Posting days: Sunday and Wednesday and, sometimes, maybe, extra ‘news flashes’

Wednesday September 27th 2017

Well, talk about biting the hand which feeds you.

Isis disgraced herself today. It was my fault really. I was too slow too pick up on the situation.

Isis is prancing up and down in the porch waiting for S. and R. to collect her for an afternoon walk. They all arrive on the drive. But when she finds sweet, friendly George has come up to greet us she realises she is surrounded. I see her trying to sniff a way out behind R’s leg but grasp too late that she is beginning to panic.

Suddenly, poor George lifts up a slender, elegant tawny fore leg and lets out a blood curdling scream. R. and I have no idea what has happened to him. But S. has. He saw Isis bite him.

Poor George screams in shock and pain for about forty seconds. Isis has drawn blood.

Everyone tries to comfort him, and, eventually, he accepts a treat from R.

Isis and Gilbert appear unmoved.

I am mortified. And shocked. Isis has never attacked another dog before. Usually she is cowed if dogs come close to her and just backs away. Perhaps she felt brave because she was only just outside her own house.

She seems to be quite territorial and will bark when people she doesn’t know walk up to the house or along the pavement just outside her gate. She has never behaved aggressively to a passing dog though.

As soon as I am mobile, I must do some serious training with her at the front of the house.

Very kindly, S. and Ruth still take Isis with them.

*********

So to another sorry tale. The tale of how stupid human ended up with only one limb working properly.

Episode 1: the plan chest

It’s April this year. I acquire an old, heavy, architects’ plan chest in which I intend to store A1 and larger art paper and card.

The chest can be split into two but even so the sections are extremely heavy.

There’s no-one around to help. I phone C. to ask if he might be free later on, but am unable to contact him.

I huff and puff, curse mightily, and eventually manage to manouevre the first section onto the bottom of the staircase. Three times I succeed in pushing it half way up the stairs, and three times it slips back down. It’s too heavy for me to halt its descent but I manage to flatten myself against the banisters as it clatters past me and hits the chair at the bottom of the stairs.

It could have killed me, I realise. But now I am well worked up. I will get this thing upstairs.

Goodness knows how I manage it, but I do, even succeeding in hauling it over the top banister and onto the landing. It takes me about thirty minutes.

I am exhausted, soaked with sweat and triumphant.

Of course I now know that I can get the other section upstairs. After a break and a drink I do.

Clever me!

Or not.

To be continued …..

Isis came from the Aeza cat and dog rescue and adoption centre in Aljezur, Portugal. For information about adopting an animal from the centre, contact kerry@aeza.org or  www.dogwatchuk.co.uk