I 've been given a sheet of paper (now ripped into small pieces) that tells you all the types of people your puppy should meet before they get too old. Men with beards(or women), people in uniform, vicars, babies and the great thing is we've ticked them all off as we have a dressing up box so I just pretend I'm a vicar and put on a white collar back to front. I also have a false beard that works really well on your head as a quiff. So that's two people with only one prop. There's no sign of a mermaid or a pirate on the list but I've dressed up as one just in case. You don't want a strange pirate to turn up at the front door to be met by a barking dog.
Dressing up can be very useful. When I was trying to get a mortgage quite a while ago and was self employed, single and pregnant I doubted the bank would even consider me. So I stuffed my bra with a massive amount of socks to give me a bigger bust line than my pregnant belly, put on a baggy jumper to hide my bump and sailed into the bank feeling like an Elizabethan galleon. The manager couldn't take his eyes off my "breasts" and muttered "I think we can give you the figure you're after."
So Colin from Gosport has finally flown away! Last evening at dusk I saw a flurry of black tail feathers fly over the hedge and he was gone. He determinedly remained a wild bird and I'm so happy for that. The shade tunnel is now vacant for any other fledglings next Spring.
As Emperor Pocket and Emily Dickinson would say "That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."
Pixie is finding Rocket rather annoying and is seen here consulting her diary incase there's an opportunity to go away somewhere without him. I ask her about her very interesting fact for this post and she tells me that a single, little brown bat can eat up to a thousand mosquitos in a single hour. I asked her if the use of the word single seen here twice was supposed to tell me something.
I love beetles. There is this wonderful book packed with photos of them and some of them have the most glorious names. These are genuine names though they do sound as if they come out of some sort of fairy tale. Wouldn't it be fun to meet An Agreeable Caterpillar Hunter or a False Clown Beetle? There's a Javan Fiddle Beetle and a Splendid Earth Boring Beetle. A Telephone-Pole Beetle and a Subangulate Warrior Beetle. I have ferried the names away in one of my many notebooks and in doing so realise that I am a hoarder of words. I must use subangulate in a story somewhere. There - spell check says it doesn't exist but it does in the Oxford English Dictionary. Possessing a slight or obtuse angle. A bit like this blog post I suppose.
A friend of mine is also getting a puppy and calling it Beckett. It reminded me of living at home with my family as a child. Living at home was like living in a Samuel Beckett play. This poem which I wrote a long time ago is an absolutely true account of what used to go on. This happened on a regular basis when my parents watched television. I promise you - it is all true.
small talk
Mr B(who sat in his big leather chair
lost in its wings)
would stare at the set in the corner
and although Mrs B
would bring in the tea
he never felt the need to join her.
Should she speak
(and he could not hear)
he would raise to his ear
a massive trumpet
made of tortoise shell
whilst she,
mouth full of crumpet
would quell her irritation
and her lips would move in syncopation
“What did you say dear?”
Mrs B thought of euthanasia.
Eventually, instead of death
she brought him ear phones
and plugged him in
by curly cable from his head
across the floor and coffee table
to the belly
of the telly
as if he were joined
by an umbilical cord
and Mrs B who ignored the screen
did not have to listen
at Christmas to the queen
or commercials for tampons and lager
but could play as softly as she liked
the Beatles and Wagner.
And when she needed to talk
Mrs B would walk to the porch
and flash signals across the room
with a torch.
