Puppymas Day!

Friday, 29^th May 2020

Remember when the whole world and every living human was out to kill you? Even communal surfaces – door handles, supermarket trolleys, dog poo bin lids – seem to have lost their radioactive glow. Going outside no longer contains the same frisson of danger and excitement as a few weeks ago. Our distant ancestors knew that a day’s hunting of large dangerous beasts was a matter of life and death. Now, after several visits to Lidl during the height of the pandemic, I feel some kinship for my fur-clad brethren. Obviously, I didn’t need a sharpened spear to claim some halloumi and a pot of Greek yoghurt but I felt exposed in the aisles like my ancestors might have when crossing open ground.

Does anyone know what the govt’s new ‘Stay Alert’ message actually means? I can’t help interpreting it as ‘Let Your Guard Down A Bit’ or just ‘Chillax.’ Whereas before I knew not to lick any toilet seats, now I’m thinking it’s okay to lick some toilet seats (as long as I’m paying attention). ‘Stay Alert’ is a step down from ‘Stay Alive’ but it’s going to kill me; I’m getting slack. On the way back from the local shops, I stood off the pavement onto the road as a lady in a motorized wheelchair chugged down the path, smoking a fag and walking her dog. Our old lab, Poppy stopped on the path forcing Fagash Lil and her pooch to also stop. Once the dogs had said hello, Poppy had a little nose-y explore of Lil’s shopping bags hanging off the handlebars and Lil bent the hand holding the fag down to pat Poppy’s head. Two minutes later, I was kissing the exact spot where Fagash had given her a rub and then I was left to ponder how I’d been caught out so simply. Is it the govt.’s mixed messaging, I wondered, or their mishandling of their health advice, or even the shake-hands-visit-grandparents-look-at-a-castle hypocrisy that had cause my imminent death.

 And is it just me or is everyone starting to look less poisonous (apart from Fagash Lil, who looked like coronavirus personified)? Last night, after the NHS clap, all our neighbours gathered in a circle to have a chat, and our spacing was certainly diminished since VE Day when we had stood at the end of one neighbour’s drive and taken a plate of Victoria sponge that had been laid on the driveway as if it might explode. Whilst trying to eat it without using my hands, taking sideways chunks out of it like a dog, instead of thinking ‘This is delicious,’ I had to keep up a mental litany of ‘Don’t lick your fingers, don’t lick your fingers, Corona-cake! Corona-cake!’ which took the gloss off it a bit.

The other thing the circle of neighbours gathered for last night was to see our newly arrived puppy: Sheriff Dobbins.

Yesterday, after counting down the ‘sleeps’, was Puppymas Day. The Screenager agrees to be woken at 8:30 in preparation. We decide to take Poppy, our old dog, over with us so he could meet his soon-to-be tormentor-in-chief on neutral ground. Driving there, the car is full of excitement except for a rather quiet Screenager.

‘I haven’t seen you up this early in months,’ says his older brother. ‘How does it feel?’

‘My eyes ache,’ he replies, ‘too much sunlight.’

How’s your brain feel?’ I ask.

‘Flustered,’ he says, ‘too much information, too early.’

 The big question, of course, is whether new puppy = less screen time. The Screen loves dogs more than humans and was adamant in wanting to chip in a couple of hundred quid for the pup. Now, as a part-owner, will he be up for puppy-sitting and walking and general entertainment or will the lure of Instagram and Madden 20 be too strong…?

It is a great time to get a puppy, though four weeks ago might have been even better. Although lockdown is easing, many fun things remain far away like desert mirages (Is that a pub, shimmering on the horizon? No… just more bits of sand). So a puppy will fill the days in the way a small baby will. We will need eyes on Sheriff at all times. First duty for all concerned: keep the little bugger alive.

Soon, we are all home with our black and white Cockapoo bundle of mischief. Poppy, our twelve year old Labrador, wears the look of one betrayed. From under furrowed brows, she occasionally catches my eye with a look that says, ‘So this is permanent, is it?’

‘You’re top dog,’ I say, referring to her promotion from the bottom of the pack whilst I rub her head. She looks less than convinced.

Sheriff then attempts a kind of wrestling move that is used when one’s opponent lies supine on the mat and you want to land on him from a great height with the point of your elbow. Poppy snarls, turns round in her bed and watches him with disgust as he crouches and considers, in a blissful mis-reading of the signs, how next to attack her. For Poppy, lockdown just took a big turn for the worst.

*

So, who’s feeling proud to be British? Maybe you don’t subscribe to the concept of Britishness. Maybe you’re a pan-European, fluent in eleven languages, with family scattered around the globe. But, my god, is it possible for our reputation to sink any lower in the world’s consciousness?

With Brexit, I think the other EU countries looked upon the UK as if we were a polar explorer leaving the beleaguered tent, planning to go it alone with a jar of chutney and some great British chutzpah. Huddled in the tent, the EU gang closed the tent flap knowing it was all folly, too much stiff-upper-lip and not enough common sense. But lurking deep in their hearts was a doubt-fear: What if he makes it? What if he’s right and huddling here will only lead to our frozen corpses being found in a pile of mutual inaction?

Fortunately, Claude Juncker is there to have the last word: ‘Fear not, my fellow Europeans. Bluster will not carry him more than fifty feet from this tent and Boris has no moral compass with which to guide himself.’

Boris - No Deal in each fist - Johnson!

Our very own Wreckit Ralph (or Wrexit Ralph), might not even last to ride his white elephant, its sides daubed ‘Sovereignty!’, back across the English Channel. [Fuck, that is one mixed metaphor of a sentence – never mind!] With his handling of the pandemic, Boris has been shown up for the snake-oil salesman he truly is. He is neither a man of substance (except corporeally) or detail. He can neither lead nor change tack when the public mood shifts. I hope every wavering voter who put a X for their local Tory now realises what they have done. If they came from traditional Labour-voting stock, then I hope their grandparents disinherit them for their betrayal.

Vote Boris Blimp!

Beacon of Hope!

Engine of Change!

Man of the People!

And the dead bodies pile up below…