January 2019

Wednesday 16 January 2019

I am afraid I am, like Mrs Maybe, in the doghouse. She has been getting a bit of rejection because she ran off to Brussels without permission and without a plan to get back. I have been guilty of something similar, and today I am suffering at the hands of the Codgers. You can see from the picture above, I am imprisoned behind bars and confined to barracks.

Look, what happened yesterday was an honest mistake and I do regret (briefly) the consternation and anxiety I caused. Just after lunch, around 14:30, Grey was absorbed in an intelligent and stimulating discussion in Parliament on Mrs Maybe’s proposed deal to withdraw from the EU. It seems she was having a bit of an issue with her backstop, and it got to the point, where I too had a backstop issue. My usual whining and whimpering did not get much reaction at first from the Codgers, but after a bit, Grey let me out to soil the surroundings of the kennel. What I found was that a fox had passed by at some point and left a nice trail past an adjacent kennel into some lovely soft snow down by the road. Grey watched on half asleep and rather bored as I rolled around in glee and ecstasy in a large area of the fox’s waste products. I then nipped up the road to find some more and I must have gone outside Grey’s vision. He soon started shouting for me to come back, but I pretended to be half deaf (a skill I have developed more and more as I get older) and ignored him.

Having made the break, I decided to press on with the fox trail, and it took me though vast fields of virgin snow and virgin fox piss. After a bit, well maybe half an hour, you know how time flies when you are having fun, I could smell and hear the gathering of dogs and mushers down in the village. So I trotted off there to have a look round. No one took much notice of me so I was able to sneak around the dustbins and pavements by the burger bar where the humans are quite careless with the last few bits of their takeaways. After a bit of hoovering to help keep the village tidy, I had started to think about getting back for my own supper. And then it dawned on me. Like the Fukawi Tribe, I had no idea where I was or how to get back. A vague anxiety was building up, mainly around the thought that I might miss out on my delicious chunks.

And lo, at this point, nearing half past four, Grey rolls up in his wagon, tells me to climb in, and off we go back up the hill. I could sense he was not happy. He called Blue on the radio to say that “he had found the effing dog in the effing village, and now was on the way back up”. I normally don’t mind his foul language but in this case it would have been radiating around for several kilometres. I may be black, but I don’t want my name blackened. And in any case, there is no “F” in “dog”.

Back at the kennel, Blue was in a state of wonderment just as if a miracle had occurred. It seemed that she had decided I was gone forever. She was already rehearsing the excuses to be made to the owners when they come back, and had a built a stream of consciousness that heaped all the blame on poor old Grey. He was more stoical and said that it was “god” that had guided him to find me after he had said a short prayer. Lying sod, but she eventually saw the funny side.

However, everything has consequences, and I have been tethered all day and at times held in the barred prison cell you can see in the picture. Thank the same god that the old folks may be coming home tomorrow. Meanwhile, we went back today to the point where he found me and the picture says it all. Woof woof.
Monday 14 January 2019

I did not report yesterday as it was pretty dull. The Codgers were wheezing and sneezing all day, well i say “day”, they actually didn’t get up until 10:30 and were back between the sheets a bit before 1opm. How rubbish is that. Blue did take me for a short walk in the blizzard. It was short because she conked out half way up the road and had to turn back. I really need some younger or fitter carers.

Today was not much better. I had done my best overnight to share the joy of looking after me by sleeping half the night by the side of one Codgers, and then the rest with the other. Neither stirred, but I decided not to pull my “frantic dog” trick by barking at the passing lions. I thought that this would give them more time to rest and hoped for a more active day today. Some hope.

The owner called in on email this afternoon, and I was much inspired by her maintenance news and her encouragement to be brave.in the face of the lions. I will do my best, but the best news was that I might get back to Fairy Doll before long. I have had it up to here with coughing, spluttering and falling asleep. That’s what dogs do. Humans are supposed to be livelier than that. Anyway, by way of light relief, here is a short video of me playing in the deep snow this afternoon.

