Update

I've done my best to right the clocks but some are too high up. I guess they'll be right eventually.
We've been playing with file conversions and the e-reader. Basically it's a learning curve we're still on.
FP told me that I have eaten all the pig's ears now so it's back to bonios (gravy bones, jumbones & whatever chocolate I find on the shelf).
I ate about a third of a bar of caramel chocolate yesterday & it didn't sit well in my tummy. Felt queasy.
Well, I'm off back to the grindstone to see if I can work out how to get PDFs readable on the e-reader.

Something's not right

None of the clocks in the house tell the correct time...

Smashing

People,
It is not, repeat NOT, cool to throw bottles off the steps in the park so that they smash all over the terrace path. NOT COOL.
I am cool.
Yesterday I saw 7 collies being all nicely trained and obedient in the park and I thought to myself how lucky I am that the most FP & ST ever ask of me is a paw wave every now and then. I also think that if we ever got a motorbike and sidecar I would raise my paw at all the pedestrians. I'd have a specially made helmet on which had Collie Ear Attachments and a strap to go under my chin. I might have goggles. I suppose this would mean that it took longer to get ready to go out but my in-car singing would reach a wider audience.

A Boy & His Pie – from a Dog’s Perspective

Most dogs are severely tested when it comes to young children and their propensity to hold food at mouth level. Some owners train their dogs to resist temptation by sending them to Boot Camp, monasteries in China or Dog Borstal then they show off about their dog's achievement in the Internet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp_WV91jx8E

Good on you Stains.

Real family pets though learn to take advantage of situation on an ad hoc basis. Recently I came across this story of a boy, his pie and a lab-whippet cross who we'll call Honey:

Honey was on her way past this young boy sitting on a comfy chair holding a Mr Kipling apple pie in his hand. He was laughing at something and paying little attention to the pie. Honey (the old pro) stopped in her tracks and here we can see her making a careful appraisal of the situation, including key details like wrappings, how tightly the pie is being held and just how distracted the boy is.

Here we can see how Honey fixed the pie with all her attention without once alerting the boy that he was about to lose out on his snack - why, he's still laughing!

Seizing the moment she knew would come and never once taking her eyes from the prize, Honey waited until whatever the boy was laughing at became so funny he had to throw back his head and close his eyes...

Here we can see how this story ended! Even the boy's Mother is looking on in admiration of Honey's dedication to the pie and the boy is not bothered either. Just look at Honey - she's eating that pie almost upside down and that's labs for you!

Take your rubbish home!

We all remember the great fun we all had when it snowed, right? Even I had a laugh:

"Catch Tugger!"

"Tugger all covered in snow"

Yes, everything was lovely. But now I'm finding that the fun had consequences.

The slope in the park where people were tobogganing is still littered with tatty bin liners, bits of broken plastic and even lumps of what seems to be old kitchen work-top, which might have seemed like the ideal sledge at the time but which is now just killing the grass where it lies waiting for whichever nitwit brought it into the park to realise that it DOESN'T belong there.

I know you're thinking it should all have been cleaned up long ago and I agree; it should. But none of this junk should have been left in the first place. I don't leave my poo on the ground for people to tread in and neither do most of the other dogs I know in the park, so do us a favour, people and return the compliment.

I shouldn't laugh but I can't help it

FP's lost her voice so she's having real trouble stopping me from chewing up her lunch box. She looks cross and everything but I'm pretending I don't get it, laying it on thick with the collie ears and tilting my head to the side. I look adorable but she didn't train me to understand hand gestures alone! It's a technical point but I'm exploiting it because the other thing is that if she tries to pull the lunch box out of my mouth, I'm going to interpret that as play. Giggle, this is hilarious!

Alanis again

I'm in the study having a lie down whilst listening to Alanis Morissette.

I've earned this relaxation by being tested to the limit today. Honestly, if you all knew even half of what I put up with in a 'normal' day...

When I first moved to London (I'm from the Midlands but my accent is almost gone now) I used to go nearly crazy trying to keep order everywhere I went because order is what collies do. For more information on what collies do see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw

Alright, so it was collies and some mad people but could it have happened without the collies, eh? No.

Point is that I used to round up joggers, cyclists and people who weren't going in the same direction as me when I first came to London and FP discovered that I had some issues with living amongst lots of people as opposed to lots of fields like when we were in the Midlands.

We worked on my issues and now, as you all know, I just bark at things I cannot control. In my heart I am herding all these variables into a circle. In reality I'm just making sh**-loads of noise.

Then, this evening, I was out in the garden waiting for FP to come home and blow me but didn't a fox amble by looking all like "I own all this"!? Cheek! I was so surprised I forgot to bark loudly and made this pathetic little 'Wuff' sound. Not enough to put the fear into Mr Fox as I would have wished but enough to alert him to my Presence, at which point he dashed away. Casual as you like he was up to that point then gone in a second, off into someone's back garden for a night of making that dreadful racket with his friends.

