Skip to main content

Doggy diversity and lorry drivers


How can two dogs - of similar size, the same breed, and the littler one being nephew to the older one - be so different in their attitudes to so much?

Take for example grass cutting. We are basically surrounded by a mossy field with some hedge-like planting around the edges  Cutting what grass hasn't been strangled by the moss would be a long and arduous task with a push-along mower, so we have a mulching tractor that we sit upon and drive. Top speed is enough to make any following dog break into a gentle trot. Any following dog being Four-legged-friend who faithfully trots after me, along-side me and in front of me in ever decreasing circles. Yes! - circles. I am not in possession of that peculiar trait that would turn lawn-mowing into an obsession with stakes to mark out the tractor turning points at the verges (I kid you not!) and precision cutting in straight lines with impressive displays of fretting when the lines become wavy ... namely a Y-chromosome. Circles do me fine!

Back to Four-Legged-Friend following me round and round and round - does he think I might stop and pluck some delicious food from my pocket; or suddenly tire of juddering along and stop to play; or is he worried and trying to find a way of saving me from the noisy beast that has clearly captured me and is threatening to carry me off? Perhaps it is the latter which would explain his perverse and dangerous habit of being on my right when I want to turn right, on my left ... you can see where this is going! ... when I want to turn left, and behind when I recklessly throw it into reverse. Stupid or brave...?

Bertie Baggins on the other hand sits and watches. Chews a bone. Watches. Nods off. Wakes and gets up to drop bits of bone, chewed flower pot and sticks in the path of the tractor. Then watches as I stop; switch off; climb down; fend off my over-excited rescuer; pick up the obstacle and hurl it at him. As I start up again he adopts a puzzled (or is it patronizing?), wrinkled-brow expression as if thinking 'Why is my uncle exhausting himself chasing the garden tractor when we all know mum's not in mortal peril. And she will return it to its stable later. And lock the door. It doesn't threaten her existence, nor ours - it'll still be tea-time when she's finished and she manages to feed us even when dizzy from riding the monster.'




What has this got to do with lorry drivers (see title) - specifically not wanting to be a lorry driver? Littlest announced in the car, on the way to school "I would rather be a lorry driver than a doctor. And I really don't want to be a lorry driver." Hmm ... do I have to point out the obvious? That her parents are not lorry drivers!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn&#

My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

It's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die ... and I say someone here even though the one in question was a dog - but to us he had character and a place forever in our hearts and was more of a familiar someone than some of the people in our lives. So, I'll start again - it's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die, our senses go into overdrive. We notice things that normally would be part of the background of our every day. We breathe more - or rather, we don't but what we do is notice our breathing more, as we watch his. We pause. We think. We listen to ourselves and our inner voices speak. Memories flood our dreams ... though sleep is fitful.  Why am I telling you this? ... ... we lost this beautiful boy today And in the hours before he went, I saw perfect spheres of dew on blades of grass - little orbs holding micro-images of our world; a bumble bee drunk on nectar, yellow-dusted with pollen, resting in a crocus; ten - yes, ten!

Tut, Tut, soggy feet again

"Tut, Tut, looks like rain." Tut, Tut probably isn't the first thing that springs to mind when viewing this picture. And faced with bleak weather and a sad-looking symbol of national pride it is unlikely that many would consider a small bear  a personage of sufficient gravitas to quote. However, Walking the Dog was in Scotland ( was rather than is, because was there last week without internet). And Walking the Dog likes Pooh. That sort of Pooh - the sort with an 'h' at the end. A. A. Milne had a lot to say about the weather. He gave Eeyore my favourite weather-related observation , "The nicest thing about the rain is that it always stops. Eventually." And last Thursday, it did stop. Long enough for Littlest and I to walk to our pooh-sticks bridge. Long enough for us to get half way there, along the grassy path. Long enough for us to chat to the cows (we had to shout as they stubbornly stayed at the distant end of the fie