Walking The Dog

To walk - verb: to place one foot in front of the other in a continuing sequence thereby re-enacting an ancient form of transport. Potentially hazardous if wearing ill-fitting boots. Requires a low level of fitness and an ability to read maps. (See also blisters and getting lost ). A walk - noun: an often pleasurable journey from one place to another undertaken on foot. Whether actually pleasurable or not depends on the weather and the terrain and the company. By convention "on foot" although singular and therefore suggestive of hopping, refers to two or more feet progressing forwards in a walking manner. If sped up, the walk would become a run. On feet. Walking the dog - phrase: a duty required of man or woman to be undertaken on a daily basis for the entertainment of man or woman's best friend(s). In a tale involving a significant birthday, tickets for Jeeves and Wooster at the Duke of York theatre, London (terrifically entertaining), long-legged-boy, babysitt...

Scenarios in which an open top sports car is a good idea - it's not raining. the driver of the open top sports car is in possession of a mackintosh and sowester - in the event of 1. being incorrect - or is accompanied by a similarly clad passenger who is happy to hold a magic umbrella over their heads - magic because the erection of any umbrella currently in manufacture inside a moving roofless car will result in the prompt inversion of the umbrella, thus rendering it utterly useless. Except as an object of ridicule (see 4 below). Or the driver knows where the button is to reconstitute the car's roof, turning it into a claustrophobically small vehicle with all the visibility of a shoe box with an assortment of narrow windows cut out by a child wielding blunt scissors and as much knowledge of the highway code as he has for nuclear physics. the driver is deaf. Or likes music of considerable gusto and volume. He (because it is usually a he) wil...

Half term passed, too long ago, in a sleepy, whispering sigh. Half term for Littlest = shopping, treats, walks, curling up with a film, catching up with friends and family (you wait three years for an aunt to visit, then two turn up within four days of each other), singing-in-the-shower-because-I-can-and-no-one-is-telling-me-to-hurry-because-of-homework and if-I-look-busy-no-one-will-notice-that-I-haven't-done-my-music-practice*-and-no-I-don't-mind-putting-it-all-off-'til-Sunday (I can do it with the Maths prep that I've been keeping quiet about. On Sunday evening. Ten minutes after I should have gone to bed.) Half term for Bertie Baggins and Four-legged-friend meant warm bottoms (long sleeps next to the Aga), walks, walks and more walks (way above their normal weekly average), visits from new friends, new smells, new excuses to interrupt conversations with wet nuzzling requests for a tummy rub, lots more crumbs dropped on the floor and fewer hours spent incarcerate...

Rushing ... to deliver Littlest to a play date. Rushing ... to the station so that Eldest could catch a train. To take her away. Again. Rushing ... against the traffic and distance and time to get to work. On time. (Or is it in time?) And the following (slightly embarrassing event) occurred - We reached the venue for the play date. I said good-bye to Littlest - kissed three times, quick (I'm rushing) squeeze - and jogged (still in rushing mode) back to the car. I sat down, a little out of breath. Strapped in. Right hand onto steering wheel. My head was now rushing. Thoughts of arriving late at work. Worry about keeping people with appointments waiting. Feeling just a little stressed as time ticked on (somewhat faster that Google maps had predicted). I reached down to put the engine into first gear and the hand-break off. Both my hands now ready on the steering wheel. Brow furrowed. Eyes fixed on the bend ahead and the navigation hazard of a builder lifting some ...

How often do you say "Thank you"? And how often do you  really  - so sincerely that you could-gather-the-recipient-up-in-your-arms-and-hug-them-but-don't-because-that-would-be-a-bit-weird- really  - mean it? There are lots of ways of saying 'Thank you' from the I've-been-told-to-so-I'm-saying-it-under-my-breath-and-you'd-better-be-listening-because-there-is-no-way-I'm-going-to-say-it-again muttered thank you of the child, who far from understanding why he might have to say sorry sometimes, really can't see why he has to say thank you for something he didn't ask for, doesn't like and will throw in the bin as soon as granny has left the house, to the sarcastic f***-off -"THANK YOU VERY MUCH" when someone drives too fast through a puddle and soaks you and Littlest and her school shoes and her new coat and your lovely leather winter boots. There's the warm 'thank you' implied in a kiss. And the courteous 'tha...

Walking the Dog did not venture far yesterday. We reached the other end of the garden, where Littlest built a twigwam and filled it with imaginary woodland creatures - a badger, a hare and a "cute little hedgehog who had lost his mother." Bertie Baggins wondered if he was imaginary . We seemed to have forgotten about him. Or forgotten to let him through the gate into the Outside World ( I haven't got over Piglet's capitals yet - see previous blog). That the Outside World was fifteen feet or so of woody overgrown verge and dropped steeply onto an Unfriendly Road had escaped his imagination. My imagination, however, stretched to smashed cars and squashed dogs, so Bertie Baggins remained garden-bound.  And he protested loudly.  For hours.  Which did little to settle my temper.  Why would you do this to a hedgerow?  What sense is there in ripping into a young tree, shredding its branches and scattering the broken b...

I do love Winnie-the-Pooh. Even (although, I hate the gopher) the 1968 Disney version of The Blustery Day, in which The Hundred Acre Wood becomes "floodier and floodier" and the Sherman brothers wrote 'The rain rain rain came down down down' to accompany Piglet's predicament, in which, as AA Milne originally wrote, he - Piglet - "is entirely surrounded by water." Piglet endearingly says to himself "It's a little Anxious to be a Very Small Animal Entirely Surrounded by Water." Pooh meantime escapes onto a broad branch of his tree with ten pots of honey. And sits, dangling his legs, until all the honey is gone. Disney or book, the story has an innocent beauty and a happy ending. It lingers in memories of childhood and later, of sitting with a sleepy child curled up on your lap, sharing something that made you both smile. However, I share Piglet's anxiety and don't love real floods. Particularly, when there are no upturned honey-ja...