Pets – Page 5 – onetruekev

Surgery

No sooner had I finished and posted last week’s update on working from home, than I was distracted again by goings on in the garden. The cat seems to be on some new kind of drugs as he’s become very energetic these last couple of weeks. (It could be he’s just leeching off the energy I’m not using.) There he was pouncing, jumping, leaping and batting a poor mouse all around the garden. At one point throwing it up in the air so high it flew over the washing line. We open the back door and it looks up and runs in at top speed to eat. At which point the dog wanders out to investigate the dead mouse, but somewhat miraculously he didn’t eat it. Helen retrieved it and put it in the bin to prevent more playing with it. The cat meanwhile was panting more than the dog; the strenuous exercise obviously didn’t suit him. I know the feeling.

It’s not just the humans and pets that are struggling to cope with the confinement. One of the glasses committed suicide, just flinging itself onto the kitchen floor from the sideboard when there was no one near it. The bananas had escaped from the fruit bowl and given it a push, but it certainly woke me up. I hadn’t realised I was sleeping with my eyes open staring at a spreadsheet.

And why did I have the theme from “Heidi” playing on repeat in my head?

The daily safety message was about “Binge Sitting”; I think I can safely say this applies to me. I’ve been in the office chair at the kitchen table for so long now without moving, that it has claimed me as one of its own, and it now goes everywhere with me. When we exit lockdown I am going to need it surgically removing from my backside. It does make things difficult when I go to sit on the sofa instead. I’m far too fat to be able to bunny-hop the chair onto the sofa a-la BMX style.

I wasn’t particularly with it Friday morning. I spent ten minutes looking at the screen wondering why it was such a rubbish picture before I realised I hadn’t turned it on and I was staring at my reflection.

I was reflecting on closing down for the weekend and noticed that Helen seems to get a lot of calls scheduled in for after four on a Friday, and that I had two booked in before ten on Monday. This leads me to believe that we have a lot of sociopaths working for the company, and that these times shouldn’t be blocked out with meetings. They should be set aside to allow people to finish off anything outstanding for one week, and to set up everything needed for the forthcoming week. Instead of finishing an hour late or starting an hour early, impinging on the weekend.

A new sturdy folding table turned up at the weekend to replace the wall desk DIY catastrophe. The only assembly was to add the leg lengtheners. So far so good, the table is still standing.

In the past week we should have had two outings that have been postponed. We were due to be going to see Simple Minds at the Brighton Centre, but that has been put back to February 2021. I have played the greatest hits play list in its place. Then there was the Gin and Rum festival. That has been put back until October. We haven’t recreated this at home, we don’t have enough variety. Plus it’s probably for the best as I have developed a bit of an allergy to alcohol.

Therefore for entertainment I’ve taken to trying to embarrass the dog to the extent he slinks off to another room. It’s surprisingly easy to do – just dance. When I start to dance round the kitchen or living room, the dog looks at me as if I’ve come from another planet, then looks plaintively at Helen as if to say ‘can’t you stop this lunacy’ before skulking off to another part of the house or garden where he can’t see me, much like an embarrassed teenager. Much to my amusement of course. How cringe worthy must a person’s dancing be to shame a dog into leaving the room?

Reading continues apace, seven more books this week, and more old maps of Leicestershire have turned up during the week. Jigsaw output has relaxed a little, it took a couple of days to transfer the Old London map one into the frame, and the jigsaw world app didn’t take quite so much of a beating either. Sporcle however did have a bit of resurgence this week. A couple of hundred quizzes added to the total, and a dozen new badges. Not quite the three hundred quizzes a day I was doing at the beginning after James and Richard introduced me to it when they first started up in recruitment and we were on our own bank of desks at the top of the office. Writing, apart from the blog piece, has reduced to a small drip feed of odd sentences (in all senses of the word odd). With no change of environment available it is stifling the writing flow. It should be easier with nowhere to go, but I’m filling my time doing pretty much anything apart from writing.

Work is somewhat monotonous; it’s like déjà vu all over again. It is like Groundhog Day here, only without the chance of getting with Andie McDowell at the end (mores the pity). So, what comes to mind is Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat, and I’ve come up with a new version of it – Change, Key, Load, Report, which is what it seems we are doing all the time now.

