, who didn't seem particularly humorous by now, searched through the long grass for the ball for quite a while for the ball before The Owner announced that he really had had enough golfing and he was out of balls too so they splished and splashed their way back to the club house. The Owner's humour grew darker when we got back as they made him sit on a plastic stool on a sheet of plastic as he was making a mess on the carpet dripping water from just about everything about him. Some very nice Lady Hoomun came and towelled Barney K9 and me down a little and put another towel near the fire which she lit for us to dry beside. I liked her! The Owner however was a quite pathetic figure sat, surrounded by plastic and sand bags, in the corner, sipping occasionally at a hot chocolate. He kept casting a sideways glance at Barney K9 and I. I am not sure if it was the fact that someone had towelled up off, or we had a fire to steam gently beside, or that the lady kept bringing us biscuits and he didn't get any of that. Or was it the little heap of golf balls on the towels beside us that irked him? When we got home his bag of golf bats was thrown to the very back of the shed and his jumper and trousers were thrown in to the washing machine and the door slammed shut in a particularly heavy handed way which left one with the sense that they weren't going to be dragged out again any time soon.
The Owner has had a busy weekend this weekend, but it was his own fault to be honest - and my mate Barney K9. He has been telling all his golfing chums how they are a bunch of sissies for not carrying on with their game when it starts to rain. His favourite line seems to be "Well your skin is waterproof!" and much to their annoyance he tells his chums this line at every opportunity like it was the first time in the history of hoomun kind that it had ever been thought of. Then he laughs very loudly so it is clearly one of his special jokes that no-one ever gets. However, his only incursion into the world of golf was not a resounding success really and he was asked to leave the golf course by a less that agreeable green keeper. I'm not actually sure why he was called a green keeper as he wasn't particularly green and my mate Keeper Hoomun wears scratchy tweed suits that smell particularly good if you ask me. Not that you did, but I thought it rounded the sentence off nicely. After much humourous banter on the part of The Owner that no one else found funny, and a few too many beers he rather neatly backed himself into a corner over the whole golf thing and he had to drag his very loud trousers and jumpers out of the wardrobe narrowly averting any disastrous discoveries of my misdemeanour's that may have been hiding at the back.
So his bag of golf bats safely in the car, The Owner, my mate Barney K9 and myself clambered into the car and headed to the golf course. I couldn't help but notice that the clouds coming over the hill were looking just the tiniest bit black and angry looking, but The Owner clearly hadn't noticed this fact and started as soon as he walked through the clubhouse door telling lots of hoomuns that he hoped they weren't going to let a little dribble of water prevent them from going out and playing their game. As the rains started to fall, it was The Owners turn to pick up his golf bats and head out onto the course. He was immediately trying to find some way of not going out there and told everyone that his old war wound (the one from the war he never fought in) was playing up and he didn't think he would be able to play today but the calls got louder from the hoomuns at the bar "But surely your skin is waterproof?". As did the claps of thunder from the storm clouds gathering overhead until he had to open the door and venture out onto the golf course. As the door opened, the light but threatening rain turned immediately into a tropical monsoon. Only without the tropical bit! Isn't it funny how his comeuppances are things which I am somehow compelled to join him with? No, I didn't think they were very funny either! My mate Barney K9 and I had found a square of carpet in the club house which was about our size, right underneath the table with the tea and biscuits on and fully intended to snooze the hour or two away whilst he got wet. He became very insistent that we had to join him, saying "If I have to get wet then so are you!" In a manner which gave me the impression there was little point arguing and so the three of us and another hoomun who appeared to have drawn the short straw and was chosen to accompany him and make sure he kept going to the end of the course.with no shortcuts. I will leave my laptop behind in the clubhouse and get it later when we return, wet I expect.
The Owner has had a bit of a grumpy Sunday... I think it is a phase he is going through! He has had a row with the Sunday papers and I was a bit worried as Barney K9 pinched the middle section of his paper and took it off up the garden but The Owner has neither got to the middle of his paper yet or found the remains of the missing pages up in the top of the garden.
At about lunchtime and after he had opened himself a beer left over from yesterdays adventures, we went on a short patrol and finished up at the studio. Having walked through the door I was a little miffed to see The Owner through the windows open and grab his Sainsbugs bags. The frame of mind he was in this morning the Sainsbugs bags could easily have meant that he was going to Tesco's or Morrissons but as he left me and Barney K9 in the studio with the words "I'm off to Sainsbugs, you two will be better left here." in an unusual show of concern for our well being.
