26 Feb 2009 1:36 AM

Some of you may know I am nursing broken bones and that, as time goes on, I am starting to see improvements.  As well as feeling sorry for myself, my wife has also been going through her own trauma.  I will not say what health problems she is having but I will say that she has, over a period of time, being undergoing lots of tests to try and get to the bottom of what is the cause of the effects she has been receiving.

Yesterday, and fearing the worst-probably due to our age-, I drove my wife to our general hospital with mixed emotions. 

At this moment in time, parking, at the hospital, is very difficult for parking spaces, although the matter will soon be resolved sometime later in the year, are limited.

To make sure my wife arrived at the hospital on time; I drove to the perimeter of the hospital and dropped her off then drove off to a pre-reserved parking space at one of our friend's house who lives close to the hospital.  Has it happened, our friend had gone out for the day so I was able to set off back to the hospital straight away.  I would say, by the time I reached my destination, I was only about 15 minutes late.

At this point, I feel I aught to mention that, before taking early retirement, I was on the top floor of a building, I entered an elevator and, as I have done many times before, I pressed the button marked G to go to the ground floor.  When I arrived at the ground floor, the lift doors would not open. 

At the best of times, I hate confined places, and when the door would not open for me, I felt the need to fight back the 'pangs of fear' that welled up inside of me when I knew I could not get out of the lift.   

As the queues built up, to try and get onto the lift, impatient people began to press the call buttons, to get on the lift at several places, and, as the buttons were pressed the lift shot off to where it was being called to go but, on each occasion, the doors would not open.  I must have gone up and down the building many times and, after about twenty minutes of going up and down in this way, for I was now 'horse'from shouting through the doors for someone to get help for me-although it appeared to be an hour or two-, I was starting to panic. 

It was at this point, after taking more deep breaths, that an electrician, who had been called to the scene to release me, released me from my cage of dread and I was ever so grateful to be out in the open again.

It transpired that the lift was out of order and some 'wag' had thought it amusing to remove the 'out of order' sign. 

When I arrived at the hospital, to try and find where my wife had gone to have her latest tests, I went to reception and, to my dismay, I found out that I had to get into a lift to go to the department I was looking for. I was not a happy person. 

I pressed a locator button, that told me which elevator to get on and then pressed the floor button of the lift I was getting on. 

I heard the lift coming down toward where I was and, as it drew nearer, my heart began to pound in my chest.  My hands became clammy and my throat went dry.  The doors opened and I teetered as to whether or not I was going to be able to get on the lift for there was no one else around to get on the lift with me. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a young man was walking towards me and he indicated that he too wanted to get on the lift.  I let the young man go on the lift first, and, as we began to ascend, I blurted out that I was terrified of lifts.  I noticed that the very polite young man had a stethoscope round his neck and, as I realised that my companion was a doctor, my heartbeat began to slow down to a reasonable pace.

Before disembarking from the lift, I thanked my young companion for listening to my moans and, in a relaxed and easy manner, he calmly bid me a good day and was 'whisked away,' as the doors of the elevator closed, and was taken upwards to his destination.

Eventually, I appeared at the department my wife had been sent to and a very helpful receptionist explained that my wife was with a nurse, to be assessed, and that I could wait for her in a waiting room that was almost full.

Within minutes, my wife was by my side and we waited, for a long time, before she was 'called back' to the nurse again. 

In the mean time, for there was now a couple of spare seats at the side of where I was sitting, two people came in and one, in a wheel chair, was Palsied to a stage that she had very little control of her hands.  Her speech was akin to that of a person who had just suffered a 'stroke.' 

In the corner of the large waiting room, we all sat in, there was a T.V. and, after my new companion struggled to get out of her wheel chair, with no help from her partner, she managed to sit down beside me.

For a long time, although she did smile at me from time to time, there were no words exchanged between her, her partner and myself. 

After sitting for a considerable time, I began to stiffen up and it soon became clear that I should try to stand up and move around because, by sitting in one position, for a long time, my aches and pains were causing me lots of discomfort.

My new companion, realising something was wrong, decided to try and move her wheel chair and managed to achieve her goal then said, as she spoke to me in words I had to listen very carefully to.
'Can you see now?'