So there was this Katya who was like kicking off

I don’t know what she was on about

But it was urgent

Like really urgent

All hands on deck

And then the cat walked in

The fat whining cat

Stood at the door

Wanting to go out again

Then

You know in came the dog

Damn cats and dogs

Ooh look squirrel

It wasn’t a squirrel

Someone skyping

And I don’t know what they really wanted doing

All they kept saying was

Change, key, load, report

Suddenly I find I’m on the phone

Trying to get my point across

But I don’t

I’m just wasting

I’m just failing

I’m just hoping

I’m just shouting

I’m just swearing

I’m just repeating

Yes maam

No maam

Three bags

Full maam

Change, key, load, report

WFH Continues

So, lockdown continues (well for sane people it does, but they appear to be in the minority in this country), and so does working from home. It seems somewhat ironic to be writing about working from home when I’m on a day off. It seemed a great idea at the time to book the day before and day after Easter off as leave to extend it to a six-day weekend. That was before all the madness started, and it’s now an extended break of looking at places we can’t go and visit.

I’m typing this up on my own laptop, sat in the place I sit when I am working from home. After the third week of it I can safely say, I’m still not a fan. I doubt I’ll ever be a fan. It’s not the isolation I miss, not having to see people on a daily basis is great, if only I didn’t have to speak to them or communicate in any way at all it would be perfect. It’s the environment. It’s home, and no matter how you try and dress that up, it’s never going to change.

I find myself absently looking out over the back garden and to the park beyond. One day last week I spent an inordinate amount of time watching a tree surgeon coppicing a tree in the park. Like a monkey he moved from branch to branch wielding his chainsaw. The bottom of the back garden has seen various landscape changes. One by one the holes in the fences caused by February’s storms and the crazy dog’s attentions have been filled, with the last hole plugged last weekend as the neighbour put up their panel that had blown down. It’s now safe to let the dog out unsupervised.

I have been noticing what the cat does as well. Being doorman to the furry pest I get to see him make his way down the garden to escape to freedom. He has a routine. He jumps over the low side hanging stem of the rose bush at the top of the path. He jumps rather than go around it as that means going onto the grass. When he gets to the end of the path he stops and looks around for a bit, then it’s a leisurely jog down to the bottom of the garden to sit on the stump of the tree that was cut down a couple of years ago. He sits there contemplating whether to leave the property. Then he turns and has a look down the side of the shed; comes around it and looks at the mess of a fence covered by chicken wire where the dog has been trying to get into next door to eat the bread they leave for the birds. He then turns and scratches a discarded patio tile. After sharpening his claws, he makes a dash across the garden and hides under the bush halfway down the other fence. And finally, he goes back to the bottom of the garden and leaves.

He has been a poor confused cat the last couple of weeks though, as with the fences being mended his open access to the park beyond has been cut off, and the poor old fella has seen every walk out route become blocked. He now has to jump up the fence to get out. As it isn’t fully secured it wobbles a bit as he does so before he jumps back down on the other side to freedom. Fortunately, the dog hasn’t figured out how wobbly the gate panel is, as if he rushed it, he could easily knock it over.

Inside the house the layout has changed as well, Helen is no longer working from the kitchen table. We finally got around to putting up the wall mounted desk in the spare bedroom. It had only taken two years between buying it and putting it up. Mainly because I’m a cack handed danger when it comes to DIY, and I’ve been putting off having to drill holes in a wall and attach something to it. The desk that came out of the box bore no resemblance to the one we thought we had bought, and it was heavier than remembered. The desk is in place, and Helen is using it quite happily, but it doesn’t stay plush to the wall, and if it were not for the T support it may well come away from the wall. There will be no way it would support my usual work pose of heavily laden elbows on it holding my head in my hands at the idiocy appearing on my screen.

