It was only after another sabulous trip to the UAE that I thought: Great camels! I’ve left the blog iron on!
It all started so full of hope and the smell of honeysuckle and orange blossom, and I gripe to the Major about lack of time and too much mean bitching going on in the reading group and the sheer horror of having put my bank card back the wrong way up in my purse and having to look after a new Labrador just as a Greenwich blog would come into its very controversial own.
Yes, a two-pronged approach here – as I return for what I hope is third time lucky. The Labrador came about one morning as the Major woke with a start, wild-eyed and with a thin line of perspiration behind his left ear, and declared that a man could not be whole without a dog, that we needed a dog, that a dog was just what I needed in order not to be lonely at home every day (?!). He roamed the Internet for a while and then acknowledged defeat – until suddenly he zoomed off to Braintree to put down a deposit for a Prince among Pups. Yes, our Labrador is descended from Norwegian kings (or champions) and is adorable. Gone are the weeks of wiping dog diarrhoea off the kitchen walls, not getting any sleep and familiarising ourselves with the previously unconquered territory of the pet shop – a strangely dusty ‘affaire’ full of forward, yet nervy people perusing the diamante collar section and tag vending machine. We are now fully au fait with the routine and the Major gets up at six to prepare for a gentle jog’n’dog around Greenwich Park.
The other prong to my fork is 2012. A saggy synthesis of dog thesis and Olympics antithesis arises here. 2012, a dastardly organisation with sinister motives headed by Seb, the Evil Prince of Parkness, who plans to run the thundering thousand Horsemen of the Apocalympics through the Flower Garden in our Park (yes, OUR park, THE park, favourite of Henry VIII, birthplace of Elizabeth and Mary, the site of Roman ruins, Saxon burial grounds, honest sausages) just for the twee backdrop of the glittering Thames and the bling of beleaguered banking below. Little enthusiastic TwentyTwelvers dash up to you with leaflets and assurances that they are ‘neutral’ and that you can have your say when everyone knows that the whole sinister deal is long done and will mean months of closure and building work and the tiresome murder and muggings of mutts and owners in the borough parks that no one would otherwise frequent.
Well, on behalf of the dogs and bitches of Greenwich, thank you.
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