The lady was obviously very concerned about me and thought, as I moved from side to side to get relief, that I was trying to watch the T.V.  programme and that she had prevented me from doing so by leaving her wheel chair in the middle of the room's isle.

At that point, I sat up straight and no matter how bad the pain was, I put it to the back of my mind and felt humbled in the presence of a lady who needed help more than I did yet put my feelings before the feelings of her own.

Eventually, my wife, now with her old smile and kind sparkling eyes, came back to me and said she wanted to go home.  I picked up my coat, I had put on the floor so that my new friend would have more room to move her arms, turned to the lady by my side and said my good byes to her.  She smiled though kind eyes and mumbled something to me that I construed to be 'You are welcome.'

When my wife was out of ear shot, of the people I had been sitting with, she said she had been given the 'all clear' and that she had no need to go to the hospital again, for the problem she had been treated for, and my heart lifted.

Once again though, as I realised my wife and I had to go into another elevator, my heart began to pound as the lift doors opened before I stepped into the mettle square that was to transport us to the ground floor. 

To my surprise, as I stood back to let my wife in the lift, a nurse ran into the lift just as the elevator doors were about to close.  The senior nurse, in her blue uniform, looked up at me, out of her eye corner, and said.
'I hate lifts!'

Has we were transported down the inside of the hospital, to our destination, I decided to 'break the ice' by telling the nurse that I was of the same opinion, as she was, about lifts and I began to tell her about my experiences of the lift I was trapped in. 

I had managed to get to the part where the lift was going to each floor, and where the doors would not open, when the nurse put her hands in the air and shouted for me to say no more. 

Seconds later, the doors of the lift sprang open and the nurse lurched forward, ran out of the lift and was soon lost in the large crowd which was waiting to get on the lift we were disembarking from.

On reflection, I now wish I had not said anything to the nurse, about not wishing to be trapped in the lift, but the thing is, my interaction with the nurse acted, in a strange way, like a release to me for when my wife and I were getting off the lift I felt much better able to cope with the confined space I was getting out of.

By for now,

John.   

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19 Feb 2009 11:01 PM

Out For the day.

Ben, now fully used to us, as we were with him, was so full of energy that we felt the need to take him for a walk three times a day.  We were, within five minutes walk, surrounded by fields, so it was not as difficult, when taking the dog out, as it may seem.  Never the less, we all need a rest from time to time and, one Sunday morning, I felt like having a lie in and asked my son to take the dog out for a walk.  There was no resistance from my son, even though he cherished a Sunday morning lie in, and off the pair went, as though they had always been used to one another's company.  In truth, my son and Ben were getting very attached to one another. 

Once I pulled myself together, for I hate to waken up and then go back to sleep again for it seems to take me a long time to pull round again, I drove my son and Ben to a local flower mill.  From time to time, the mill is open for the public to see how flower is ground but not on this particular day. 

We returned home, for dinner, and later went out again.  It was my intention to make sure my wife had a rest too for when I was going to work I was not always able to take the dog for a walk and this meant that the responsibility rested firmly on my wife's shoulders.  Having a dog, if you want to look after it properly, is a responsibility that should not be taken lightly!

The evening was beautiful and, to my surprise, my son wanted to go out with Ben for the final walk of the day.  My guess is that the three of us were only in the house, with Ben and my wife, for a couple of hours and when it was time to go to bed, my son and I slept the sleep of kings.  From going to bed to awakening to get up for work, I entered into a sleep so deep that I cannot remember going to bed.

The following day, Ben and I were at the vets, so that he could start his first yearly inoculation, and he did not seem to mind at all.  The lady vet, the one we had from the day we brought Ben into our domain, was wonderful with Ben and the feeling seemed to be reciprocal for he wagged his tail as soon as he saw her.  Of course, as you know by now, that was usual with Ben.  The more he liked someone, the faster the tail wagging went but, on some occasions, the tail wagging, if there was someone in the distance, started very slow and became faster as they drew closer.  If someone made a fuss of Ben, and he knew that they were false, he went into the strong tail wagging but, within a couple of seconds, he walked away from them and came to our sides.