The commute to work gets no easier. I have taken to managing to avoid the sudden warm downpour every morning on the way downstairs, it has dwindled down to two or three times during the working week. The beard has grown quite wild and is getting to Grizzly Adams proportions. It will have to be hacked off if necessary before it gets to full on hipster style. My jeans are looking at me forlornly each morning as if to say, “give us a break – you’re wearing us out with this everyday malarkey”. Which is fair considering they are now in use seven days a week instead of just three. I feel as if I am well on the way to a full-on hobo look. I think the next step will be the acquiring of a shopping trolley, and the change in storing clothes in drawers to a collection of mismatched carrier bags.

Roll on (not the deodorant mind you, that’s totally against hobo rules) a return to a normal working environment, where it actually feels like I’m at work and I can concentrate on work and I can see the interruptions ambush coming, instead of skype surprising me. (Fortunately for everyone concerned the camera is covered.)

At least I know that on my own laptop typing this I can’t get interrupted by the biggest pest know to man (and woman).

What now Katya?

D’Ya Like Dags

D’ya like dags? Many people have heard me say this line many times. Well, my answer is the same as always. NO.

I have mentioned my love of the film Snatch before, and I’ve recently written about storms taking out back fences, side fences, front fences, defences and offences; and how with open ground to the back of the house Charlie is in wonderland. Well, when he goes out to do his business, he has to have a guard go with him, and a lot of the time it’s me; because he has one eye on escape before he’s finished his business.

Wednesday night was no exception, he had a pee and was trying to sneak off down the side of the garden, but I headed him off. After midnight he’s scratching on the bedroom door and giving off a pitiful whine. So, I head down to let him out, stopping to put trainers on. And bless him, he did need the toilet, and as usual he’s waddling off down the garden as he poos. Far too easy for us to clean up if it’s all in the same place.

And then suddenly he’s not waddling, he’s running and off out the back and into the parl. With me in pursuit. Now, I mentioned I’d stopped to put my trainers on, but not any other clothing, so there I am, one of the palest men in the world, in muddy trainers and purple boxer shorts, that are snug to say the least, chasing the effing dog round the park looking like a pikey. All that was needed to complete the scene was a burning caravan.

It was probably a good thing it was so late, there was no one out in the park and neighbourhood watch were in bed for the night; as there may have been the police knocking on the door to enquire about me giving the little old dear with binoculars down the street a heart attack.

Then sniffles joins the fun. There was no way he couldn’t have heard and seen my struggles getting Charlie back in the house. So, he waits until I’ve had the time to turn all the lights off and get back into bed before he starts with the cat’s chorus at the back door wanting to be let into the house.

I go to let him in, only to have to resort to dog wrangling to prevent damn Charlie getting back out. And after being let in the house and mewling to be let into one of the bedrooms how does the little pest repay us? By crapping on the duvet during the night. If anyone wants a cat and a dog, please contact me, I know where you may be able to get one.

Escape (Definitely Not To Do With Pina Coladas)

If the question of the reincarnation of Harry Houdini came up, then I would probably say that it was a strong possibility he came back as Charlie. Despite appearing to be lacking in most senses, his determination to try and escape is undiminished.

Over the last couple of years he has managed to almost destroy one back gate. Knock a panel out of the secondary back gate to try and get out. Enlarged holes in next door’s fence on three separate occasions. On the other side he has determinedly removed slats from two fence panels. Then when faced with it being cable tied and having chicken wire over the “fixed” fence has chewed his way through the chicken wire on three separate occasions, each time it being thicker than the last as the old has been replaced and new layers put over the top. Still he has managed to wreck all the layers to try and create a hole through to next door.

The neighbour that side doesn’t help, as they randomly throw items of food out at the bottom of the garden; ostensibly for the birds, but the foxes are happy, and Charlie wants to join in with the feasting.

For the last few months, one of their fence panels on the other side of their garden has been down, and then the next garden along has two fence panels missing, and then that next garden has the bottom panels missing, so if Charlie can eat his way through the chicken wire and panels into next door he could escape into the park and off to cause chaos anywhere in Crawley. So we have to keep a close eye on his fence bothering.

But the last two weeks have made this more difficult. Storm Ciara blew down our back fence, giving the prize pest open access to the park. We managed to prop it back up and cable tie the gate(s) to it to prevent escape. Only for Storm Dennis to come along and rip the gates apart and take down the back fence again.

