What a week!

Oh my woof, I can’t believe it has been a whole week since I last put paw to keyboard! So much has happened and I just don’t know if I am going to remember everything. You see, part of the problem is that a week in doggy years is quite a long time. Plus I’ve been so busy doing things that I am not sure what things they were. Monday was a relatively quiet day after my busy weekend with The Spinettes and all. I took Alex for a walk in the morning to clear his head after he had been drinking Pimm’s with Bren and Cathy on the evening before. As usual it is left to me to work out why Bren’s Pimm’s has such an effect on their legs. I know I said I wouldn’t, but in the end I did look it up on Fidopedia. It turns out that Pimm’s is named after some bloke called James Pimm who invented it in 1823 (which is quite a long time ago!) and that it is basically gin with some herbs and spices in it. It is 25% alcohol by volume, which is quite a lot from what I have read. In my view that is enough to make anyone fall down but, here is the thing, Bren adds gin to it. I have looked up gin on Doogle and that is 40% alcohol by volume, so if my maths is correct, combined they are 65% alcohol by volume! Enough to bring down a Great Dane!

The rest of Monday was pretty uneventful. Richard and Alex had one of their many meetings in the evening, but Alex didn’t go and decided to stay at home with me instead. He spent much of it doing that cooking thing he does so much of and then sat down and watched a bit of television, so I’m not really sure how that was of much benefit to me, but there you go! Richard came home and they had dinner (I had already had mine) and it wasn’t that long before we all went to bed. Tuesday started off well. We had a really good walk around Hilly Fields and then, when we got back he started again. I had a session booked with my personal therapists at Hydro Hounds at one o’clock in the afternoon but he went and changed it to five o’clock. It turns out that he had made an appointment for himself with a physiotherapist at two o’clock and we wouldn’t be back in time for him to get there if we kept our one o’clock appointment. In my humble opinion he just wanted a bit of therapy because he was jealous of the fact that I have my own two personal therapists!

I popped down to see Zena whilst he went off for his physiotherapy appointment. I have so much fun with her and she gives me lots of loving, although she says that I am a complete nightmare with a ball because I’m obsessed and just can’t leave it alone, but she’s just joking … I think! Anyway, he eventually returned with some pathetic excuse for an ailment which he only went and blamed on me! Apparently he has a torn ligament in his bicep (actually I think he was quite pleased to be told he has a bicep!) and another in his forearm which he now claims has something to do with my pulling. I mean, what a pathetic excuse! I am waiting for a new hip and he goes and moans about a torn ligament or two. And he reckons it’s my fault. The cheek of it! I mean, I do sometimes find it necessary to drag him around like a freight train, but that’s his own fault – if he kept up we wouldn’t have a problem, would we?

Anyway, enough about him, what about me? Ah yes, when he eventually got back we popped off for a hydrotherapy session. Now that is something that is really important because it is for my new hip and it is building my muscles up. Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder if there is any relationship between me having stronger muscles and his arm … nah, couldn’t be! Anyway it was another good session with another 13 minutes, so that was good! After my hydrotherapy session we went home and I spent a bit of time with Richard whilst Alex went off for another one of his meetings. Between them they seemed to have one every night last week!

On Wednesday Neil appeared at the house again. I think I have mentioned before that Neil’s role in all this work that is happening seems to be breaking things and smashing things up. I was not mistaken, sure enough he smashed up the utility room and then started on the floor of the downstairs loo. I have got these builders completely sussed now – Kevin organises the job and does a bit of building things too, Neil smashes things up, Dave the electrician pulls wires and talks a lot, Steve the plumber gets mega bucks because he’s qualified to do things with gas and Simon has virtually moved in because he has an uber task of putting the house back together again! Anyway, there has been some progress recently because Alex has started his cooking thing again which seems to make him happy (which is better for all of us!).

Richard went to somewhere called Norwich on Wednesday which is a very long way away. He had to stay overnight and, as usual, Alex had a meeting in the evening for something called the Neighbourhood Plan (nope, me neither and I can’t be bothered to Doogle it!), so I popped down for another bit of quality time with Jake, Zena and Simon. Alex says it is a really good job that they are so good to him and they can look after me when he is busy. That’s true. I know that he could leave me for a short while, but a whole evening? I don’t think so! Before we went down to Zena, I took Alex out for a walk to tire him out a bit – he seems to think it was to tire me out, but that can’t be right! We had a lovely walk around Bay Pond and down Green Lane and then as we were passing, I had a good look around at Sniff Central. Nothing much had changed at Sniff Central, but it was good to check it out.

