Stray

When I got in from work last night it was after midnight, and Mark had just about had enough of dismantling my taxi engine in the dark.

We had a cup of tea and contemplated our world, and then decided that we would make a trip back down to Bowness.

This was because I had become concerned, in an interfering middle class sort of way, about a stray collie that I keep seeing wandering about by itself in the middle of the night.

It had started to appear in Bowness about a month ago, skittering along the back streets like a shadow, usually at about one in the morning after everybody had gone to bed. It had a collar, but was thin and took great pains to avoid anywhere where there might be people.

We thought that we would take the dogs for their late night amble in Bowness, and see if we could see it.

The dogs thought that this change of emptying venue was very exciting indeed, and charged about sniffing spilled beer and puddles where young men had emptied themselves, with great enthusiasm. We wandered around the back streets for a while, ignoring the few remaining idiots who were too incapacitated to stagger home, and eventually we saw it.

It was not alone. A young man, the sort with a long pony tail and inadequate whiskers, was trying to tempt it to approach with bits of pizza.

It stood at a distance and watched him for a while, and then turned tail and disappeared back up the hill, much to the young man’s disappointment. He said that he had been trying to catch it for the last few nights, and once it had come within a few yards, but to no avail. It had turned and fled like somebody trying to avoid paying a taxi fare.

We strolled up the hill with the dogs, but it had vanished into the night.

On our way back Mark said that he did not think it was a stray at all. He said that any dog that had been hanging around the village for a month would be quite hungry enough to be very interested indeed in young men offering pizza. He explained that collies are sufficiently clever to know perfectly well that they would be wise not to get caught, and thought that it was very probably one of the farm dogs from the top of the hill, sloping off by itself in the middle of the night for adventure and dustbins and the occasional pizza. He said that he would drop by and speak to the farmer, whom he knows, the next time he was in Bowness.

I was a bit sorry about that, because it probably means that the dog will have a chain at nights, instead of pizza, but I suppose that is a better fate than being run over by a taxi. Maybe it isn’t, perhaps the dog will pine away in its tragic imprisonment, and it will be my fault. 

I should not interfere in the world.

Mark spent today lying underneath my car, bashing things and swearing a great deal. I made cups of tea and sympathetic noises, and this afternoon I made some rose and strawberry flavoured fudge. I can do this now that I am going to the gym again. Under the influence of the rowing machine and the cycling machine and the weights, its ill effects will probably vanish like a stray dog.

There was a thing on the wall at the gym tonight telling you how much you should weigh depending on how tall you are. It took me ages with my tongue sticking out, and the scales were in decimal weights, not stones and pounds, but eventually I worked out that I have got ten pounds too much fat. Ten pounds is an awfully lot, no wonder I get out of puff going up the stairs to the loft.

I expect if I manage to lose ten pounds then my dress will fit.

I am beginning to wonder, guiltily, if perhaps I ought to eat less as well.

I have not made up my mind about that yet.

I shall think about it whilst I eat the fudge.

LATER NOTE: We have had some good news today. Number One Daughter is not being sent to Afghanistan after all. I am very pleased about this, I would hate her to be eaten by a camel spider. The Army has changed its mind. Hurrah.

STILL LATER NOTE: Rose and strawberry flavoured fudge is utterly wonderful.