Ben was not always good.

One Friday, in our local newspaper, we learned of an environment weekend.  Large tents were to be erected and the Mayor would open the proceedings and there was all sorts of things going off.  There was a beer tent, for those who liked that sort of thing, all the usual arts and crafts people were there, there was a tent where groups of folk singers attended, something I love to here, and there was a pet's corner where we were hoping to enter Ben as the best mongrel.  Dogs, cats, guinea pigs and rabbits were all there to become the best in their class for the show.

The day before the show, it had rained solid and for a long time which made the ground very muddy underfoot so we went in our Wellingtons or boots, many others wore normal shoes and some of them were covered in mud.  The site was awash with mud but it had not deterred people from turning out in their hundreds.

We climbed out of our car, put on the appropriate foot wear and listened to a fairground organ that was close to where we were.  On hearing all these strange sounds, Ben flicked his ear and turned his head to one side. His head was now on a slant with one ear higher than the other and one ear raised while the other was flopped down in its usual place. 

Ben became tense and keen to get out of the car and I knew something had taken his interest up.  I held tight on his chocker chain and then looked down, as I opened the car's front door, to see where I should place my feet when I pulled myself out of the car.  Momentarily, I lost my grip on Ben's chain and he broke free.  He set off at pace akin to a greyhound in a race, and the next thing I knew he was out of site.  He ran into a tent, there were screams and yells from women, and the next thing I saw was Ben chasing a cat.

The cat was running for what seemed to be its life but I could see, from the look on Ben's face and the way his tongue was sticking out of his mouth and hanging to one side, that he was just having a bit of fun.  Fun or not, the cat ran this way and that and, as it ran into a land rover, that have both the passenger and driver's doors wide open, Ben followed and jumped out of the vehicle, much to the disgust of its owners, he slipped in the mud but soon regained his feet and went after the cat again.  Even if we had been able to catch him, we would not have been able to clean all the mud off him to put him in the mongrel competition. 

I yelled, at the top of my voice, for Ben to come back to me but he was having none of it and chased the cat into another tent, there were more shouts and the two animals soon hurtled out of the tent but ran straight into another one.  More yells came out of the tent but, on this occasion, Ben, in his haste and quest to catch the cat, caught a tent guy rope, I heard it ping and the next thing I saw was that the tent caved in on one side. 

At this point, I became so embarrassed that I turned my back on it all and climbed back in the car.  The yells and screams went on and more and more tents began to sag at either one side or the other.  My family and I, now in disgust at Ben's behaviour, closed the car up and drove it to a spot where no one would suspect that we were the owners of this mad dog. 

To our surprise, the yells and shrieks subsided and, with his stomach scraping on the floor, the dog came back to the car.  We chastised the dog but dare not go round the show and went home.  At home, we cleaned Ben up and he fussed round my family and I until we spoke to him again.  When my wife sat down In a chair, he went up to her, as she bent down to pick something up, and licked her face.  Half an hour later, dry after a good scrubbing, he had his head on her knee looking up into her eyes as if to say he was sorry.  He kept well away from me until I took him out for his last walk of the night.     

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18 Feb 2009 4:51 AM

It is funny what goes through you mind when there is time to reflect on things.  Due to domestic pressures and the weather, I have been unable to go out for a walk for a few days but, while reading through some of my blog emails, my mind began to wander and, for a moment or two, I felt the need to stop and reflect on what was going on.

For a moment, I was a small child again at school and in my reception class.  School, for me at least, was a very exciting place to be.  There were things to learn, stories to be heard from a teacher and all manner of things to do I would never get the chance to do at home.

I remember my first music class, I wanted to play the drums or at least have a vibrating skin to feel and beat out the music.  Anything but came my way and this was to be, although I did not know it at the time, the start of a downward trend for me for I though school was going to be a happy and exciting place to be.  None of it, it turned out to be full of disappointments.  On this occasion, I was given a Triangle, the string was broken and I was unable to hold it properly.  When it came to my turn to make my music, I missed the beat for the string was so frayed the instrument moved.