He returned in a very unusually jovial frame of mind which means only one thing... he has found the bargain shelves well stocked. He struggled through the studio door laden with all kinds of goodies, including a fresh chicken and 'an exquisite Sancerre'. He also had another bag with wine bottles in I noticed and I can be fairly sure they will have been half price too. Having spent the remainder of the afternoon gainfully employed shouting at the computer we started our stroll home. For me, today has been remarkably blame free...so far. Barney K9 has to walk on a lead still but The Owner likes to give him a long lead. I don't need a lead (apart from the pub, pub rules), it's my breeding showing through I think you'll find! So we start the journey home with The Owner on one side of the road and Barney K9 on the other and the lead stretched between the two, and The Owner, laden with Sainsbugs bags loaded with the spoils from his foray to the shops. I was rather busy sniffing at stuff so was left a little behind and scampered up the road to catch them up a bit. This was the bit where my day turned a little awry to be honest. The Owner hadn't heard me arrive, it would seem, and as I leapt nimbly over Barney K9's long lead he flicked the lead a little. When I say 'a little' I really mean enough for me to jump straight into the lead which rather lead to the bag with all his wine bottles getting wrenched from his hands. Four bottles of wine to be precise, and all in pieces, and the lead still tangled around my legs meant there was no denying it, I had broken The Owners special offer wine bottles. Both Barney K9 and I had to sit and stay whilst The Owner cleared up the glass whilst casting some very disagreeable looks in my direction. I was anticipating short rations in the Bonio department this evening. So we eventually continued our journey homeward and that was when The Owner delivered the coup de grâce... on himself! Barney K9 decided it was a suitable opportunity to... well.....perform. The Owner noticed that he was performing a little too close to the lead so gave it a quick flick which neatly and deftly flicked Barney K9's recent deposit, caught in mid air, into The Owners bag with his bargain chicken in. Judging by the ferocity with which his bag of broken glass and all of his other shopping bags were thrown into the bins as we passed them I am guessing his chicken dish washed down with 'a fine Sancerre' may resemble more beans on toast washed down with a bottle of beer. An evening to keep a low profile I think. Me and Barney K9 will be behind the settee if anyone wants us.
My newest buddy, Barney K9, has a problem with flies. The Owner has a problem with his big toe and as improbably as it sounds, the two are connected. It is the season of the big noisy flies here in the cottage. The ones that sound like a squadron of Hercules C130's flying round the house and make one heck of a mess when The Owner chases one with a rolled up newspaper and makes contact. The paper is unreadable afterwards, the room requires redecorating and The Owner has a kind of primeval radiance about him having hunted and caught his foe. Last night, after patrol, The Owner poured himself a glass of 'something particularly fine' and took his Sunday paper up to the upstairs living room and flopped down into his beanbag. I settled down in my rightful position, at his side, and Barney K9 settled at his feet. Soon, Barney K9 was snoring gently, The Owner was busy getting agitated about something in the paper and I was watching one of these C130 style flies noisily circling the room. It was a picture of blissful normality at the cottage. This fly made a couple of practice dive bombs at The Owner which elicited a mild grumble and irritated flick of his foot in its general direction whilst Barney K9 snoozed on. On its next bombing run it flew a little lower and The Owner flacked his foot in further irritation when all of a sudden Barney K9, still half asleep, launched forth in a magnificent display of K9 defensive instinct. However his instinct was slightly less in tune with his targeting as slobber and gnashers made contact with the first thing it could get to. The Owner leapt up and papers went everywhere, along with his glass and its contents, whilst clutching his toe in an exaggerated display of agony worthy of any premier league footballer. Barney K9 finished his waking up and seemed somewhat surprised to find The Owners foot in his mouth.
Barney K9 took to his bed afterwards, I am unsure if that was just to keep out of The Owners way or whether he had picked up some lergy from The Owners foot. The Owner has been on the phone to the hospital demanding injections and has been into his emergency supply of bandages. He is now sporting a bandaged foot which will almost certainly mean a trip to the pub looking for sympathy from anyone daft enough to ask him what happened. He has now hacked a walking stick from the hedge and is looking for his keys. I hope he remembers which foot to hobble on for best effects when he gets to the pub.
You understand how it is sometimes, if you listen to enough babble, you eventually start to understand the nonsense that is being babbled. It is that way with The Owner and I. So it is also with spiders, we live in an old cottage, so old in fact that I even wonder whether The Owner remembers it being built! It is not excessive but we do have more than a few little tiny spiders creeping around the place and The Owner spends his evenings chasing them with the ruddy Dyson with a kind of menacing smile about his face. Either that or it could be wind I guess. Anyway, there is this one spider, I call him Wincie, and he lives in the cupboard under the stairs and all night long he babbles on as he makes elaborate webs by shooting things out of his bottom. I have tried that too but I didn't manage to make a web. In fact it all got rather messy to be honest! Over recent weeks Wincie Arachnoid has been very busy in the cupboard and has babbled a lot, so I have gained some understanding of the language of spider. Last night he was particularly busy building webs outside of the cupboard and I immediately sensed trouble. Building a web across any door way was not good, but to build one across a doorway through which The Owner was likely to emerge at some point was not a good plan in my view. So I ignored Wincie Arachnoid's ramblings and settled down to sleep. in the wee small hours I could here disturbings upstairs which really did make them the wee small hours and down the stairs grumbled The Owner. This meant I was about to be disturbed having moved in the night and was laying across the bathroom door. Having not switched any lights on as normal he made his way across the living room towards the kitchen door..... and walked right into a spiders web! There was a great deal of roaring and grumbling as The Owner got more and more tangled up in the web left by Wincie Arachnoid. Over the top of this noise I could also hear Wincie Arachnoid squealing with delight "Wheee! I've caught a hoomun!!! I've caught a hoomun!!! As he descended from his hiding place on another length of stuff coming out of his bottom I could hear him squealing "Its dinner tonight!".
