I know it’s bin a while but …

I know it’s bin a while but we have been living in strange times recently. After Grandma died they needed to plan and hold a funeral. It turns out that that is quite difficult in the middle of a global pandemic and during lockdown! But they did it and Grandma’s funeral was held on the 30th March. He wrote a eulogy but there weren’t all that many people there. There were about 50 online though but apparently the sound was really bad and they couldn’t hear. Personally, I think that in usual times it is rather an advantage not to be able to hear him but I suppose that was a bit different. Anyway, with the funeral done life is beginning to return to some sort of normal. I say that but just as we were getting over the initial sadness of Grandma, what goes and happens? Prince Philip goes and dies! Now the whole country is in mourning. I’m not sure I’m all that keen on this death thing. It is all very sad and I like more happy things. There have been some good things happening too. One thing is my discovery of my love of balls!

Let me explain. You see, I have always had a bit of a thing about balls. I like to get a ball and chew it until there is nothing left … or steal one from another doggy … or there was that time when I stole the football from the football match that was being played on The Green (boy did I get into twubble for that one!). So we were wandering up Green Lane recently and we bumped into Sidney and his Mum, Cath. Sidney had a luvely looking tennis ball so I decided to pinch it. I got it and I refused to give it back … after all, ‘finders keepers’, isn’t that what humans say? So, I had this tennis ball and I carried it all the way home. The next time we went out for a walk they gave me the ball before we left the house. They thought that would stop me from stealing anyone elses. It kind of worked, so now whenever I go out I get a ball and I carry it with me for the whole walk. Well, that isn’t strictly true .. I carry it with me for most of the time but then I put it down and forget where I’ve put it. All I seem to hear from them is “Where’s your ball?”. Then I have to go all the way back and get it before running to catch them up. Yesterday he had the brainwave (can you get a brainwave with that few cells?) that he would make me wait for my ball until we got to Green Lane. What a ridiculous thing to do! I dragged him with all my strength and weight to get him to Green Lane quickly. He won’t be doing that again!

Talking of weight, there’s another little problem. I popped in to see my personal vetinary surgeon, Michael, a few weeks ago. I went in for a quick jab (they’ve had theirs too!) and Michael made me stand on the scales. Hmmf! That wasn’t a pleasant experience I can tell you. We came out of the surgery (they have to wait outside under current conditions) and Michael (who I have always thought to be a rather good egg as he often gives me treats!) told them that I was fat! Yes, he actually said I was too fat and I needed to lose a bit of weight! I mean, fat! How very dare he?! OK, so I’ve put on a couple of pounds during lockdown, but hasn’t everyone? I am rather partial to my food too, but fat? It transpires that I weigh 38 kilos and Michael would like me to weigh around 30 kilos. So now you can imagine what’s happened … I’m on a flamin diet!! Gone are the two sausages as a treat whenever I ask. Now I’m lucky if I get a third of one just once a day! They’ve changed my diet too. No more high calorie meaty wet food, oh no. Now I’m on kibble with just a bit of wet food for flavour! In my opinion it’s snot fair but what can I do? I’ve tried barking at him but it does no good, he just ignores me!

The rather amusing unexpected impact of my change of diet is the change in my poo. It is no longer that odourless two bagger that I would produce once a day. We have returned to a rather impressive two, or even three, bagger with an aroma that only a dog can be proud of, at least twice a day! I produced a two bagger the other day and even Bay Pond Path cleared! With the current number of visitors to Godstone from elsewhere that really is an achievement!!! Talking of visitors, or the lack of them, I haven’t seen half my Aunties and Uncles for ages. Uncle Don usually comes for New Year but he didn’t last year. And today is his birthday! I’m not exactly sure how old he is … he’s pretty ancient and I know that sometimes he has to visit his palientologist but I did try work it out. The good news is that, if I’m right and I’m pretty sure that I am, then his age is only 13 in scrabble! It’s quite handy that each letter comes with a number so I’ve been able to add them up and it is 1 plus 1 plus 2 plus 4 plus 1 plus 4. I am, after all, the smartest dog in dogdom. So, I must say, Happy Birthday Uncle Don 🎂🥂, I hope I can see you again soon!

There are so many friends I haven’t seen for so long. I miss my friend Charlie in France but I don’t see me being able to get to see him anytime soon. Not just because of this flamin’ virus that has quite literally plagued the world for the last 14 months but also because getting a passport isn’t going to be easy now because of Brexit. It will take about 3 months to get one and I’ll get treated like a dog from a ‘third country’ which doesn’t sound very nice at all. Anyway, enough of that. Oh, except to point out that if the Blonde Potato hadn’t lied so much about how wonderful Brexit would be for the UK and if he had actually been able to save the 340,000 Euros a week … or 17,680,000 a year that he lied about on the side of his bus, he might have had some money to give to the NHS like he promised and pay the brave, long suffering, incredibly dedicated front line staff what they are worth instead of his derisory 1%. Instead of paying £37.5 billion to his cronies for a track and trace system that hasn’t, didn’t, and doesn’t work, he could have given some to those who bothered to save his life! Wow! I’m glad I got that off my chest! Still, the Lying Blonde Potato continues to line the pockets of his mates, issuing lucrative contracts to dormant companies that just happen to have his mates as shareholders and Board members. Thank goodness the vaccination programme is run by the NHS and not by the government like the track and trace system is. Tomorrow England reaches stage 2 of coming out of lockdown with the next stage being on the 17th May. Good to see that the Blonde Potato continues to be led by the dates and not the data!

