Oh dear! I did it again. I got into twubble, but twubble! I really want to say that it wasn’t my fault, but I think that, on this occasion, it might have been a little bit my fault. You see, last Sunday was such a nice day and I decided to take them to Tilgate Park for an hour or two. We all got in the car thingy (I didn’t mind because I was going somewhere rather good!) and went off. When we got there we discovered that quite a lot of other people had decided to go there too. There was an ‘event’ on in support of St Catherine’s Hospice. I did look up ‘event’ on Fidopedia but it is all a bit confusing – it says it is a ceremony (it wasn’t one of those), or a convention (it wasn’t one of those), or a party, or sport, or a happening (it wasn’t any of those), or maybe a festival … I think it was probably one of those. They did have dragon boat racing on the lake and they had music and food and a bar and lots of stalls selling things in aid of the hospice, so it was all really good! There was quite a good atmosphere and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Anyway, it as all very good. I was sporting my latest ‘no pull’ harness. It sure doesn’t stop me from pulling but I think it looks rather fetching!
So, there we were, having a lovely walk around Tilgate Park when I saw my opportunity. I mean, it was a lovely day, what was a dog supposed to do? He kept on saying “Keep away from the water. Keep away from the water!”. Well, that’s just like saying “Don’t eat the chicken”, when it’s right in front of you! I mean, what did he expect? I jumped straight in. On dear, oh dear, he wasn’t happy! Even Daddy Richard was moaning about how wet I was. Duh! I had just been for a dip in the lake … of course I was wet! After a series of rather unpleasant comments from him I got out of the lake. Some bloke walking past with his daughter said something about keeping away from him if I was going to shake myself off. Well, of course I was going to shake myself off, but I was hardly going to waste that opportunity on some passer by! Oh no! This was payback time! I haven’t forgotten about his comment after the dog show, “Monty, it’s official, you are officially ugly!”. I sidled right up beside him and then I shook and shook until I was almost dry. Actually, this is quite interesting, I Doogled how much water I can shake off and apparently I can get rid of 70% of the water on me when I have a jolly good shake. You can imagine where the 70% of water ended up! I was laughing my paws off!
I think I would probably have got away with it if I had stopped there, but you know what it’s like when you’rJe on a roll! Having had a dip and then having shaken myself all over him, I realised just how much fun I was having. As we walked a bit further into the woody area, I discovered a big pile of pretty fresh deer dung. I had a sniff and a quick taste, but then I had a brilliant idea. I dropped down and rolled in it all over my new harness! Boy, did that get some language out of him. Daddy Richard was keeping pretty quiet at this point because I think he was finding it as funny as I did but didn’t want to say. Just as he thought the whole incident was over, I discovered a really muddy are in what is called the ‘silt lake’. Well, I just couldn’t resist it. I jumped right in there. I was covered in mud, deer poo and still a bit damp! Honestly, the language! Talk about turning the air blue! Even Daddy Richard was moaning by now. I think that was the point at which I knew I was in twubble! Oh boy, you should have heard them both moaning when we got back in the car thingy. We drove home with all the windows open for some reason, so that was nice. When we got home though, they wouldn’t even let me in the house. I was unceremoniously shoved out in the back garden and then forced to have a shower.
They connected the garden hose up to the kitchen tap so that they could get warm water and then they forced me to have a shower! Honestly, I don’t know what all the fuss was about. When I got wet they moaned. When they got me wet, that was OK! They soaked me, they shampooed me and then they attempted to dry me (this latter activity was a little hampered by the fact that I kept stealing the towel!). Eventually, when I was pretty clean and nearly dry, they let me go back into the house. After all that excitement I was pretty cream crackered, so I lay down to push out a few ????s. When we went out for our early evening walk we went up Bay Pond Path and then along Church Lane and down Green Lane. As we got to the bottom of Green Lane I popped in to look at the stream as I always do but, since I thought I was just a little too clean, I decided to jump in. Honestly, we’re going to have to do something about his language! A minor misdemeanour and he doesn’t half use some colourful language! Mind you, I don’t think I’ve ever been in quite that much twubble in one day!
On Monday I decided that it would probably be best if I kept a low profile. We went out for our morning walk and then he went off to do that work thing he claims he does. I spent the day with Daddy Richard but I still kept a pretty low profile. He came back in the evening and went pretty much straight out to one of his ‘meetings’. I’m not sure whether he wasn’t just avoiding me! Tuesday morning came and they both went out to do that ‘work’ thing. In the afternoon Auntie Zena came down and we went out for a walk without them which was nice. It turned out that they had gone out for another one of their meetings, but they were back pretty quickly. In the evening he went out for another one of his meetings – I was really beginning to think he was giving me the cold shoulder! On Wednesday morning Daddy Richard went for one of his ‘networking events’ (breakfasts!) and I went for my morning walk with him. Although I have been getting my morning walks with him he hadn’t been around much for my evening walk which had been with Daddy Richard. I’m not sure that he wasn’t giving me the cold shoulder.