And that wasn’t all; it knocked down a fence panel on the other side of the garden in to the neighbour’s on the other side’s garden. They were missing two fence panels out into the park from Ciara, so now Charlie has multiple routes out of the garden. The chicken wired panel now looks like someone has taken an axe to it, and with that side now also missing an end fence panel, and a second panel down to the next garden, there are three routes he could take to escape.

We did try to block the direct route out the bottom of our garden. Not that he is that keen to get the required trench foot that walking through the swamp down there would bring about to his mud attracting sponge feet. The propped up fence lasted approximately two hours before the wind took it away again. We’ve propped some old patio decking up against the hole Charlie has created in the chicken wire, but he knows there is still another way of escape.

And so we now have to resort to standing out in the back garden whenever the call of nature takes him out there. As soon as he starts migrating to an escape route he is reminded we are watching him. He knows we are, as he spends more time looking over his shoulder than an escaped prisoner at a police convention. Hoping that for a split second we aren’t watching him so he can make his move.

The rattle of cat biscuits in their box just about keeps him inside the border of the garden, but until such time as all the storms calm down to the point we can get all the fences fixed, then there is a chance he will manage to pull off a Houdini act and terrorise the neighbourhood.

So if anyone sees a wild eyed loony looking black and white springer spaniel roaming the streets of Crawley, then you will have met Charlie. He will be staring at you trying to show that his mind control works as he repeats the words “feed me” at you.

Pevensey

Saturday morning comes around too quickly again. With no writing for, or any other plans in the household, it left an opening for a day out somewhere. When the curtains were flung open and there was actual sunshine outside, it meant we could go somewhere that didn’t necessarily have cover.

One of the options for the previous Sunday had been Pevensey Castle, and it got promoted to the “A” location this week. I charged the camera and we got the car prepared, as we would be taking the whirlwind of doom – Charlie – with us. It’s a fair old trek down to Pevensey, but a third of our journey time was getting out of Crawley. It was a long slow trek up to the Pease Pottage junction of the M23. It looked fine as we turned to go past the K2, but we ground to a halt just beyond its entrance.

The lights on the roundabout were letting about three cars through at a time, and the two lanes merging into one were causing the queue. It wasn’t helped when we all had to try and part like the Red Sea to let a fire engine through. To what appeared to be a broken-down car behind the cones. I know the AA advertise themselves as the fourth emergency service, but there’s no need for broken down cars to call one of the first three out.

We pulled up a Pevensey Castle and Charlie nearly garrotted himself in trying to get out of the car. If it had been a higher drop down from the boot he would have been dangling.

Pevensey has had a fort on the site of the castle since Roman times, and it has been used, and updated through nearly every period in history since. The current village of Pevensey grew up to the east of the castle grounds; grounds which are pretty huge. The south east corner house the remains of the actual castle and its moat, but that only takes up a small fraction of the grounds surrounded by the outer walls.

The large grounds were a perfect area to let Charlie off the leash for a bit to have a run around. He was off investigating and sniffing every blade of grass he could. To enter the castle proper, he had to go back on the leash. The castle itself is in a fairly ruinous state, as comes to be expected when it comes to English Heritage properties. A few rooms in the towers were still intact, and Charlie wanted to investigate all of them. Alas with little or no heed to poor Helen on the other end of the lead. He was quite determined to try and drag her down several flights of stone steps. However once in a room, being a dog, he was less keen to stay in the rooms and look at any of the displays or information boards.

Only one of the towers was in a good enough state to allow visitors up to the top of it. It wasn’t that tall a tower, but it gave good views of the countryside all around the castle. What couldn’t be seen from the tower was the sea. Anyone knowing Pevensey today may think this is an obvious statement. Yet, one of the displays in the castle shows it being built on the coast. All the land of the salt marshes between the castle and the sea now has been reclaimed in the last four hundred years. Where the cliffs at Dover and the Seven Sisters are gradually eroding, the land in between them has been reclaimed from the sea.