Or, and this is the horrible part, maybe FP was with the fox all day and the reason he showed up when she did is because she prefers hanging out with foxes and not me!

You see now why I need Alanis, don't you?

Tripe

I was growing anxious, pacing about the front room and waiting for FP to come home. It had been another stressful day with Motwoozle and Daisy'sDad in situ; I couldn't leave them unsupervised for a single minute.

I was tired, upset and if I could have rung my paws I would have! Where was FP?

This morning in the park I knew there was a fox nearby but do you think I could get through the brambles to reach him? No, I couldn't. I ended up with a thorn in my head and that's pretty much how it was all day. Woe.

Then, outside in the street, I heard the jangling of keys. FP was nearly home and I ran to the door. Footsteps, more jangling and then...the door opened and there she was!

I barked with happiness! FP was home and then I caught scent of something wondrous. What was it? I'd never smelt anything like it before and then FP was placing her bag on the floor beside me and I had to stop barking or she wouldn't undo the zip (although, you know, it wouldn't have taken my collie mind long to overcome that obstacle!).

I humoured FP and ST and stopped barking and oh! The reward was great! A tripe stick. Another snack to add to my list of favorites! Thank you Princess Leia and Mr Dixon! Thank you all!

Steve Claridge

Dear Mrs. Photon,

I have considered Steve Claridge (carefully) and as I was doing so I turned on the radio. Maybe it was fate, maybe not but there he was speaking to me! I looked him up on a soccer site:

http://www.soccerbase.com/players_details.sd?playerid=1469

These are my thoughts:

• SC half laughs whilst commenting and this re-assures me that he really does know what he's talking about because the laugh lets me know it's obvious
• he reacts to what the lead commentator has just said which proves he's listening and sometimes that's more than I can claim (!)
• he's never yet (to my knowledge) openly criticised Alan Green for being one of the most miserable people on radio
• he's loyal - as evidenced by the fact that he has played for several teams TWICE.

Steve Claridge - respect to you.

I've had a nerve-jangling day (except for the moments during which I was thinking about SC). Daisy'sDad was going crazy earlier and I had to stay close to ST in case he needed protecting. I was all strung out and looking forward to when FP arrived home but she still hasn't done the decent thing and fetched a pig's ear out of the cupboard for me. I shall fix her with a special berry eyes glare and anticipate being ensconced with a snack of at least some description v. soon.

Jumbone tree

I sneaked out earlier and buried half a jumbone in the garden. I'd say in about 3-4 weeks I'll see the first shoots on my snack tree. Prime location in the garden too, just next to where I tried to hide the hurdle FP deluded herself into thinking she could train me to jump about 2 years ago. Do I look like a horse?

I wasn't feeling great this morning and had to leave my breakfast until got home from my walk. I was starving by the time we met Spike and he kept asking if I was okay, although I could have been hallucinating as,of course, Spike is a dog and cannot he talk.

More love needed!

Spread the love NunuThunder...

I'm writing this post whilst listening to Colonel Abrahams singing "Trapped", a very great indeed 80s track from the 1980s which cropped up between 1980 and 1989. Yes. I'm nodding my head and my ears are at full collie extension. One of my hind legs is jiggling - such a good song!

Anyhoo, here I was mooching along earlier when I noticed something crawling across the floor towards me. As many decent and upstanding dogs will testify this is a situation which requires immediate action: whatever the crawling thing is, intervention is necessary.

Thus I have eaten something unpleasant. Blee. It was probably a spider but it could have been a fly.

Either way, despite the fact that I had only done what nature requires me to do, it didn't make me feel good. I could have gone against nature and not intervened with the thing crawling across the floor but I am a reliable Nunu and voila. (Ah, french...)

And this is a bit like life. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't feel good and even feels like treading in poo, as I wrote in my last post. I'll tell you what though, people, doing the right thing will always feel good in the end. Yes.

To quote the great Colonel:

"Oh, oh I'm trapped,

Like a fool locked in a cage

I can't get out - you see I'm trapped" etc. Awesome.

As you were.

Mr Dixon

I'm giving out lots of empathy, sniff the breeze.

Some days there's just loads of poo around and when you've as many legs as I have it is inevitable that you will tread in some. Sometimes it's really messy poo and sometimes it's dry, chalky stuff and you think "Phew! That's lucky", because it is all relative, you see: dry poo is better than sloppy poo, even though both stink and you'd rather not tread in either.

