Iceland

Cripes! It’s been all go today. 9 am sharp Lady S wakes me up with the words ‘Get packing, we’re going up north for four nights’. Well it can’t be Watford can it. ‘Er where to’ says I, thinking not another bloody evangelical mission to help poor mountain people, but actually saying ‘Yorkshire Moors? The Lake District?… N n n n Not Scotland, surely?’ I bleat.

‘Iceland’ she said, looking at me with her gimlet eye, you couldn’t see the other one as it had a monocle in it, daring me to make the old joke about the shop. I bottled it. ‘But but … Isn’t it cold up there (pathetic), don’t they eat Puffins? (better) Didn’t they go bust?’ (not nearly good enough).

‘ There a lot of poor god forsaken people up there and you are Fffing well coming with me to help them. End of.’ God help me. But Edwards did secrete a rather fine bottle of malt into the luggage. What a good butler he is.

Thanks for my Birthday present

You will recall that The Grifter gave me for Christmas four fine bone china decanter labels; none of your rubbish mind, but no chains. Rob my old friend from Gloucester, he was the one who knocked up Lady BSM when he was her chauffeur and had to ask her father the old Count, for her hand, I’m pretty sure that was what I was told, has stepped up to the mark and given me for my fiftieth a length of old bog chain. Thanks.

Had a Fenton moment today

Had a Fenton moment today….. Lady S and I took Rolo the curmudgeonly Lab and young Bertram the springer out for a walk in their favourite Legoland woods courtesy of HRH’s Royal Landscape. All went well with Bertie raising the occasional deer and Rolo carrying a favoured size log (not a branch, they are for wimps) as we got a bit of a stomp on. Our return to the parked Bob Marley is normally a well mannered affair with the dogs happily returning to have their leads put on after a fun walk and then safely on to the busy road. But on this occasion Rolo decided otherwise. Cherishing his just-found smelly old tennis ball and predicting an imminent loss of possession on hearing the clarion call, he decided to go ‘orf piste’. Eying a gap in the hedge Rolo legs it on to the main road thwarting Lady S’ shepherding scheme and causing me to start running down the road shouting ‘Sit, sit!’ Needless to say it didn’t work and, flouting the Highway Code which to be fair he hadn’t read, Rolo crossed the road through the hawthorn hedge and into the field beyond. It’s at times like this that one is glad of investing in a Barbour. I leapt the ditch, plunged through the hedge and surged forward shouting at the ffing dog to stop. The red mist had descended. I had time to think about this as I sailed thorough the air following tripping on the tree trunk i’d not noticed and decided to save face by converting to a ‘combat roll’ to the shoulder as if I’d meant to do it. The farmer who helped me up seemed to see through my ploy muttering something about anger management as he hand me the dog on the lead. You can imagine the chuckle Lady S and he had afterwards. Rolo was unrepentant but I am planning my revenge. ….