Daddy Richard came home from his breakfast … sorry, networking event! He hadn’t been home very long when they both went off again. He had a suitcase. Honestly, it was only a bit of water, mud and some deer poo, there was no need to leave home!!! Apparently he was going to somewhere called Dublin which is in a place called Ireland which is an island – and you lot reckon doggy is difficult to understand! Anyway, he didn’t even come home on Wednesday evening, so he was definitely giving me the cold shoulder! Eventually, at nearly midnight on Thursday evening, he finally came home. I decided I had better make it up to him so I went and curled up on the settee next to him. I never lay down on the settee with him so I think he realised that I missed him (oh, that hurts to admit it!!). On Friday morning we went for a nice walk and then he went off to do that work thing he does. He was gone all day but he came home in the evening and we went for a nice walk. I decided that I had better continue being nice to him so we had a nice evening just relaxing in front of the telly. Mind you, it wan’t that long an evening because he went to bed quite early.
On Saturday morning he got up really early and went off again! I felt really sad. I thought we were over the little incident last weekend. Daddy Richard explained that it wasn’t anything personal and that he had gone off to take Grandma to the hospickle for a test on her heart. That didn’t go well apparently – she had her test but then they said her heart was all over the place. It turned out that she had run out of tablets on Wednesday and hadn’t taken one since! Apparently he went mad!!! She was in even bigger twubble than I had been! She moaned to the nurse that she was getting told off and the nurse said “good”! Grandma’s legs were swollen again too but all of the Doctors who have examined her have said that the problem comes from her heart and if they can stabilise that, the legs will be OK. It might have been a blessing in disguise though because Grandma was examined by a Junior Doctor who spotted something that hasn’t been mentioned before. He said that he thought that they needed to get them legs to go down and that he thought that may help with the irregular heart beat. He said he had to speak to a Senior Cardiologist and when he saw Grandma he agreed. So Grandma is back in the hospickle again but he thinks that it will all be OK now. When he eventually came home on Saturday, I was out walking with Daddy Richard. We were just walking down Bay Pond Path and I spotted him standing there. I ran as fast as my legs would work, I was really excited to see him. I tried, but I couldn’t hide the fact that I was pleased to see him, my tail just wouldn’t stop wagging!
Even though I was pleased to see him I was a little surprised when they both went out last night. They went to Uncle Bren and Auntie Cathy’s for dinner. They weren’t back very late though and, although I got to spend a bit of quality time with him when he got back, Daddy Richard went straight to bed. He had been quite quiet all evening. So, this morning he got up and went off to the Dene in Caterham. It turns out that that is a hospickle too. Daddy Richard has a nasty cyst under his arm and it is very sore. He has now gone off to East Surrey Hospickle and he will have an operation later today. It seems that it has been a bit of a weekend of hospickles! I know I’ve got to go and have my operation soon too, but today I am thinking of Daddy Richard. I’m sure he’ll be fine but, in my experience, hospickles are not nice places to be. Hopefully he’ll be home later today and everything will be OK. I don’t think he’ll be up for any long walks this evening so I expect I’ll be walking with him this evening but I don’t really mind that. I really have missed him a bit lately and I think a bit of quality time with him won’t be such a bad thing.
Since Daddy Richard is in the hospickle, I had to go out with him this morning. I’ve missed him a bit recently, so I didn’t mind too much. We met this black Labrador that we’ve met before in Hilly Fields again this morning. He isnt’ very friendly but the worst thing this morning was that we met him on the crossing by the jewellers! He was on his own and just wandering around. He wouldn’t let him get near enough to read his tag but he did follow us so that at least we got him back into Hilly Fields which is a bit safer. He is going to try and find out who he belongs to because wandering in the road on his own is really quite dangerous … even I know that! He says he is going to ask Auntie Fran if she knows who his human is because we have usually encountered him in Hilly Fields and he’s always been on his own. The trouble is that he isn’t friendly enough to be able to get close enough to read his tag … not even with treats, which is odd! Hopefully his human will be able to keep him from being in quite such a dangerous position in future.
We had a nice walk this morning though. We walked through Hilly Fields, up The Hollow and then down the Haul Route to North Park Lane. We walked a little way down North Park Lane and then used the footpath to walk down past the reservoir to Bletchingley Road and then back across Green View. I was pretty cream crackered because that is quite a long walk but I really wanted to go over to The Green. He wouldn’t let me because there was a football match going on and I have a bit of a history with footballs during football matches! I wasn’t at all happy about that so I planted myself firmly on Green View. As usual he started to moan – words like “wilful” and “stuborn” and “obstinate” just kept on coming. And to think I missed him! Eventually, I realised that there was no way I was going to get to go over to The Green so, reluctantly, I got up and we walked home. When we got home Uncle Bren was outside trimming his hedge. Apparently he had said that it was quite overhanging when they were having dinner and Uncle Bren had been getting his ear bent ever since! According to Uncle Bren it was all his fault (which I can believe) and if the hedge dies it’ll be all his fault too! Oh dear, I don’t know that he should have mentioned it! Right, I want another walk, so for now, must paws … ????
