So dogs featured quite a bit these last few days. First off our neighbour’s dog which is a large shepherd dog from the Marema with an enormous head, Daft as a brush so far but big and I mean it is really big. It is always here. It eats our dog’s food, it eats the cat’s food, it eats our food if you let it. I craps all over the place, it widdles copiously everywhere, it slobbers over the guest’s clothes, terrorises the guests and their children and worst of all our dog, miniscule critter that it is, hates it and tries to chase it off barking in the most absurd and hysterical fashion. The result is that the neighbour’s dog ignores ours continuing to excrete all over the place meaning that ours therefore continues to bark, well into the night and waking everyone up. Neighbour’s dog comes onto the balcony, goes into the rooms if you let it and is generally a god damn nuisance Clayton. So last night was the last straw, it started to eat the dog’s food then when I shooed it off it rushed round the house to eat the cat’s food. Then I went out to shoo it off there and it was back again eating the rest of the dog’s food. Then it went for our dog. One bite and our dog’s head would be off so I’m not risking either the guests our dog or us any more and at 11.30 pm I phoned the neighbour. The gist of the conversation was if you want an easy life, keep your dog away, you want a hard life, provoke me some more. So hopefully this will be an end to it. Sometimes it seems you always have to resort to threats to get things done. Being nice gets you nowhere.
Then on the way down to the village there is a new dog on a farm. Quite a big dog too and it is one of those which should be kept under control because it hides behind things and then jumps out at you as you pass by. So far I have always been on the scooter so just accelerated because I know it is there but tomorrow I’m going to see how close it gets. If it just runs after the bike it’s not nice but tolerable but if it goes for the front wheel like they all do then perhaps it might like some pepper spray to put it off. I’m beginning not to like dog owners. So that is the dogs over with… almost.
Now I am not a person that worries unduly about things usually considered disgusting in polite society. There are some things though that even my stomach revolves at. Top of the list is emptying cesspits by hand, something that happens when people flush stuff down the loo like women’s sanitary stuff, contraceptives, newspaper, nappies etc. It is not a job I relish. However there is one thing on a par with this. Today I was gaily strimming the grass when I strum (to strim strum strum – why not?) a large pile of semi-liquid faeces from our neighbour’s large dog as above. This dog’s excrement can never be confused with that of other dogs. It is particular in shape, smell consistency and above all in quantity. Now I don’t know whether any of you have ever strum a turd with a nylon cord whirling at high speed but I can tell you, it fills eyes, nose and mouth in a split split second. There is no defence possible against it. Fans are a very poor substitution. I use a visor but to no avail. Hair nostrils and eyes and of course t-shirt and trousers. So I stopped work at five and had a bath. I still have the stench in my nostrils now after several hours and my eyes are red and stinging. I’m beginning to not like dogs very much either. Most of the neighbourhood dogs seem to use us as a toilet. We got a bitch to avoid this but it seems to be worse. So I have declared war, dogs and moles this week. So that’s dogs. Hey nonny no, up next after the commercial break.
Buy the 1000,000 candle power torch. You can buy them in every country in DIY centres. They are always yellow and have an adjustable handle you can’t adjust. Those that work work for a week and then the charger mechanism packs up. Those that don’t work don’t work at all.
Buy the 1000,000 candle power torch. 18 hours initial charge so you have to wait all that time to find out it doesn’t work. CE approved. Wonderful.
So nonny no. We have determined that the Howler is either Shakespeare reincarnated or the reincarnation of one of Willum’s friends. With no prompting from me she started waltzing round and round singing various combinations of hey nonny no and hey nonny nonny
Most odd and highly amusing. Maybe she’ll start on something written next.
Sooooo, quite an eventful night the other night. I was sleeping out in the fields in my hammock which is a nice and cool thing to do in the summer. By hammock I mean professional, Brazilian ranger’s hammock complete with fridge bar, oven and heated towel rail not the Sunday afternoon under shady tree sort of hammock. There was no moon so it was like a bat’s armpit out there. Not exactly quiet due to the cicadas and other insects which seem to like disturbing one’s sleep, plus quite a lot of scuffling but quiet enough to be just a wee bit eerie. I was near the edge of a mini cliff so above tree height for those trees over the cliff and suspended quite high up so that any roaming boar could pass under me should it so have wished. So there I am snoozing nicely, a gentle breeze wafting through the mossie net, alone in the dark, or so I thought, when suddenly Blam! And a shot rings out as they say in the detective stories. Oooh! that was close says my sleepy brain. It didn’t quite register as strange that someone should be shooting at 11.30 in pitch darkness. Then I casually looked around to see if there were any torches but there were none. The hammock is camo too so not easy to see amongst the trees and the thought crossed my mind that whoever it was might just not see me. Well I though, might just be a firework though I must confess it didn’t sound like one. Then a couple of minutes later Blam! again but a bit closer. Still no lights. I began to get a bit narked. If I’m going to get shot in my bed I want to be able to shoot back but all I had with me was a knife and a Bernard Cornwell novel, a very good Bernard Cornwell novel admittedly but still nothing to get successfully belligerent with. The third blam! and I heard what sounded very much like some leaves in a tree uncomfortably close by disintegrate, though in hindsight it could have been a terrified bird getting the hell out, but whatever, I was out of my hammock faster than a very very fast thing and flat on the ground looking round for torch light. Still none. At this point there were two possibilities, one that there was a nutter on the loose, which seemed the option to reject as it really was pitch black and I heard nothing like stubbed toe cries or annoyed branches-in-face mutterings. The other possibility was that it was a poacher with night vision equipment and high powered rifle, which is what it sounded like hence the parachute roll out of the hammock to the comparative safety of brambles and grass. At that point I though it wiser to depart the tropics for cooler climes and took a plane home as fast as possible though there were no other shots. Next day I reported the matter to the police as, even with hunters here, poachers with rifles are unusual but as they said themselves, there’s naff all they can do in the dark. So next time I will be taking the Emily Bronte novel with me which is truly enough to scare the willies out of even the toughest poacher, armed or not (though sleeping alone out in the fields and woods knowing I have the Emily Bronte novel in my rucksack is enough to keep me awake and jittery all night).
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