Woof woof
Friday 11 January 2019

It all started so well. I slept all night in great comfort upstairs. Never heard a word from the mountain lion, and was gently woken up by Blue coughing away with a nasty chest infection. She didn’t look too good, but then, she rarely does. Grey followed soon after, and blow me, he was coughing too. They must stop sleeping together.

So over a late breakfast it was decided not to ski which was a shame as I could tell from the wibble on the radio that the other playmates were enjoying themselves sliding down the mountain. The morning rather dragged as the humans spent most of it asleep, so in the end, I had to join in.

After a cough ridden lunch, and a bit more sleeping, they finally stirred themselves to take me out. This time a new adventure. Since they wanted to go to the shops, we went to Taninges which is great for larking around. Nice and flat and very difficult to lose another of Bernie’s balls, I got a bit sweaty despite it being minus eight, and had three dips into the lake (see above). Very refreshing!

And that dear reader is about all I have to report. We got back with the shopping, we all had some food (although theirs smelled better than mine), and now they are conking out in front of the fire and watching that box thing with moving pictures. Let’s hope for better tomorrow. At least Grey will be a bit more alert as he will be following AFC Wimbledon who are away to Coventry in an important match.

Woof woof.
Thursday 10 January 2019

I did not do a report for yesterday as not much happened. As I had barked a few times during the night, the Codgers thought they could beat me by ignoring it. Eventually I gave up but not before keeping them awake for hours. Consequently, it was well after ten in the morning that they appeared, only to find it was dumping with snow. It was still falling when they decided to walk me down to the village to get some milk, and we called in at Caths Cafe for a drink. Naturally I did not get one, but I did make friends with a family on holiday who were missing their black lab and they made a fuss of me instead.

Back at the kennel, Blue started cooking as they had some more Codgers coming around for supper, and Grey pottered around half asleep clearing snow, setting the table, and taking me for a peestop just before my dinner (meagre as ever). The evening was a bore with the adults talking nonsense about getting old and wondering if they will ever be able to enjoy themselves again after Brexit

Against the background of the previous night, when I detected that a monster, dogeating mountain lion was sniffing around outside, I barked for all I was worth. Eventually Grey came down and let me look out to check, but the lion had gone a long time ago. Still I was one up before half-time and went to sleep while Grey ran the dishwasher and stoked up the fire before he slumped of to bed grumbling all the time about “bloody dog”

And so it was after 10 this morning that they appeared, had some breakfast and went off skiing once they had found all the things that they needed and which had been packed away since last season. They came back, more or less in one piece each, and after a snack, they took me up to Lassare to find a suitable spot to lose another Bernies Ball. I did that with some panache such that even old Grey could not find it despite Blue shouting at him with instructions which I think she meant to be helpful. He never found it.

Tonight, they have a cunning plan to keep me away from the lion detection zone. I may have to find another reason to test my barking system. I will let you know how I get on.
Tuesday 8 January 2019

I am settling into the big kennel and have used the first 24 hours to test a few boundaries. You will see that I have earmarked the space in front of the fire as my daytime resting place. For the last two nights, once the codgers are asleep, I slide up to the spare room which they handily leave with the door ajar. The bed is not only brilliantly comfortable, but from that room, I can keep an eye on the old ones in case they stumble to the loo in the night. When they do, I quickly perk up and demand a brief opportunity to be taken outside for a pee and a thorough check on the wild animals who roam around at night. When I see them I bark for all I am worth and they soon get the hint and disappear as fast as a Brexiteer when challenged to explain the benefits of World Trade Terms for the movement of pets between the UK and France by way of the Pizza Ferry.

I am sure I left a mouse in here last year. Or maybe it is Bernie’s Ball?

Today, they went out this morning for a quick coffee with another human in the village. They were away for ages, so I went upstairs to check if the bed works as well during the day as it does at night. Happily, it does. They finally got back covered in snow in the late afternoon having decided to lunch without me in the village. All I could do was to insist Blue Rinse should take me out to play “Lose Bernie’s Ball” and torment a few mice sheltering down their little burrows. To her credit, we had a good stint, and I had just about got my appetite together by the time I got back. It was hard, but I managed to consume my meagre rations in record time.