On Thursday we had a relatively quiet day. We did quite a bit of walking which was good fun. We went to Mercers Park and had a walk around there (we didn’t try the nature reserve again after he got hopelessly lost last time), later we did a ‘reverse Hilly Field’ (this is where we start in Tylers Close and go back the other way) and we did a Bay Pond too. When Alex looked, it turned out we had done over 7 miles of walking which was excellent! I do like a good walk! The weather wasn’t that great and the builders had had to do some cutting indoors. By the time Richard came home Alex was not in the greatest of moods. He said some very rude words (I shan’t stoop that low and repeat them!) about dust, builders, Richard not communicating, his arm and me! I don’t know what had got into him (dust probably) but he calmed down after Richard poured him a drink and they had dinner.

On Friday morning Alex had to drop something into the Parish Office which is on The Green, so we went down there and I had a lovely run around on The Green before we dropped some papers into the office and then went for a long walk around the edge of The Green and then Hilly Fields. I did have a quick lay down on The Green after my run around, but it didn’t stop me from doing the Hilly Fields walk afterwards! In the afternoon we had some news about my operation. Alex had a phone call from my personal surgeon, Bonito de la Puerta, to say that unfortunately my operation is going to have to be postponed by a couple of weeks. He didn’t realise when he booked my original date (next Monday!) that he was going to be on holiday, so it has been moved to the 17th August! Alex isn’t unhappy as he thinks that the building works will be finished by then which would be better.

Out of idle curiosity I was wondering what my personal surgeon’s name means. He is Spanish and his name is very nice, but most names mean something. For example, Monty is really short for Montgomery and that is a distinguished Anglo-Scottish surname, drawn from the French place name of the ancient castle of Saint Foi de Montgomery. I had a look in my human(Spanish) dictionary and discovered that ‘Bonito’ means beautiful and that ‘Puerta’ means door, so Bonito de la Puerta is ‘Beautiful of the Door’ which is quite interesting! On Saturday morning it was all very exciting, Alex’s mum arrived with Alex’s sister, Jo. I haven’t met Jo before, but she’s lovely. I can’t believe she is Alex’s sister!! I took them straight out for a walk and just to show how clever I am, I took them on a ‘reverse Hilly Fields’. It was great fun!

I have mentioned before that Alex isn’t all that bright … the driveway doesn’t quite reach the road, if you get my gist. Well there we were out on a ‘reverse Hilly Fields’ and I was trying to show off my lightening speed to show Alex’s mum and Jo that I am really fast as well as being the most handsome dawg in dogdom. What did he do, he just dawdled behind with Jo. Not only was he slowing the whole pace down, but Jo didn’t get to see my lightening speed either! I suppose it did give them a good chance to catch up, but really, he could have chosen a better time! Anyway, it did give me time to do a huge poo for Alex to carry all the way back to the bin by the Hare and Hounds!

Actually, talking of the Hare and Hounds, I thought we would pop in after our walk. I am a bit of a regular in there, although I tend to go with other people and not necessarily with Alex or Richard. We popped in and they had a bit of lunch – I didn’t want any as I have my treats instead. Whilst we were in there it poured down! I mean, it was proper raining, it was raining aunts and uncles!! I have looked this up on Doogle and apparently humans sometimes say ‘raining cats and dogs’ which is both extremely disrespectful to us dogs (and cats I suppose) and completely irrelevant to rain – humans have the most odd sayings!