I think my teacher, who should have known better, interpreted the situation of being one where I had no good hand/ear harmonisation and my instrument handling, after that, was sporadic.

On my list of things I always wanted to do, the drummer in me always stood steadfast and I promised myself, one day, in some form or another, I would play the drums.

When I was lucky enough to be able to take early retirement, six years ago, I found out that there was Samba band rehearsal sessions in the town where I live.  At this point, I feel the need to tell you that nerves have always been a stumbling block of mine but, on this occasion, I plucked up the courage and went to my first lesson. 

Once the music rhythms were flowing through my body I settled and, in no time at all, I was playing one of the largest drums in the band and I loved it. On my first gig, in my haste to be ready when the rest of the band wanted to start up, I fitted my drum, on my belt, up side down and, when we were in full flow, I caught my fingers on the hugs that should have been positioned, for tightening purposes, underneath the drum.  Blood poured out of me but the show, as they say, must go on and by the time our first break came, I felt the need to clean the drum down for it was spattered with blood and so was I. The funny thing is that I felt no pain until the show was over.

After that, I was never happy going to the gigs but, once I began to play I did not want to stop.  It was unfortunate, for health reasons, that I had to stop playing in the band but not all is lost for I am now moving with the times.

While I am sitting at the computer, I can access youtube.  I still love the heavy beat music and, on this occasion, I was able to listen to Van Halen playing Jump.  Without realising it, my feet were tapping and, as I felt the rhythms, my hands began to beat out the music on the top of the computer table.  A simple re organisation of a few note papers, gave me enough bounce to be able to create two sound pitches and I was off into oblivion.  I have heard my friends say that they play the air guitar but, so far, I have not heard anybody say they play imaginary drums.  Maybe it is an age thing and it will not be long before the men in the white coats will be here to whisk me away.  Until then, who cares, life is for enjoying and, as long as I am not interfering in other peoples� lives, what harm can I be doing other than making my arms ache? 

I will close there for yet another drum beat needs my attention.

By for now.

John.     

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14 Feb 2009 11:04 PM

Still finding it difficult to sleep, due to the aches and pains associated with broken bones, I decided to stay up late and watch a James Bond movie made as far back as 1963.  How times have changed.

James, to make a phone call, visited a public telephone system and I wonder what he would have said if someone explained that, there was another way of doing things, as there is today, the mobile phone.

I am one of those people that loves gadgets but I have to say, when it comes to using the mobile phone, I have no interest in it what so ever.  You might say, when you learn I have now have a phone as a constant companion, that I am compromising what I have just said.

In truth, I am getting older and I will explain.

When I was a young man, in my mid twenties, I developed a passion for the countryside and, whenever I could, I went out walking and loved it.  My wife, and friend, when she could, would go out with me but, sadly, those days are becoming less frequent these days. 

When people first start out with any new hobby, they need to be around people, to learn the basics, but, as they progress through the stages of learning, they tend to begin to specialise.  I am at the specialisation stage with nature and find it difficult to be around people who wish to ask questions all the time but I still put time aside to help the novices when I am not doing a project.  I see it as my duty to pass on some of the things I have learned over the years.

In wooded areas, I have only been partially lost on one occasion, for it was foggy.  I suppose it is a matter of being able to read the signs. 

Put me behind the wheel of a car and, if I should have turned left, you can bet, nine times out of ten times, I would turn right.  This is very frustrating to my wife who is the navigator.

It never dawned on me, while walking in the woods on my own, that I was alone, and that I would not be able to cope if anything happened to me. 

The truth is, no matter how much you know about nature, and no matter how prepared you are, no one can be fully conversant with the horrors of what the cold weather holds for us.  Getting cold and sometimes perspiring, at the wrong time, can work against any survival technique.

One day, when I had been out on my own longer than usual, for I was intrigued by a grey squirrel that started to make a barking noise I had not heard before-I stayed with the squirrel until I found out what all the commotion was about-I returned home to find  my wife was concerned as to where I may have been.  The next day, a mobile phone became my friend. 

