Albert Stanley Fletcher

Today the dog turns 1. We've had him for just under 9 months now and the time seems to have flown by but at the same time it seems an awfully long time since I was in the weeping on the kitchen floor wondering what the fuck I'd done stage of dog ownership. He was given a fitting middle name and surname in the early days. I thought he was a horror but from talking to other dog owners, he was just a puppy and I wasn't prepared for it, as you'll know if you heard my woes back in March. Don't get me wrong, he's still an absolute horror when he wants to be. He has a personality and in a way that's nice, but in another way it's not, because he has a similar personality to me. He's a stubborn little fuck. He's aloof, he pretends he can't hear you, he has to have the last word when he's told off for barking at nothing in the garden and if you don't comply with his demand to play with him he'll bark in your face. But he's also a good dog and he's very patient considering he's often being swept up in mine or Mr T's arms for an enforced cuddle. Now, if we can just train his obsession with wool out of him - he cannot bear the idea that I might want to crochet or do some knitting - and stop him chasing us down the hall when we're leaving the house, biting on our sleeves, snapping over the baby gate, then he'll be a pretty awesome dog. 

Here's a blurred picture of him modelling a short snood while Mr T is playing with his feet, he was surprisingly sedate when I put this on him, he lasted a few minutes before he realised it was wool and then went absolutely loopy over it, because that's what he does. 

Is he going to report us to Paul O'Grady for not buying him a birthday present? Or for putting a snood on him?

Overheard in the waiting room

Remember in the last post I said I had a day off in the middle of the week? Well, I did. Mr T was off to an MRI appointment and I went with him. I sat in the waiting room while he went off to a truck in the car park to have his bones looked at.

I took a seat near the door, the second seat in the row, the first was too close to the phlebotomy room and I felt awkward, what with me not being an actual patient. A woman in her 20s walked in and stood near the door, a nurse poked her head round and told her that she should take a seat and wait till someone was free. The woman said "there's no seats, I'll just stand". I looked up from my kindle, a cursory glance around the room told me 14 seats were free.

At the far end of the room was a help desk, there was a lady sitting behind it, sorting books into boxes.

A tall man lolloped in, head down, walking towards the help desk, the laces on one of his Doc Marten shoes were undone. The lady at the desk informs him of this. He shows her a letter and she tells him which corridor to go down, ending with "when you've done that" gesturing towards his laces. She's not going to let him go until he's crouched down and tied his laces, this place doesn't have an A&E department.