After Charlie had tried owner-cide on every set of steps in the castle, I exited through the gift shop (guide book and fridge magnet – no pens), and we were back out into the grounds. We headed to what had been the Roman west gate, and out into what happens to be a different village – Westham (Latin name WestHamNil).

We walked past some lovely looking bowing Tudor cottages and through the churchyard of St Mary The Virgin church. A squat looking church with a stubby, but substantial tower. From what I could see from the outside, the church has some very nice intricate and colourful stained-glass windows. We carried on and headed back around the outside of the castle grounds’ walls.

It was a footpath that was still showing the signs of all the recent rains, and it appeared to be trying to revert back to being a salt marsh. It tried to claim one of my trainers on a couple of occasions – the downside of liking to wear slip-ons. Whilst trying to avoid some of the deep mud a tree by the path tried mugging me, catching hold of the camera strap and aimed to pull it out of the camera bag, almost adding me to the garrotting victims today.

The pub opposite the castle entrance and next to the car park advertised it as dog friendly, and so we went in to get some lunch. It may have been dog friendly, but the yappy little poodle, also called Charlie, wasn’t. The food was very nice, and the time spent there meant that spongefeet Charlie had got most of the mud and damp out of his paws before getting him back into the car for the journey home. Which was a lot better than the outward journey, and it was another nice day out.

And Then There Were Two

Regular readers will be fully aware of the general lunacy around one of the three pets in our household. There have been numerous posts containing madness and mayhem relating to the dog from heck (like a milder version of hell, with only minor indiscretions) – Charlie. It may not be so obvious that there are two cats in the household as well, one male – Sniffles – who eats nearly as much as the dog and who looks permanently stoned, when he’s not laying in the middle of the road cleaning himself; and a female – Willow – who has a purr volume akin to a jumbo jet, and likes swiping her claws at both of the others.

These are the first pets that I’ve ever lived with, having managed to avoid having any pets until I was forty six; I inherited three when moving in with Helen. Dogs have always scared me; some of my earliest childhood memories are of dogs appearing as if out of nowhere and biting me. And I’ve been indifferent to cats. I’ve never really noticed how entertaining it can be watching them.

Willow is the one that does some of the strangest things. She acts as if everyone and everything is there purely for her own amusement. Mainly fluff she would gracefully appear on tables, over fences, upon beds in a fluid and silent way. She would bring dead birds, shrews and mice to the patio. She would bat the dog around the nose if he wagged too close to her. She would start the punch up with her brother. She was the fussy one, only wanting to eat if the bowl was in the right place, a place that would change from hour to hour. She would turn her little nose up at something she had been eating just seconds before. The one who would find a spot in the house and use it as her personal toilet.

Yet the thing that was the oddest would be her coming into the living room, slowly making her way behind the TV, along the radiator, across to the coffee table, onto the sofa, and then up on to the back of it, walk around it before settling down directly behind me, turning on the thunderous purring and start to lick the back of my head.

She had become even fussier with her food recently, hardly eating at all. Not even tempted with tuna or smoked salmon. Multiple flavours and makes of cat food, even her favourite crunchy little biscuits. Even if she did eat it was only a tiny amount. She was going out less and less, and only ventured upstairs to pee on the bath mat. And she suddenly felt much lighter and bony.

So last Saturday, after having worried quite a bit about her, Helen took Willow to the vet. And it wasn’t good news; she had lost about twenty percent of her weight in quite a short period of time. There was a hard lump in the intestines that was causing Willow pain, and would have been making her not want to eat. They gave her a steroid injection and some special regenerative food. They also gave options of what could be done.

Willow took to the food quickly and ate well and often once the injection had kicked in. However, eating and lying on the kitchen table was all that she was doing. There wasn’t anything else happening. She just wasn’t herself. Helen was left with a choice of what to do for the best. An operation had been mentioned, but there would be no guarantee on being able to remove the tumour or a recovery. The steroid injection had worked with a view to reducing pain and enabling her to eat, but there was no other normal life being shown. There could be regular injections, but that just seemed cruel.

So with sorrow it was decided it would be best to have little Willow put down. And so an appointment was made with the vet for last night. When the cat carrier appeared, so did a spark of her personality as she fought against being put into it. It is amazing how big a cat can suddenly become. On the short walk across to the vet she wandered around inside the carrier, unable to lie still as she had been doing most of the day outside of the carrier.

