Leading question

Under no circumstances should Frank be allowed off the lead, ever.

If a puppy has ever more repeatedly been told it's loved, I will eat our Cath Kidston dog basket.

And we mean it. He will just have to stay close to us, lead length, forever.

Sorry and all that, lad.

Only his mate Rossco is, already.

So maybe I'll try it today, I thought.

Fuck it.

Shit me, Frank thought.

Er, hang on a minute. Where are you going and why doesn't my neck hurt? Wait up.

That's sheep shit, that is. I'm going to eat it. There, see?, I've eaten it.

No neck pain. Odd.

I'm gonna trot now. I'm trotting. I'm bounding. I'm bloody bounding. I'm going to turn it on on, here I go. Here I go. I'm only bloody running. Earrrrs, back!

What's that? A whistle. That'll be Dad, that will. Better turn around. Better go back. Back, back, I'm coming!, might just bend down here a sec for a bit more dung, and there, I'm back. Watcha!

He does seem pleased.

Must be the poo eating.

I'll do that more then.

Petiquette and losing the sofa

Frank the whippet arrived a month ago.

He moved in with Jess and I suddenly. One day he wasn't there, the next he was.

The next, a line I am pretty sure I'm pinching from another Whippet owner Terry Darlington, he had my slippers on.

Right now he's sleeping in the best spot on the sofa with my girl. There's no getting on there.

I’ve also noted a whiff of routine about the development, so I decided to start blogging again.

Things I've learned since Frank arrived:

1, I'm not ready to have children

2, Petiquette isn't in any of the books I've read.

What do you say while your dog is sniffing another's arse, to the other person holding a lead? In particular, since the dogs decide the length of the encounter, how do you end the conversation swiftly and cleanly, at literally any moment?

'Bye' seems too short, too flippant given the intimacy you've both witnessed; in a way, shared.

So far, 'Have a good day,' is all I've got.

It's not enough. I'm not pretending it is.

Also, Frank is pretty.

There's no point denying it.

Eventually he'll look scrawny and lopsided like all whippets, but right now, at 12 weeks, he's a delightfully subtle light browny grey colour with white markings on his legs and bum. He's got blue eyes and tilts his head at all the right moments. So people tell him, relentlessly, in the park, before he sniffs their dog or them. And, I'm sorry, but I've got in the habit of saying 'Thank you.'

I know this can't be right. It sounds wrong as I say it - which is probably a sign.

But what's the alternative?

'But you're too kind, sir. For your dog is the infinitely more beautiful.. My what a looker.' (?)

Anyway, today I also started reading a book about looking after your dog, perhaps belatedly.

Skipping the chapters on choosing your breed and pet, which we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed about, I’m on to ‘the first few weeks’.

I’m, er, dog-earing the pages Jess should read too. Which is a lot.

Tonight I’m going to put him to bed the way I should have done since we had him. That is to say, not carry him across the room and poke him through the crate door before rapidly shutting it, pulling down the cover and running out of the room before he starts yowling.

Odd how I thought this could be the right way.

But tonight Frank will be ‘led to the crate with a toy or treat, and settled down quietly with stroking…’ etc until he doses off.

Cesar Millan makes it sound so simple.

OUTING: Dating agent

You'll do for our mate, you will.
How old are you? That's a good age.
What do you do? Oh, that's alright.
Are you single?
Do you have kids?
You'll do for our mate. Don't you think so Lil?
She'd like you.
How old are you?
You might do for me.
Our friend will like you.
What do you do again?
Can I have your number? I'll give it to our friend.
She'd like you.
How old are you?

CYCLING: Bug's strife

Cyclists eat more than their fair share of bugs. It goes without saying.

Two lbs an average pedestrian's year according to Catherine.

A failed operation to persuade my face to breathe through nose and not mouth has left me even more susceptible.

I would say I eat two or three insects a saddled week.

But beware... turning to look at Downland views can worsen matters.

You may not know but they’re a lot harder to get out of one’s ear hole, ill equipped as we are to gag or cough through them.

And, to make matters worse, I discovered this week, whereas the struggles of swallowed bug manifest at worse in a throaty tickle and the icky thought of what you’ve done, in the ear you experience winged animal panic at high volume.

CYCLING: Sets for the soul

The sun was waiting for us at seven fifteen as it seems to do in April, positioned precicely between two Downland bushes.

We turned behind The Downs Golf Club's par five second, puffing, and there, see?, millions and millions of miles away, but in the exact same place it had been yesterday and the day before, at the exact same time.
How does it do that?

Good evening, it said.
We agreed and said thank you.

It had been busy laying out a feast too; stretching, as the valley did, to East Dean and northwards to Jevington, cast in gold.

And weirdly, we noted, no queue.
Are there honestly better things to be doing with your life? Are there two sun sets going on in Hampden Park?

--

Have people forgotten
What a sunset can do
For the soul which is suffering
As ours tend to

Cycling: Sod's sodden law

Oh how it's rained.

CYCLING: Six sunny days say spring

The sunset is back the right side of clocking off and all of a sudden, in the space of a week and no more, this corner of southern England is awoken.

Amongst watch and phone adjustments and the very occasional sale at work, three bikers are jubilant – to us at least, more than anyone else has cause to be.

The sun may be here, but we’re the ones who’ve earned it.

Months of greyness, slippery track, leaves and roots, frozen fingers in districts of peaks and the ever-present threat of frosty half an hour in the back garden with the hose and one’s bike, are gone. Gone in the kind of way which makes you unsure they were ever here.

But here they were. They fought us body and soul. They lost. And now, and in this week of elemental surrender, it is sweetest. The spoils are all ours.

We’re fit, we’re strong, we’re giddy.

Dan’s full of cold, but that aside, it’s perfect.

As our comrade recovers Neil and I have peddled over the Downs from Old Town – up the tarmac escarpment like it wasn’t there – and around our 45-minute loop in ten minutes less than last summer – five of the last seven evenings.

Just then, between those paragraphs, we did it again, for the sixth.

The sixth sunset over East Dean, Friston and Jevington. The SIXTH in six days. Literally, beat that? Ha.

I sit here sweating delight, sweating glee. I’m sweating the prospect of the months ahead.