I am worried about tomorrow. Apparently another family are coming to dinner with their hound, who I don’t believe I have met. There is also talk of a joint walk during the day. So depending how things turn out, I may insist on retreating to my new bedroom and having the door properly closed. It will only be a small step to me sleeping upstairs with the Codgers huddled together on the couch downstairs.
What the ………

There has been a long break this year with the MPs taking a few weeks off to do their Christmas shopping in a determined effort to boost sagging high street sales. And they spend even more in the real “Sales” when all the leftovers are sold off at a loss. No doubt Mrs Maybe will hail the results as a great vicTORY she comes back to work. Meanwhile the papers are full of news that she is ringing round Europe asking them if they would like to “improve” the Brexit deal so that it is acceptable to the DUPes and the DUPed. Good luck with that.

More entertaining has been the news that Fayling Grayling put out a little notice late on Christmas Eve. It was not a list for Santa but an announcement that he was giving £14m to a startup up company with £62 of assets, no office, no boats and no people to run a ferry service in a couple of months time to shift anticipated queues of lorries across the channel. He must have mistaken 24 December for 1 April, an error anyone could make. Call me cynical, but I think this was a tactic designed to impress the EU leaders that we really were planning, and organised for the consequences of a “no deal”.

It didn’t work as all that happened is that it seemed to encourage another firm known to the tabloids as “People Smugglers” to ramp up their services overnight in an impressive demonstration of the capability of private enterprise. Within a couple of days, the south coast was being “swamped” by boats landing people seeking asylum (or to live in it). You could not make this up, but the Home Secretary (who comes from “a proud immigrant family”) was on his hols on safari in South Africa (make of that what you will!). From afar, he declared a “Major Incident”. This is not a rank in the army but a tag used to describe an event which needs a “Gold Commander” in charge. He promptly appoints himself to that role, and makes a dramatic flight home to take control. As soon as he gets back, he has a committee meeting called “Cobra”. No not a beer to have with his curry, but a collection of ministers and others who had forgotten to take their holidays and were still hanging around the tea rooms of Whitehall. Cobra decides to pull back a couple of “cutters” which are currently working in the Med, and asks the Navy, very nicely, if they also could help out. Naturally, Private Pike (the Defence Secretary) agreed provided the Home Office forks out for their travel and subsistence. You really could not make it up, and I haven’t.

So what do we conclude from all of this, apart from it is a clear demonstration that Captain Mainwearing would have done a better job running things. Well I see a cunning plan which I am more than happy to let Mrs Maybe have for nothing. I do this “in the national interest” which is a phrase I keep hearing, and I would like to think that it is “the will of the people” as well.

Just in case there is “no deal”, it seems that the Gov thinks all of a sudden there will be loads more lorries on the road and hence a need for more ferries. So we need to boost up the capacity and encourage private enterprise at the same time. Clearly the firm “People Smugglers” are very resourceful in meeting the needs to get things moving and very good at navigating the “buriest shipping lane in the world”. They seem to have plenty of boats, and don’t seem to need the overhead of proper ports and customs paperwork. Could they not be retained, not at HM Pleasure as is currently the plan, but to run a rapid transfer service for crucial items like insulin, isotopes, avocados and hummus which are likely to be held up in the current system after 29 March. They could use their fast boats to do crossing and maybe it would create work experience opportunities for the immigrants, which in due course, would bolster up their case for asylum and a potential to work in Britain in the much needed roles that are rapidly becoming unfilled as the EU citizens take the normal ferries in the reverse direction to go home. So at a stroke, we keep the goods flowing, we reduce the prison population, we avoid overcrowded and disgusting “immigrant processing centres”, we help to mitigate the labour shortage caused by departing EU citizens, the Navy can go back to practising to be a Navy, the Border Force cutters can go back to the Med where it is warmer and where they are needed to help with a real problem, and Pike, Failing Grayling, and Gold Commander can go back on holiday where they are less of a threat to our sanity. If only dogs ran the country.
Monday 7 January 2019

Here we go again. Christmas is over for another seven dogyears, and after all the mayhem of the owners celebrating a virgin birth, I was looking forward to some peace and quiet once the guest named after wild blackberrys had been taken back to where it belongs in Spain. No such luck. I could almost feel the onset of tranquillity yesterday when the doorbell went. Who should appear but old Grey and Blue Rinse.