But once at the vet, and out of the carrier she was calm again, and lay on the table. She was examined again and the tumour was confirmed, and the vet double checked that putting her to sleep was what was wanted. There were a couple of minutes where the vet went to get the necessary items and then the procedure started. Using clippers some hair was removed from her right front leg. The noise of the clippers set off her renowned skittishness for a final time, but as soon as the clippers were turned off she was calm again. There was no sign of any struggle as the injection was made into the vein in her leg. And it was quick, and strange as she slipped away with one eye closed but the other wide open but suddenly empty.

Then it was on to the details that you don’t suppose you ever need to think about. What did we want to do with the remains? Did we want to make out own arrangements, or did we want the vet to arrange everything. I had never thought about there being a specific pet crematorium, but it made sense as there are pet cemeteries (or infamously pet sematary – Willow coming back as an evil soulless version of herself is something that would give you nightmares).

What did we want to do with the ashes? Did we want to have them to keep or scatter ourselves, or to have them scattered in the woodland around the pet crematorium? Who knew there were so many options? We left the vet to sort out the arrangements, with just the decision to make on the ashes.

Helen thought she was being silly by being upset, but why shouldn’t she be. Willow had been part of her family and household for twelve years. As I pointed out, that was longer than any relationship I’d ever had. It felt a bit odd carrying the empty cat carrier back home.

I’m not sure what my own feelings are, I’m fairly unemotional where death is concerned when it is human, so it is difficult to up that for pets. It’s a shame, but such is life. I’m just trying not to let my usual black humour come to the fore too much. (Saying that, when the vet was going through the options, I was thinking that perhaps in another country there may have been a line that said “yes, we will take care of it for you, I’d just advise not getting any local takeaways for a few days”.)

We wonder whether the other two pets will know or notice that Willow isn’t around anymore. Sniffles did look a bit more stoned and confused this morning and couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be in or out. Is he thinking to himself “where’s my sister?” He did appear to be looking around the house for her. Charlie is probably already bemoaning the fact that there was no cat food on the table that he could snaffle if no one was watching. Little does he know there won’t be any cat food going spare on the table going forward.

I will miss the little ball of fluff, even if it does mean there is no more guarding her whilst she is eating to prevent Charlie snaffling. No more of her appearing at the back door just seconds after you have closed and locked it, to bellow to be let in. No more waking up in the middle of the night to hear what sounds like a pneumatic drill on the bed and wondering how the hell she had got into the room. And no more being licked on the back of the head whilst watching TV.

Idiot Dog

Speaking of dogs and their olfactory senses.

We got home from work yesterday evening to find a bomb site of shredded cardboard and tissues on the living room floor.

It didn’t take long to find the cause of the carnage. Helen had bought some truffles and we’d had a couple each on the Sunday evening. Then I’d wrapped the plastic over on itself and put them back in the box, and resealed the box. Then I hid the box behind the box of tissues on top of one of the stereo speakers, next to the wall on top of the sideboard / bookcase unit.

This sealed box was five feet off the floor and a foot back from the front of the unit. Yet, during the day the damn dog had scaled the sofa and got up the front of the stereo and dragged the tissue box off the top and on to the floor. Then he’d got the truffle box and pulled that to the floor as well.

We got home to no truffles; two shredded cardboard boxes, various bits of plastic wrapping and shredded tissues everywhere.

And a manic dog who was “enjoying” having the dual effects of being under the influence and being on a massive sugar high.

Not content with this and his own food, in the two seconds it took me to hang my bag up the little sod was up on the kitchen table making a beeline for the cat’s food.

We let him out into the garden only to find he’s now managed to completely chew through a section of chicken wire, and pull slats out of the wooden fence and be happily wandering around in next door’s garden.

The hole is temporarily covered by old patio boards and the green bin.

Bleeding pest.

The Adventures Of Charlie and Teddy

As anyone who may have met him will know, the calamity that is Charlie is completely crazy.