Today, if I think I am going to be longer than the time I have given my wife, before setting out, the phone is quickly used.
One of the things about going out for a walk, if trying to achieve a specific task, is to carry the right gear for the job.  Binoculars are necessary for me and sometimes a telescope fixed to a tripod.  When I was younger, I put my family first and did not purchase all the things I thought I needed; it was a case of 'make do and mend.' 

My waterproof clothing was borrowed from my father, who was a keen angler, and my binoculars were second hand.  Binoculars that are discarded, if they are in good condition, are usually sold on because they are too heavy. Four or five hours of carrying heavy binoculars, round you neck, are not always conducive.

Thankfully, things are much different today for I am now able to purchase lightweight binoculars and I can, along with the mobile, carry a camera that would, when I was young, have been so heavy I would not have been able to walk far.

Until last year, I knew very little about what I could get, for a reasonable priced lightweight camera, but an internet blogger, on another site, gave me a full explanation of what I may like to look at.  I have to say, for the first time, the lightweight camera, I now use, is probably the best piece of kit I have ever owned.  It is a pity that I have yet to understand how to put some of the photos on my blogs.

Today, some of the knowledge I have gained, over about 35 years, I have been able to use in our own back garden.  We are now able to attract species of birds, to our garden, that I would not have seen when I first started bird watching.

Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Great, Blue, Coal and Long Tail Tits are common visitors along with Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Sparrow hawks and, would you believe, a Hobby. 

Of course, the environment has changed since I first began to go out on a nature walk and I am pleased to say, due to my hard work and the hard work of many of my friends, we were able to create areas, for nature, that had been lost years before.  On one site I go to, where my friends and I planted tree saplings years ago, I can now walk up to mature trees and look up into the sky, at wonderment, as to how beautiful the trees now look.

If you are interested, for I do not know if you are, I will write about some of the exploits I have undertaken when out on my walks.

By for now,

John.       

 

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13 Feb 2009 2:05 AM

Testing for a reaction.

As soon as I could, I decided to take my son and our new pet out together to see how they would get on in each others company.  We went to a wooded area, to see what the dog would do if I let him off the lead, and when I told him to go he went off like a young Gazelle.  He ran this way and that, through the undergrowth, and held his nose close to the ground sniffing at everything that was in his path.

Although old enough to have gone past needing house training, in fact, he never fouled in the house; he still had the energy of a dog that had just gone through the puppy stage.  He would, if we if let him, run until he had dropped. 

In the early stages, we were always careful not to let him burn off too much energy but we did like to let him do what he enjoyed doing best which was careering through the undergrowth as if searching for something that only he knew about. 

When we thought Ben should calm down, I put him back on the choker and the three of us walked out of the wood and into an area where there was a large lake.  I did not know if the dog would have made a bee line for the water so I put him on a tight lead.  In fact, although we did not know at the time, our pet was to be one of those dogs who did not like getting wet. 

We took him to the edge of the water and sat on an old log, that doubled as a seat, where Ben sat and looked at the ducks as they quietly and slowly paddled past us in calm water.  When one of the mallards made a quacking sound, Ben lifted one ear but made no attempt to go near to where the ducks were swimming. 

I began to speak to our pet as though I was speaking to my son, and he began to beat his now fast moving tail on the ground.  When my son saw Ben's tail going so fast he laughed out loud for he thought it was hilarious.  My son stroked and patted Ben and I kept on speaking to him and it did not seem to be long before we all settling with each other's company. 

Ben had a bonny face and eyes that seemed to penetrate into our minds and the beauty of this animal became apparent to everybody that saw him for when anybody, especially children, saw him, he wagged his tail at them and the inevitable stoking or patting followed.  We were very lucky for Ben loved the company of people. 

While we were sitting by the water, under the shade of a weeping willow tree, I noticed that Ben was staring at something in the water.  My son noticed it too and when we found where Ben's eye line was focusing, we caught sight of a small shoal of Minnows.  The fish, as they swam through the water, were nudging a half-submerged lollypop stick.  On each attempt, the fish pushed the stick until it began to rotate in a clockwise direction. When my son went to look at the stick, at close quarters, the Minnows swam away but, when we moved on, we saw the Minnows nudging a dead leaf again and that too was drifting in a clockwise direction. 

