Friday

It is now 7.27 - the sun has been up for hours and I have already taken the dog for a walk in the cool of the early morning, watered my gro bags, had an orange and a banana for my breakfast and am sitting here drinking my first cup of tea.   Friday morning is our coffee morning so I like to be ready good and early.

On my 6.15 walk I met quite a few other dog-walkers, obviously all with the same idea.   Dogs are daft when it comes to weather - they still want to go out, even in the heat of the day - but once they get going they flag easily.  So early morning and late evening are best for both of us I find. 

How I could ever have thought of giving Tess away when I moved I don't know.   I worried that
I would not be able to manage her here.   She fitted in so well with my life-style.   She is there to talk to in the evenings (and she doesn't answer back other than with a knowing look).   But, most of all, she has been instrumental in helping me to get to know so many people.   Because this is an estate of dog owners (and almost all are responsible dog owners).   Our dogs have become friendly and like to stop for the obligatory sniff and tail wag, so we chat for a couple of minutes.   Even at six o'clock this morning I saw half a dozen, one of whom was a young Labrador whose 
'Mum' had to assure him that 'it's only a Border Terrier and it wants to be friends, it won't hurt you'
before it would pass us. 

Wandering along at a leisurely pace so that Tess could sniff every blade of grass I got to thinking about Butch - a dog from my far distant past.   My mother would never entertain having a dog = she didn't care for them in the house so it was a cat  only in our household.    But she did have a soft spot for one particular dog and that was Butch.
Butch was the Rector's dog - a dog of indeterminate breed - large, rough-haired and black and with the most gentle temperament.   Never on a leash and never that I can remember, with the Rector.   We all knew he 'belonged' to the Rector but Butch wandered around the village all day - presumably went home to sleep at night.   This was in the late thirties, early forties, so there was little or no traffic on the streets.

Butch was a knowing dog.   He knew that my mother was a soft touch.   He also knew that there was almost always meat or fish on the menu at our house.   So daily, usually as we were eating a meal, we would see Butch amble past the window.
She would call out for him to wait until we had finished our meal and he would sit patiently outside the door until she came out with his special bowl which she had been filling with titbits since the previous day.  In a flash they would be gone.

Talk about 'Remembrance of things past ', I haven't thought of Butch for years and years.   I am sure he is up in that doggy heaven somewhere, wandering around in his gentle, unassuming manner and being cared for by everyone.
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