For a long time he has been a very real menace to anything with stuffing in. Despite having being done at an early and appropriate age, he still gets the urge to shag the stuffing out of any cushion or pillow going. We can’t have cushions on the sofa in the living room because they don’t last more than a couple of days before Charlie has chewed all the corners off and then shagged all the stuffing out of the chewed corners.

For a long time he would find a way to break into the bedrooms, and when he did he would drag a pillow off the bed, or in to the middle of it and have his way with it. Having now installed handles on all doors that prevent him being able to force his way into bedrooms, he hasn’t been able to take his frustrations out in the usual manner.

Instead he had taken to tearing up the carpet upstairs and chewing the hell out of that. When there was no more carpet for him to wreck, he took to scrunching the rugs up and trying to shag them.

Therefore we thought it would be a good idea to go around the charity shops and see if we could find a large teddy bear. Which we did. We placed it next to his pile of blankets in the kitchen and left it for Charlie to investigate.

But, being an awkward sod, he didn’t. He ignored it for over five months. Therefore we moved it next to the front door to take back to a charity shop when it got around to being the weekend. Only to find the next day that Charlie had decided it was time to become friends with Teddy.

Close friends.

So over the last three weeks Charlie has built up an ongoing physical relationship with the teddy. He’s chewed holes in the ears, and all the stuffing has escaped from there. One of the arms has a hole in it as well now and is losing its stuffing at a steady pace and becoming withered. Every day we find another little bit of stuffing lying on the rug in the living room. And we frequently find Charlie laying in an exhausted heap panting like a loon.

Well, this evening, Charlie surpassed himself.

There I was, sitting at the kitchen table shelling peas. One for me, and one for the pot. When all of a sudden I can hear Charlie doing his puffing billy routine and I see him moving gingerly out of the corner of my eye. He is slowly trying to make his way out of the back door, struggling to cross the threshold.

Then I see the reason why. Trailing behind him, hanging by one ear between Charlie’s rear legs is Teddy. Charlie is looking back over his shoulder at me with a baleful look on his face. He is screaming help me, but not making a sound.

Upon closer inspection, Charlie has his penis stuck through one of the ears of Teddy and can’t seem to get himself free. He is all swollen and purple and unable to leave Teddy behind. Teddy is being dragged slowly across the patio and on to the lawn.

All that I can think of is the joke. Why did the pervert cross the road? Because he couldn’t get his cock out of the chicken.

Therefore I’m not doing a particularly good job of trying not to laugh, and Helen is a bit worried about how to disentangle Teddy from Charlie’s appendage. There is a reluctance to cut Teddy’s ear off, as scissors near Charlie’s bits are a recipe for disaster. Perhaps some water would help lubricate matters, and so Helen goes off to get some, just at the moment Charlie finally manages to break free from the overly attached Teddy.

I pick Teddy up and put him back in the living room on the table and return to shelling peas (I did wash my hands first). Charlie still has a pained look on his face, or does in the brief interludes he looks up from licking his slightly distended penis. After a good ten minutes of licking his bits he finally manages to get back on his feet and hobbles slowly back inside the house.

Only for him to be found in the living room near to where Teddy is suddenly back on the floor.

There really is no hope for the daft dog.

Cat Lick

I twas an expression that was well used back when I was child, but I didn’t think I would ever actually get around to having a cat-lick wash.

As is well documented, the pets in our house aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the box. Speaking of boxes it would be fair to say they are as mad as a box of frogs, yet there seems there is always a new height they can take their lunacy to.

It was the turn of Willow this time. The skittiest kittie on the block. No rustle of paper is too small not to send her running for the door. Yet at the same time, she’s more than happy to swipe the dog across his muzzle if he inadvertently walks by her.

She often comes and takes over the pouffe of an evening and will resort to licking feet in order for you to move them off her pouffe. However, things look a bit different in the living room this weekend. The pouffe is now coverless and a different colour as Helen uses it as a practical work for her upholstery course. Then there is the newly arrived Christmas tree and its decorations. The room looks a little different and is obviously confusing the poor cat.

So much so that she decided her new spot to lounge around would be on the back of the sofa just behind my head. Sat there she turned on the purring machine, generating more decibels than a 747. It’s a good job I don’t need to listen to the TV to know what’s happening in the American Football.