Questions began to come to me, 'were the Minnows having fun or were they working in unison for another reason?'  Why were there only the same number of fish nudging the stick when there were so many more Minnows around?  The other small fish, in the vicinity, did not seem to have any interest in the stick at all.  Over a period of time, the fish kept moving away from their stick, as danger came and went, but always the same number of fish returned to their task on each occasion.  Ben and I were fascinated but my son was more interested in patting our dog. 

Over the next few years, I was never to see Minnows playing with sticks again.

One thing that struck me, at the time, was what happened to fish when the lake was in flood or what happened to fish when streams were in flood.  Sometimes, when Ben and I were out walking, I saw fish swimming up and down quiet streams but, when the stream was in flood, there were no fish to be seen.  Returning to the same stream again, after a flood, fish would be back in the same place.  'Could it be,' I asked myself, 'that these were the same fish I saw before the stream was in flood?'  The wonders of nature never cease me.   

Old Wifes Tales.

When my family and I went to the dog kennels, to pick our lovely mongrel Ben up, we were accompanied by two of our dear friends, now sadly no longer with us, who have been around dogs for a lot of years. The couple probably thought more about dogs than they did of humans so, after a couple of days of having Ben, we decided to pay them a visit.

'Hello Ben,' the lady of our friend said as she bent down to give a cuddle to our new member of our family, Arent you a good boy then?' 

Ben started to wag his tail 'fifty to the dozen' which was now his trade mark.    When he was very excited to see someone, his whole back end moved from side to side as well as his tail wagging going so fast that it was difficult to see where the tail wag started and ended.

'You are a good boy.'  She said as he leaned up to her and planted a wet tongue on her face, something that I would not let him do to me.  You are a happy little fellow.' She said.
'Well, our friend said, what a change in a dog.  When we went to see him, I thought this dog would not last the course with you and that you would be taking him back to the pound in no time at all but look at him now.  He is a credit to you all.' 

I thanked our friend and said that we were trying to build Ben's confidence for we were told that his last owner had mistreat him and that he needed and deserved a good home and that we hoped we were going to provide one for him.

While we were at our friend's house, we asked if there was anything else we could give Ben a well as his main meal in the evening and she suggested that we could give him Cornflakes, warm milk and a biscuit, in the morning. 

Ben had started with a slight cough and our friends suggested we could try giving him cough medicine.  We did not like the idea of the latter and never gave any cough medicine to him.

The following morning, we tried Ben with a few Cornflakes and hot milk but he would not have it.  The biscuit was also turned down, in fact, Ben never ate anything on a morning.

I had a few days holiday, which I had to get in or they would have been taken off me, so I took Ben onto a canal site I had not been to since I was a child.  On the canal, there were a group of supervised young people cleaning ditches and dragging a local pond.  At that time, they were offered such tasks if they could not find work.  The young people were working very hard and they were glad to be doing something constructive. 

My heart went out to the young people for they had the energy and the the 'were with all' yet could not compete or socialise with their waged peers.

As the day went on, Ben's cough became worse and, in the evening, I took him to see a vet.  The lady vet, who had not been a vet for long, took to Ben straight away and he let her do anything she wanted to do to him.  She examined him well and concluded that he had 'Kennel Cough' and prescribed him a set of tablets then asked me to take him back to see her when the course of tablets had been taken. 

On my return home, for we lived in a shared back yard, our neighbours were speaking, for me to here them, behind an open back door and the lady made it quite clear that she did not like dogs. 

The following day, my son and I went back to our old friend's house, to tell him of our problem with the neighbours, and he said it would be best if he was to go back to the house, I was living in, and have a look to see if there was anything that could be done to prevent Ben from straying onto the back yard our neighbour owned.

We went home, and before long he brought wooden stakes and fencing wire and he would not take a penny for his troubles.  My son and I erected a fence and a gate and although this satisfied our neighbour�s doubts about Ben, she totally ignored him from that time to the time he departed from our world.

As for the 'Kennel Cough,' the vet's treatment worked well and, from that day on, we put our friend's remedies out of our mind and trusted our pet's health with her knowledge.   
 