It quickly emerged that the owners need to go down south to the human vet for some more maintenance and they will be away for a couple of weeks or so. Naturally, they don’t want me around and old Grey and Blue have won the bidding war to look after me. So I will keep the blogging going just in case you care, and will start to report from the new kennel from tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have been reading the papers and taking in all the fun with what the humans call “Brexit”, or at least I think that is what they call it. All seems a bit daft to me as you will see in my latest thoughts.

A demain
1 January 2019 – Looking back and forward

It only seems a short while since I wrote in the spring as the humans trudged back to Brexit to lick their wounds after the ups and downs of last season. Just six dog years ago in fact. So much has happened in the meantime that I thought I would have a review to set the scene for 2019 – the year of Brexit (or not?) and the season to come. I know that things are happening because the humans are storing up mince pies and new ski clothes to take out to France in the next few weeks, and all of a sudden, the daily inaccuracies from Snowforecast.com have taken their attention away from the daily wibble from May, Trump and the Mogg feline.

Well, last season was a challenge all round for the humans. They all had some health issues and there seemed to be so many visits to distant places where people in white coats seemed to be in charge. I was not sure what was going on, but over the first few months, I had dozens of different walkers to take me out and help me to lose Bernie’s Balls as we now know them. Towards the end of the season, as the weather improved, I decided to branch out on my own and several times I strolled down to the village to chat to the locals and checkout the discarded pizza slices to be found around the place. It worked quite well until a combination of the local fuzz and a well-meaning French lady half way down the road led to a series of reports back to Matron who sentenced me to see out the season on a permanent lead. The owners and the Grey One then drove together back to Brexit, and that started a summer of unending fuss and bother preparing for the wedding of one of the owner’s kids and a significant birthday for Matron a few weeks ago.

Both events brought together many of the same old crew that comes over to Les Gets, but this time they had been to their local Oxfam shop to upgrade their wardrobes. So dressed in civvies it was not easy to identify them all. Naturally, I still have the pink collar I got a while ago and there was nothing new for me as the humans cavorted in their finery. On a plus point, the parents of the new Mrs Owners-Younger-Son have some dogs of their own and they came to join in the fun. As you can see we managed to photobomb pretty well all the snaps which Blue Rinse was taking.

This was followed by more messing around as Matron reached 490th birthday had she been a dog. Unbeknown to her, the kiddywinkies arranged a surprise party at HQ. She was lured out for the day while they laid on food and drink – none for me of course – and then the guests arrived. The only real surprise was that they had not found any new faces to invite and the same old crew pitched up to “sing” happy birthday to a shocked matron. Still they all enjoyed it and there was quite a lot of food kicking around the dishwasher and in odd corners of the house, so all was not lost.

Since then, the aged ones have been having some more repairs getting them ready for December in Les Gets when will all meet up again. Plus ca change.

It has, of course, been a momentous year politically, and I will review this in more detail in later blogs. But the news gradually worsened as the year unfolded that the Good Doctor finally cancelled his subscription to the Guardian. He told them he was doing this because the news was so bad he was getting very upset. Well, all I can say is that it worked, because since he took this brave step, AFC Wimbledon have got through two rounds of the FA Cup, and Mrs Maybe has managed to unite the whole country against her deal. And Grumpy Trumpy manged to get the lowest approval rating ever for a serving president. Lets hope the Doctor does not renew his subscription and that things continue to get better. Whatever happens, I will be keeping you informed from the canine point of view.