And then it started. It would appear Willow had mistaken the back of my thick head for a kitten, and she proceeded to start licking. The whole of the back of my head. The little rough tongue sandpapering the short hairs with great gusto. Five minutes it lasted, with Willow even turning around so she could do the far side of my head that she couldn’t reach from her original position.

It was the strangest sensation, ended only because there was movement to leave the room from Helen (who was pissing herself laughing) and therefore the possibility of food. I’m not convinced I want a cat-lick wash again.

Ups And (South) Downs

Go out for a walk they said, so up on the South Downs they said, it’s a lovely afternoon for taking the dog for a walk.

It was; which was why we were heading for the Jack and Jill windmills. They weren’t as busy as the Ditchling Beacon car park, which for the last three attempts to take the dog out there, had been completed full when we’d arrived and we’d had to divert off elsewhere for a walk.

However, unknown to us, this particular Sunday was an open day at the windmills, so the Jack and Jill car park was rammed, as was every inch of grass verge halfway down the hill. It was failure number one. We headed for Ditchling Beacon instead, in the hope that if the world and their wives were at Jack and Jill, there would be space at Ditchling.

We only got to the bottom of the hill to find the road up to the top closed to vehicular transport. It was the London to Brighton charity bike race / event. Rather than try for a third place somewhere on the downs we abandoned the car in the car park at the bottom of the hill.

The footpath up the hill was discarded in favour of the road. If it was shut to traffic it would be safe enough to walk up. We let Charlie off the lead, mainly due to not having roller skates, so pulling me up the hill wasn’t an option.

A lot of the cyclists were pushing their bikes up the hill. I didn’t blame them, if I’d ridden from London I wouldn’t be attempting to walk up the damn hill, it’s steep as fuck. An occasional cyclist would pass us, not going very quickly, but determinedly grinding their way up the hill to say that they cycled the whole route. There were signs at various points up the hill to motivate the cyclists. If I’m honest the one half way up saying “you are halfway” is rather demotivating, as you just think, “Shit, I’ve got the same amount to climb again”. I think that some of the cyclists felt the same, especially the ones Charlie ran in front of.

Although the road was officially closed, it didn’t apply to the support vehicles, which surprised us a couple of time silently gliding down the hill, meaning we had to try and get hold of Charlie.

No matter how many times I looked up to my right, the top of the hill never appeared to be within reach. And then all of a sudden you round the penultimate corner and there it was. A hubbub of cyclists who had already made the top were hanging around to wait for others from their particular groups to reach the top. Cheering them and any other cyclist up to the final turn and the high point of the climb.

It has to be pointed out that the only cyclist that passed us going up the hill at any rate of knots appeared not to be wearing a race number. It was reminiscent of the recent TV advert where the lycra clad Brits are crawling up the hill dragging their top of the range bikes, crying, as the local Frenchman rides past them with ease on an ancient bike.

At the top of the hill Ditchling Beacon car park was pretty much empty, apart from a couple of support vehicles and a line of portaloos. Disappointingly there was no ice cream van. Someone had missed a trick there. Eight thousand cyclists up a bitch of a hill would be crying out for cold refreshments at the top. I certainly was and I’d only walked up the hill slowly.

On top of the downs Charlie could chase the ball to his heart’s content, but he appeared much more interested in hiding the damn thing in the deepest grass he could find. Most of it was deep enough to hide himself as well.

Once bored of playing find the damn ball we headed back to the car park and back down the hill. Cyclists were still slowly making their way up the hill. Their questions of “how much further to go?” were either answered kindly by Helen with “not much further”, or sadistically by me with “only another six miles to go”.

Despite this we made it down the hill unscathed. Both by irate cyclists or the sneaky support vehicles coasting up behind us only to beep and make us jump out of our skin.

Next time, we really do need to check if there is anything going on before we head to the downs. Or I need to learn how to stay upright on roller skates so that Charlie can pull me up the hill, and then I can roll down myself.

We did get an ice cream, but it was in a packet and from the Sainsbury’s local in Hassocks. Not quite the same.