And that's a bit like life. People can sometimes remind me of poo, especially teenaged people:

• they can smell bad, or not so bad
• they can leave you thinking that you'd cheerfully never set eyes on them again, or "Phew"
• they will always be there, just like poo

I know that this is probably no replacement for the offer of bubble-wrap to jump on but perhaps my little nugget of wisdom delivered straight from the heart will bring a little smile to your face?

With best wishes for a better day etc.

NunuThunder

Rain check

Hmmm, looks like my Special Puddle will be only sparingly refilled over the week ahead. I love my Special Puddle; it is shaped like a really big foot (a foot about 4 meters long, in fact) and it's on some grass so there are lovely boggy environs. I always drop Tugger in my Special Puddle and we laugh together - me, FP & ST - as one of them has to go in and get Tugger back. I tell them: "This is why you have wellies!" and I think they understand.

When I'm in my Special Puddle I dig up the muddy water to make sure that my belly is completely covered. This is how I ensure that FP knows I been kipping on the bed (muddy paw prints, dust everywhere) during the day whilst she was off doing whatever she finds more interesting clearly than spending every waking minute tending to me. I have fur to be brushed, a snack schedule to keep and there's always barking to be done! It's sometimes more than a little dog can manage on her own! Sigh.

Now that the evenings are drawing out I think I might take watercolour painting.

Extra

ST has asked me to point out that scented poo bags have the very serious consequence of making his coat pocket stink worse than poo. In his opinion that is but quite a few ladies follow him about the park and chat him up. Partly this is why I bark vigorously at their dogs; I am FP's eyes and ears at all times.

Scented poo bags

Yes, that's right; scented poo bags.

Why?

Especially for you

It is Lent, so I'm told. Personally I think giving up stuff proves you can do without it, so why should you have it at all? I don't need a pig's ear but it does me good and then I can go forth in the world and do good for/to others. Yes; I am a very willing collie always letting people know the best way of doing things (including walking along a straight path in the park or driving the car).

My profound thoughts this morning are provoked by the plight of Princess Leia's Dad, Mr Dixon. He's changed his photo on Twitter to a very serious one. I think he should go nuts today and drink as much whiskey as he can manage, eat as much chocolate as there is available because youp'pve;; earnt ;/// it.

Ooops. I made a few spelling errors there but then I have no thumbs and this is what happens when I don't look at the keyboard. I have especially muddy paws this morning and I'm getting a bit anxious that we're not going to the park as soon as I'd like to - all the squirrel action will be over for the day!

NunuThunder - the mini series

I have just the BEST idea for getting the economy going again (single-handedly, I tell you!):

• NunuThunder Goes About (working title)

Yes.

Now, I've literally only just thought of this so there's much to be planned yet but for a start I could be trailed by a discreet team of camera(wo)men* on a 'regular' walk in the park. Avid (industry reference, did you spot that?) readers will know that I am heavily involved with protecting London from the Squirrel Army and my alacrity (OMG! I cannot be stopped!) in reporting back to the Leggy Dalmatian is often all that stands between you, me and the oblivion that would follow a successful takeover by the bushy-tailed critters. Yes.

I think only highly skilled camera operators could do this kind of work because anything less than total professionalism would blow my cover and then I'd have to, you know, go barking mad (you see, I'm hilarious too!).

What else? Ah, now this is where we could make some decent commercial cash on the project because I am a Connoisseur of snacks. We could try all sorts of snacks in EVERY episode and who wouldn't pay for that kind of coverage?

The whole thing has legs (4, in fact) and I think the right team would make light works (I'm on fire!) of the pilot in no time.

My availability is detailed off to the side somewhere on this blog, look, over there...I have to keep snack times as 'me time', is all I would stipulate. Alright? Lovely.

*BBC trained people welcome as I can 'do' PC (or not).

Strike a pose

Yesterday after being frantically busy I realised that I am not properly appreciated. No.

So I went on strike and made my picket line at the top of the stairs.

I chose this location very carefully:

• I fit exactly in the gap between the banister and the wall
• I could get to my feet at any moment and send anyone stepping over me flying, so the jeopardy is great - only I know when it will happen
• All my needs can be met whilst at the top of the stairs (I can smell cheese/ham/pigs ears in the kitchen, I can bark at anyone approaching the front garden, I can make sure ST doesn't sneak out, I can mob anyone being allowed in etc)
• The positioning of the lights in the hall make my eyes glow, giving me a certain je ne sais quoi (oh yes, I speak French!)

But mostly I have to admit it was the getting-in-the-way thing that swung it for the top of the stairs, otherwise I'd have gone and lain where I normally do and watched the garden and slept whilst being on strike.

My terms and conditions were met, BTW. ST & FP have agreed to keep better time when fetching my snacks and to stop spending so much time dicking about on weekend mornings so that we reach the park before all the greyhounds have cleared the squirrel areas.