The Owner spent much of breakfast time cleaning Wincie Archnoid off the wall with his Mr Muscle and a cloth and little now remains of the drama of last night.
I have kept very quiet this week so far. It is for the best.
At the weekend The Owner and I went to see Owner's Dad and Diesel Dog Daughter. We set off early but we went a different way to normal. He seemed to know where we were going so I settled down for a kip in the back of the car. After a little while I opened one eye and noticed we were at a place called Warmonster, I think. At least that is what The Owner has been calling it ever since and then laughing very loudly, so it could very easily be one of his jokes I suspect.
Well, when we got to Warmonster we pulled up outside this house and The Owner jumped out with great bonhomie and general good humour towards Young Lady Hoomun. I was evicted from my comfy corner in the back and The Owner started throwing great big concrete slabs in the back of the car. Well, he got five in and then stopped for a breather and I couldn't help but notice that his previous bonhomie was waning a little. Another five slabs and it had waned altogether and there were little beads of perspiration over his brow, so he closed the back door of the car and told his new found hoomun friend that he would return for the rest later.
We hadn't been gone very far before there was a huge bang at the back of the car, dried mud seemed to fall off the car and everything lurched to a precarious standstill. The Owner was looking a bit peekie at this point as he fumbled around trying to make a call on a recalcitrant mobile phone. The phone was having none of it and we finished up in a phone box. Now we have a phone box in the village, but ours is full of books and I am forbidden from going in there, so this was all a bit new for me. I am forming the opinion that phone box doors are there only to try and cut you in half when you are least expecting it.
The Owner's day appeared to be getting worse but fortunately none of it was my fault and indeed I was enjoying the role of pacifier and confidante as he ruffled my ears whilst he tried to work out what to do next. He said to me "We need to get these slabs off, Jack." Helloooo! Where is the 'we' suddenly arriving from in this scenario?? Then, inspiration struck, which unsurprisingly involved a pub! No more than 20 empty Bonio boxes laid end to end along the road and there just happened to be a pub, so he drove the car to the pub and went inside. He told the landlady hoomun, with a look so pitiful on his face that even I nearly felt sorry for him, that he really needed help and could he leave these slabs in her car park. So whilst I sat on the The Owners seat and watched, he unloaded all the slabs and the car looked a great deal better for it.
It was a warm and sunny day and through the pub garden ran a clear bright stream with tables and chairs dotted around the grass on either side of it and I was not at all disappointed when The Owner noticed and said "Come on Jack, I think we deserve a pint!" By 'we' he meant 'he', or at least 'he' would be getting the pint and I would be allowed to sit and watch, but it was a nice day and I was enjoying the time not being in trouble. We sat there watching the ducks on the little river, the sun was warm on my face and The Owner found someone new to talk to who was blonde and female (need I say more), so he was feeling a little better about earlier troubles. After half an hour of pleasantness all round The Owner got up off the grass beside the river where we had been sitting, and bid the lady hoomun a good day saying "We need to get the car back home now." Had I mentioned that I was on a lead? Well I was, I was on my best pub lead, which is a bit longer than my normal lead and the excitement of being back on our way again was perhaps a bit too much. I jumped up quick and bounced around a lot, I went once around The Owner and his new lady hoomun friend and made for the car at great pace. This was the part where the day took a downward turn to be honest. I felt a bit of a tug on the end of the lead and when I turned around I could see that The Owner and his new Lady Hoomun Friend were a lot closer together than they appeared to want to be.....with my lead wrapped around their feet.... which seemed to have caused them both to topple into the stream. Lady Hoomun seemed a little displeased, to the point where I must conclude she is not really normal, as she doesn't seem to enjoy jumping in rivers. The Owner emerged from the depths of the river with long strips of river weed draped around his shoulders like a super hero's cape and a face like thunder. I got the distinct feeling that all the K9/Hoomun bonding that had gone on earlier was evaporating quickly and his mornings troubles were all somehow my fault. So, as I said earlier, it was best I kept a low profile before the Crimean crisis somehow became my fault too.
