It has been a bit of a busy week one way or another. Daddy Richard and him have been very busy doing … things. I don’t enquire and I have no idea what they do but they spend a lot of time sitting at computers in different parts of the house doing … things. Whatever it is that they do, it seems to occupy a lot of their time. He had a couple of his silly conference calls this week – I looked this up on Fidopedia and it seems that basically it involves several humans at once all talking to each other on the telephone thing. I tried to join in, but he wasn’t very happy about it. He asked Daddy Richard to take me away so that I couldn’t bark down the phone – I was just getting to enjoy myself too! When he was speaking to Auntie Hannah from ServiceMaster (I haven’t met her yet, but she sounds nice and has a dog too – although I don’t think it is quite as big as me) I had a jolly good bark but she already knew about my propensity to bark so it didn’t surprise her!
I have managed to get out on a couple of nice walks in the last week. Bay Pond looks fantastic in the sunshine and there are even two swans back on the pond (there has been only one on the pond for ages and ages but there are now two again!). I’ve had a few issues with him as usual. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but he isn’t all that bright … about as useful as a paper bucket and leaks just as much, if you get my gist! Anyway, they both seem to be obsessed with my poo. “Did he have a poo?” and “How was his poo today?” and “Is his poo improving?” It seems that, since moving onto my new food their view of my poo has improved somewhat. They’re very pleased but I have become a bit more regular. There I was, quietly doing my thing the other day, and what did I hear? “He’s just one huge great sitting machine!” Talk about not very bright! Firstly, I wasn’t sitting, I was squatting. Secondly, I am a handsome, clever, intelligent and hugely popular dog! Thirdly, he can’t even get a simple description right – even if I had been sitting and even if I did do it a lot, I can hardly be described as a ‘machine’!
On Friday I went for a lovely walk with Auntie Zena, Uncle Simon, my friend Jake and my other friend Seanne and Daddy Richard, oh and him too. We went through Tylers Close and into the field behind. It was really, really muddy!!! I had a lovely time running around in the field with Jake. When we’d run around quite a lot and I was definitely quite muddy, we walked along the path to the top of The Hollow that takes us down into Hilly Fields. Boy, if they thought the field was muddy, they hadn’t seen anything yet. I towed Jake along like he was water skiing! It was fabulous!!! We did get rather muddy, but I don’t mind about that and Jake didn’t seem to be too bothered about it either – mind you, it did turned out that he was wearing his Dad’s boots and his Dad’s jacket, so I guess the mud that I managed to shake all over him wasn’t really a problem for him! I did hear Uncle Simon moaning about something, but then to be perfectly honest, he is quite often moaning about something – I think he’s happier when he’s got something to moan about!
There was one small little matter when we got home – apparently I wasn’t desperately welcome inside the house with all that mud on me. It transpired that I got marched around to the back of the house whilst Daddy Richard obtained a bucket of warm water and a cloth from inside. Then Auntie Zena and him tried to wash the mud off me. The cloth wasn’t really that successful and, in the end, they resorted to a hose. It got a bit of mud off I suppose, but they weren’t very good at it. Then I saw my opportunity … as he was trying to towel dry me, I took my chance – I shook and shook and shook until the majority of the mud that had been on my coat was now on him. I laughed and laughed my paws off! It was so funny looking at him all covered in muddy speckles! He did get me basically dry though and I was soon all warm and comfortable lying on the heated floor in the dining room. The mud eventually dried too and he took a brush to my coat which got it out. In fact, it wasn’t that bad although I did hear him telling Daddy Richard that he didn’t want me to go anywhere muddy for a few days, but then, he never does! Mind you, judging by his attempt at a bath, I’m not sure I want to get too dirty in case he tries again!
Today he has been in the greenhouse. I don’t know what he was doing but it seemed to involve moving lots of things and quite a bit of mud – although he calls it ‘compost’. I did my best to assist – I picked things up and moved them, I pinched the occasional tool, I shredded lots of things but he didn’t appreciate any of it. I just heard him saying something about needing to find a new way of gardening! I don’t understand what he is on about – after all, we established last year that he doesn’t even grow anything that is nice to eat, so any way of gardening isn’t going to help him. He said something about “Why can’t he be like Nigel is for Monty Don?” I don’t think I know a Nigel and I don’t know who Monty Don is! I also had a surprise visitor today – Kiera. My regular fans will recall that Kiera came to see me last year just before Halloween (you can read about that visit here). She comes with her Mum, Hayley, and my Auntie Sue. I think that she is a relation of Auntie Sue and Uncle Malcolm but it’s all very complicated and I really don’t understand. I did try to Doogle it, but it is very difficult to work these things out and I have enough trouble trying to work out half the things that he says (mind you, who wouldn’t!) and in the end I decided to give up and do something else.
Something else turned out to be giving Kiera a wash. She didn’t ask for it but I thought she should have one anyway. Of course, he was asking me what I thought I was doing – talk about the blinkin’ obvious … I was giving Kiera a wash! After Kiera, Hayley and Auntie Sue left – I’m not sure that she was much cleaner because I was stopped at a very early stage – we popped down to The Green for a little run about. I say we popped down, it was more of a slow amble to The Green if you ask me. I did try to drag him down there, I pulled and pulled, but he wouldn’t move any faster! When I eventually got them down to The Green I met ‘Teddie’ (I’m not sure what breed he was, but he was biggg!) who turned out to be great fun. We ran around The Green at least twenty twelve times!! We just kept on running and running, it was great fun. We did meet another little dog, but she didn’t want to play with us and when I stole her ball (well she wasn’t playing with it anyway) she just barked at me in a quite aggressive way. Eventually, he came and took the ball off me which I did not appreciate – that was, until he produced a new toy from his pocket! My newest toy is a kind of rubber stick thing with a rope attached that they throw for me to go and catch. As ever, he had some kind of expectation that I was going to bring it back, but I don’t know where he gets that idea from. He keeps saying things to me like “You’re a retriever! Go and retrieve something!” but I don’t know what he’s talking about. If he throws a toy away from himself, he can jolly well come and collect it! Phew! What a week it’s been. I’ve left quite a few presents for Angela (who I also saw on The Green this evening), I’ve had a few adventures, there has been the odd incident but generally it has been quite a week. After all that running around this evening, I am completely ker-nack-errd (he says that a lot) and I urgently need to push out a large number of ????s so, for now, must paws … ????
We loved seeing you yesterday Monty! A Monty wash was just the ticket … thank you????