     
Leaving Ben at home on his own for the first time.

My son, my wife and I all had different things to do so I decided to drive them to their destinations and then take Ben for a walk.  It was a hot day and when I was almost at my destination I noticed that our dog was getting restless so I stopped the car to see why he was in some distress.  It turned out to be that Ben was getting too hot so I drove him home and, for the first time, left him on his own in the cool house.  Later, when I went back to check on Ben, he had not tried to cause any mischief in the house and I was pleased with him for not trying to chew anything up. 

Later in the day, I noted that Ben's cough wasn't getting any better, his eyes were sore and he was not eating so I decided on another trip to see the vet.  His tonsils were sore and it was decided that more tablets were needed but the vet said she thought Ben had put on a little bit of weight since I last took him to see her.

While the vet was doing her job, for Ben was our first dog and we were learning as we went along, I mentioned to her that I had received an electric shock off Ben and she said it was probably due to me brushing Ben while he was standing on a nylon carpet.  It all made sense, when she told me about the carpet but, at that time, I wondered what could be wrong. 

The following morning, Ben seemed to be a bit more chirpy and, while we were out together, I noticed that more people talked to me now that I had Ben by my side.  Later, due to Ben being a little unwell, we all went to the shops, in the car, and left him at home. 

We had not got through the shared back yard gate, a gate that was erected so that people could not walk straight into the shared back yards, when we were confronted by our irate neighbour.  She commented on Ben howling while we were out.  Up until that time, we had never heard Ben make a sound probably due to Ben having a sore throat.  The good news was that the dog was getting better but, on reflection, we decided not to leave Ben in the house, on his own, for a while for we did not want to upset our neighbours. 

Later, we took Ben in the car to a park in the next village to where we lived for we wanted to know how he would cope in crowds.  There were allsorts of things going off for there was a fairground atmosphere about the place.  There were crowds of people and Ben did not flinch once even when the noise, from a carousel, started up.  Lots of people, when they saw Ben, wanted to pat and stroke him and, every time anybody decided to look and speak to him, his tail began to wag 'fifty to the dozen.' 

After a while, we were a little weary of all the patting and stroking so we ventured off leaving the crowds behind and we went to an area, outside of the park, where there was a cool stream for Ben to paddle in if he so wished.  The area we chose to walk in, due to Ben's black coat soaking up all the sun's heat, was in a tree shaded area and, with a slight breeze on our faces, it was a pleasant place to be.  The stream, with its meandering surface and quiet movements over small stones, made for a tranquil scene and, when we stopped to sit on a well placed wooden seat, under the shade of a tree, Ben lay down and closed his eyes to rest.  My guess is that he was still suffering from all the pills he had been having.

Our journey home, in the car, was uneventful for Ben pushed himself, on the back seat, until he was able to rest his face on my son's lap, and went to sleep. 

The following morning, bright and early, I took the dog out for his early morning walk so that my wife could rest in bed for a while.  When I let Ben off for a run, in our local park, he spotted another dog and the two of them chased one another until they could chase no more.  Unfortunately, Ben began to cough again. 

Ben becomes a smelly dog.

When there were not many people around, my wife and I took Ben out for a walk round a lake that doubles as a nature reserve.  There are sections, on the reserve, where human activity is banned and this was in my mind when we let Ben off to run in the long grass, we watched him running two and fro, as he ran up and down in the grass.  Ben was incredibly energetic and I do not know where all his energy came from but it was clear he needed to get rid of some of the energy.  When he was outdoors he was in heaven. 

We were about a quarter of the way round the lake when Ben stopped and began to sniff the ground.  It took some time to catch up with him but when we were along side of him, he was keenly eyeing a baby hedgehog.  It was comical to see Ben's reaction, for he was a cowered in many ways. While the hog was tightly wrapped in a ball, Ben stood motionless, looking down at the little creature but, as soon as the hog began to open slightly, Ben jumped away in much the same way a Gazelle would bound away in an African flat land.

