A wicked weekend
After a huge breakfast of porridge, yoghurt and dog mixer (greyhounds like weird stuff), our new lodger staggered back to her bed with a rather enormous pile of food still balancing worryingly on her nose. Obviously being boss-eyed is an advantage because she soon realised there were ‘extras’ on her nose, and she cleaned those off with one swipe of her long tongue before giving a large burp and falling asleep yet again (exhausting all that eating, obviously).
Very soon, we set off back up North to J’s, where the children had had a fine time, staying up until 2am watching DVDs with her son, C, walking several miles to the swings (J took no nonsense from our rather pampered offspring) and polishing off great big cups of hot chocolate with cream and chocolate sprinkles. They were a bit disappointed that they hadn’t seen more of the lovely C (senior), J’s other half who was so kind with us after B died, but who lives a frenetic existence between home and his racing kennels at Laois (pronounced Leash). They’re both rather taken with C and were hoping to take advantage of his vast knowledge of greyhounds and subject the poor man to a Mastermind-type barrage of questions. In the end, they apparently settled on quizzing J on Ireland and Catholicism (and Hubby and I joined in asking for explanations on Irish politics and the North/South situation), so that kept her busy. Dizzy was rather pleased to see everybody, but again settled quickly onto her bed. J made us another of her massive Sunday lunches – roast beef and all the trimmings, which was just as good as last time, rounded off with apple crumble, custard and ice cream…yum.
It was then that we had a crisis of conscience. Should we offer to foster Dizzy until a home came along? I wasn’t sure that I was ready for another dog, but Hubby especially was very taken with Dizzy, and I felt guilty that she would be going to J’s kennels until a new home could be found for her. I think my biggest worry was that she wasn’t used to being indoors and would need training and – more importantly – a firm hand to teach her how to behave. Firm handling wasn’t exactly my strong point with B (‘sit, no sit..SIT!’), and I started to worry that I would do the wrong thing, or worse, make her harder to rehome in the long term. In the end, the decision was taken out of our hands, as J pointed out to the children that Dizzy needed to see a vet to have her stitches removed, and for a thorough check-up and nail trim.
So we waved sadly goodbye to J, C and poor Dizzy – her ear tattoos pointed the finger at her owner, who had given her real name to J and obviously forgot that J would look her up, putting paid to her cock and bull story. The children talked non-stop about their fabulous weekend (‘wicked!’), but by the time we could see the bright blue top of the big bridge in Drogheda, they were fast asleep.