When I eventually managed to drag them out of the pub (Alex and Richard, his mum only had orange juice and Jo had water … they had wine and a gin and tonic!) we went home and, as if luck would have it, we hadn’t been home long and Sue and Malcolm called in! What a coincidence when we had only been home a short while – if they had popped in a bit earlier, we would have been out! Alex had given me a chew to eat because I had been a bit vocal and he thought it would keep me quiet. I don’t know what he meant, but it does generally take most of my concentration to eat them – it is a beef hide which is 100% naturally dried raw beef hide that Alex got from my personal trainer Amanda. (I haven’t seen Amanda for ages and she’s so nice, I really miss her.) Apparently, the ‘raw hide’ that you can buy in the shops is full of glue and not very good for me, so I don’t have them. Anyway, I was enjoying that on the sofa and apparently Alex’s mum and Malcolm wanted to sit there too – I had to share with them and it was a bit of a tight squeeze!

It was a shame, but Alex’s mum and his sister Jo only came for the day. Jo is so nice, I can’t believe she is related to Alex! Just before they left, I shared a moment with her. I did explain to her that her brother can be a little irritating at times, but I think she knew that anyway! They cut things a bit tight for getting their train, but Alex took them to the station and they got the train. Unfortunately when they got to London it all went a bit wrong because there was loads of traffic and red lights and things and they missed their train home, but got another one which got them home an hour later than they had planned. Alex went shopping after he dropped them at the station and came back with dinner for him and Richard and a new toy for me, so Saturday evening was a relatively quiet one whilst they had dinner and I played with my toy (it wasn’t completely quiet because my toy squeaks which is fun!).

On Sunday morning Alex went out to buy a new vacuum cleaner. Apparently the existing one had developed an aroma of dog, so Alex tried to fix it and now it doesn’t work that well. I think it was more that there is a new model which apparently deals with animals better (better filters and more suction) but what do I know. (Actually, I don’t know anything about vacuum cleaners, so it’s true, I know nothing!) Anyway, the important thing is that I got to go out for a walk with Richard. We walked forever!!! It was really good. I think we must have probably walked almost to France and back! We went all the way around Leigh Place and Bullbeggers lane … everywhere! Richard didn’t take any photos, but Alex could see where they were on his phone (which is a lot cleverer than he is!).

In the afternoon I was awoken by a loud bang which turned out to be a piece of wood falling over. Since I was awake, I decided it was a good opportunity to take them out for a walk. I decided that we would go to the ‘Peter Rabbit Wood’ which is on Limpsfield Chart. That did mean a short trip in the car, but it was a means to an end. We had a fabulous walk around the wood and saw the wonderful figures, houses and things. I know I have already said this, but he really isn’t very bright … one photo short of a full album, if you get my gist. He only forgot to take his phone with him and so there are no photos of this wonderful wood at all! Honestly, talk about dim … if he gets any dimmer the lights will be out! Fortunately, assuming  that there is some decent weather this week, I intend to take him back there and next time I will make sure he has his phone with him.

And here I am, it is Monday already. Simon is back and this morning Kevin and Neil are here too. I know that Kevin is sorting out what has been delivered for the new kitchen and what is missing or needs sending back, but I am a bit worried that Neil is here. I have patrolled the kitchen several times, but I can’t see what he has smashed about. Maybe he hasn’t yet.

The weather today is awful, but I took Alex over Hilly Fields anyway this morning. When we came back we had to walk all the way down to the zebra crossing (I have looked this up on Fidopedia and it is a type of crossing with stripes like a zebra – I have no idea what a pelican crossing will look like!) to get back across the road. Apparently, they (I don’t know who ‘they‘ are, but I do know that they are not very popular – Alex called them some very rude names this morning, but he wasn’t the only one, everyone I heard didn’t think much of them!) have closed the A22 today for the next eight weeks. According to Doogle, the A22 is a “major trunk road connecting London with Eastbourne in the South East”, so I’m guessing that isn’t good. The traffic in Godstone is dreadful and there was no way we could cross the road without going down to the zebra crossing.

And so now it is lunchtime already. There is lots of noise coming from the builders, but I have decided not to look for a while. I am going to push out a few ????s for a little while. Alex says he has a surprise for me later this afternoon – I don’t know what it will be (otherwise it wouldn’t be a surprise!) and I’m hoping it will be nice. I do like nice surprises. I know he has to go for more physiotherapy on his arm which he is moaning (now, there’s a change!) hurts like hell because I dragged him round Peter Rabbit Wood yesterday but I think it is just that he likes moaning! I don’t know if my surprise has anything to do with that, but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see! So, for now, must paws … ????