I’ve had a few good walks recently which has been nice. One of which though, deserves mention. You see, he was on one of his ‘conference calls’ the other day. For some reason he doesn’t seem to want me to join in. I’ve tried, I really have, but he’s having none of it. I’ve tried barking, I’ve tried jumping up at the screen, I’ve even tried trying to knock his arm of the mouse thing he seems so attached to, but he just isn’t interested. So now I’ve got it cracked. I let him get on with his little call thingy and I take Daddy Richard out for a nice long walk. So, on this particular walk I took Daddy Richard almost up to the secret garden before coming back again. On the way back I noticed that the pond that is just behind the churchyard had a bit of a muddy bit so I thought I would investigate. I did. The result was rather satisfactory, if I do say so myself. I adopted a perfect aroma of muddy wet pond which I thought was rather fetching. When he came to meet us after he had finished his call, he didn’t appreciate it at all! There was definitely mention of ducking some sort of fog again! I couldn’t hear him properly through all that language and huffing! Honestly, you’d think I’d committed the crime of the century! When we got home I wasn’t even allowed to go into the house, he made me go straight to the back garden and then spent the next 45 minutes washing out all of my good work!

Today has been quite an interesting day. When I eventually got him out of bed this morning (they seem to have decided that getting up when it gets light is not their idea of a good night’s sleep and want to sleep in until at least 8 o’clock on a Sunday!), I managed to persuade them that I wanted to go for a walk. This, in itself, seemed not to be straightforward. I tried barking at him and then running to the front door, I tried running round in circles at excitement level ‘off the scale’, I tried grabbing my lead but all to no avail. Apparently I had to wait until he was dressed and had his coat on before we could leave! Anyway, we did eventually get out of the door and I made a run for where I know they keep my balls. Apparently I nearly broke his fingers as I ripped his arm out of its socket trying to get at the balls. Whatever! He gave me a ball and off we went to Green Lane which is definitely my favourite walk of the moment. We walked up Green Lane and then along Church Lane and into Bay Pond Path. There we found a whole bunch of people who were not the usual visitors from Croydon who come to the village buy a cup of coffee, walk up Bay Pond Path en masse, wander round the churchyard and then drop their coffee cups and sandwich wrappers everywhere, these were people here with a purpose. They were hedge laying!

Hedge laying is a real heritage skill and this was people being taught about hedge laying by this chap called Paul Matthews. They’ve actually been before and done some hedge laying further up Bay Pond Path. They did a pretty good job of it so I decided to Doogle Paul Matthews when I got home. According to Fidopedia Paul Matthews is a four times National Champion Hedge Layer and was awarded Supreme Champion status in 2015. I reckon he knows a bit about hedge laying. I got him to pick up a leaflet (well, I couldn’t do it, I had a ball in my mouth!) because he might just be a really interesting speaker for the gardeners’ club one day. I hope they carry on hedge laying for the rest of Bay Pond Path because it is so much tidier and better to look at. I think it encourages wildlife too which would be good for me and give me new things to chase! The only sad thing is that it seems that our village visitors seem to think that a beautifully layed hedge is enhanced in some way with the insertion of an empty coffee cup or McDonald’s Big Mac carton (there isn’t even a McDonald’s within six miles of the village, where do they get them from?!). I read recently that some head honcho in litter prevention believes that due to COVID people are “using these spaces in ways they haven’t before, and not thinking through the repercussions of their behaviour”. I think they’re just ignorant and lazy. There are plenty of bins around the village!

So, that’s pretty much it. Sorry it has been over a month since my last Glog but things haven’t been exactly ‘normal’. Hopefully we are now heading for a more ‘normal’ life, whatever that might be. I don’t think it will ever return to what it was pre-COVID, which is probably a good thing. We shouldn’t look to the past but be optimistic about a future, cleaner, more sustainable, society that is more caring, and understanding, and tolerant, than maybe it might have been in the past. Actually, talking of the past, he just told me that they threw a ‘surprise’ party for Uncle Don on his 50th birthday. I’m not sure when that was but I don’t think it was very recently. Daddy Richard says that it was before they moved to live in Spain and I think they moved back from Spain quite a few years ago! I do hope that Uncle Don can remember – mind you, at his age …! I promise I won’t leave it quite so long next time. I notice that I’ve lost a few followers because I haven’t been writing my Glog so often recently. I guess that doesn’t matter, they’ll come back if they want to! For now though, I have some mischief to get up to. I have already stolen a TV remote control today, one of his shoes, I’ve tried to eat some of his plants in the greenhouse and now I have to think of something new so, for now must paws … 🐾