Over to Gramps …
Poppy was our last family dog and the one I was most attached to. We had to have her put to sleep in Spain. I was inconsolable for days.
We had collected Poppy, a handsome Springer Spaniel, from a house in Huddersfield that was a semi-detached replica of Cold Comfort Farm, thus saving her from the hardship of the life of a gun dog. You and your step-brother sat in the back with Poppy in a cardboard box with your step-mother and I in the front of our car took her home to a life of privilege and comfort.
I remember thinking that our garden was totally enclosed with fences and hedges and that escape would not be possible. I was soon proved wrong when I heard the neighbour (whom I had never met but was about to be, disastrously, acquainted with) at the bottom of the garden shooing Poppy back into our garden where she had deposited a poo on the lawn. I instantly saw the problem; the foliage of the tall beech hedge that formed the boundary between our gardens started from about a foot from the ground leaving gaps which Poppy could easily slip through. The problem would be easily resolved with some chicken wire, staples and a hammer.
Later, on this hot sunny day, armed with the requisite materials and tools I started crawling along the narrow space, carpeted with dead leaves and twigs, between the back of the flowerbed and the bottom of the hedge. As I settled, stretched out full length, about to start my fencing I noticed, to my consternation, the neighbour whom I had never seen but earlier heard, walking across her lawn towards the sun lounger that stood a few yards from me.
Somehow I missed the critical moment when I could have made some sort of greeting and used the opportunity to explain what I was about and avoiding any potential embarrassment.
Perhaps it was the bikini clad figure, but for some reason the connection between my brain and my mouth had momentarily failed. My mouth felt like a deflated rubber dingy, reminding me of the traumatic occasion when I briefly surfaced during a major lung operation and similarly found myself unable to verbalise my thoughts. This failure transformed my situation from that of a harmless DIY neighbour installing some wire fencing to a peeping tom.
I was mortified. Any attempt to extricate myself would not be discrete; would involve dragging my overweight body down the length of the hedge accompanied by a great deal of rustling of leaves and snapping of twigs. My neighbour, hearing the commotion, would break off from reading her novel, turn and see a dirty old man, shriek and run to her house.
With my luck her husband would be an amateur cage wrestler.
Time slowly passed with my growing anxiety heightened by the distant wail of police sirens somewhere across the city. I heard my wife calling for me to come to lunch reminding me that I was hungry and hoping that my rumbling stomach would not draw attention.
Thankfully this all happened before mobile phones became widespread. My ordeal ended when my neighbour, hearing her phone ring in her house set off down her garden leaving me to scramble through the flowerbed and head towards my house to face a cold lunch and my wife’s questions about where I had been, why I had twigs hanging from my clothes and how I needed my hearing tested
3 Comments on "Guest Post From Gramps – Yet Another Doggy Tale"
God I love reading your Gramps tales. Hilarious as always.
Sounds like a sketch from a carry on film
Did the fench get fixed?
Hearing tested? Maybe. Eyesight? Perfect.