I looked at the situation and the baby hedgehog and thought that the parent hog would not be fare away so I called Ben off and as soon as I called him, he bounded off in front of us looking for more long grass to run though.  We had walked three quarters of the way round the lake when Ben suddenly stopped and began to rub himself in the grass.  We thought nothing of this and kept on walking but Ben kept on rubbing and I thought something was wrong so I went back to the place where he was rubbing himself on the grass.  I was about 10 meters away from him when a smell hit my nostrils.  The smell was of dead and rotting fish and when I was close enough to see what Ben was up to, for he was really enjoying himself, I could see that he was rolling and rubbing himself, on his back, into what looked like a large water Pike that had had most of its flesh eaten away. 

I had to physically pull my dog off the fish and when we put him on a lead, I put the lead on the longest position I could but that did nothing to hide the smell.  It was awful.

It was a warm day and once in the car, the smell was just too much to bear so we tied handkerchiefs round our mouths and opened all the windows as full as they would go. 

Fortunately, our drive time was only about fifteen minutes and when we were home, we tied Ben up outside the house.  I went to the nearest pet shop and purchased a dog shampoo. 

We used warm water, which we had put in a large plastic container, and put the recommended amount of shampoo in the water but it did nothing to kill the smell so we kept on washing Ben until the smell was bearable.  The poor dog, by the time we had finished with him, he just wanted it all to end. 

The next door neighbour, which we shared our back yard with, came out of her house and when she saw what we were doing she began to make 'game' of the situation. 
'Come here. ' She said as she shouted her daughter.  'They are giving the dog a bath in shampoo!' She thought it extremely funny that we had paid good money to shampoo our Ben. 

My wife and I took no notice of the barracking, our neighbour was passing our way, and while we were drying Ben on old towelling, my wife told Ben that he was a bad boy.  I expected Ben cowering but, instead, he licked my wife's face.  When Ben turned on the charm, he could turn any situation to his advantage.

Ben cowered so low in fear.

One day, after driving my wife and son to our nearest town, I drove to a small park and because there was no one around, I let Ben off the lead where he did his usual running, this way and that, with his nose only centimetres off the ground while he ran. In the distance, when Ben had been running for some time, I saw someone entering the park with another dog so I caught up with Ben and put him on the lead. 

So that the other dog walker had lots of room to let his dog run, I took Ben on a short detour of the park where there was sand piled high and builders rubble tipped in small piles.  Ben sniffed round the rubble, while on the lead, until I was ready to go back to the car, then we made another detour, for another dog walker was coming our way. 

We walked on until we came to more builder's rubble and eventually came to a make shift wall where all kinds of builders material was stored in a haphazard way.  There was cement that had gone hard and all manner of rubbish.  The place reminded my of an untidy scrap yard. 

In the centre of the yard, there was a gate that had seen better days and a building that looked as though one kick and it would fall down.  Where we were, along side the gate, Ben suddenly changed from sniffing, looked up and went stiff from nose to tail.

'What's wrong Ben.'  I said encouragingly.  Ben did not respond but began to yelp and then pulled on the lead so strong that he was pulling me over.
'Stop it Ben.' I shouted but it made no difference.

Ben whimpered and got down, with his stomach touching the floor, on all fours and crawled passed the builder's yard as if in fear of his life.
Ben pulled me all the way, until he was no longer in sight of the builder's yard, and when we reached the car, Ben was shaking uncontrollably. 

When I reached home, Ben, on opening the car door, sprang out of the car and ran to the back door of our home.  Ben nudged at the back door, with his nose, as if he was trying to open the door, and when I unlocked the door, he ran in and curled up on the floor shaking.  I sat with him, stroking him, and quietly talking to him until he calmed down. 

It was some time later, when my family came home but, on this occasion, Ben's usual tail wagging wasn't there and my wife instantly picked up on this point.
'Is there something wrong?' My wife asked.

I told my story and added that I wondered if Ben had been tethered at the place he could not wait to get away from and miss treated there.  Of course, we would never find out but Ben was never as frightened, as he was that day, ever again.  I will never forget the fear I saw in the poor dog's face and the way he reacted when we tried to get passed the builder's yard.  We were never to go to the park again. 

More to come later.

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