halt or you will be exterminated

halt or you will be exterminated, originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

today started fairly calmly. grandma and the uncles are coming for lunch so himself had purchased a rather tasty looking peice of pork. he was rubbing it lovingly with salt when my boy surfaced from his slumbers and wandered into the kitchen. "agh! what's that?" he squealed. "its a bit of dead pig" replied herself, who prefers her pigs alive and squelching around in a field. she then went off to play on the computer.

just then someone came to the door. this necessitated me heaving myself out of bed and barking. the peeps have not got a doorbell. the doorbell was removed a couple of years ago when they rebuilt the porch and they have failed to get a new one sorted. if i am out they don't know that a visitor has arrived as there is of course no barking.

at the door was a man with a large box. "yippee!" shouted my boy "its the new dalek!" my boy saves up marbles, which he gets for good deeds such as bringing in logs, lighting the fire and wearing scratchy new trousers. he usually negotiates one marble for each leg, which seems a bit steep to me, but before this system was arrived at he would grow out of his clothes before he would wear them so i suppose it makes sound economic sense in the end. when he has enough marbles he can buy things. he already has one dalek but i suppose he thought it was getting lonely.

in this picture you can see that a short interlude in the cooking was called for while my boy got the dalek up and running. this went down a treat with himself, as you might imagine. there then followed a period of tension while the two daleks got to know each other. "we are the supreme beings!" shouted the new dalek. "exterminate!" said the first dalek. personally, i think they need a bit of help with their social skills. their first interaction didn't bode well for a loving and mutually supportive relationship.

just then there was a loud bleeping noise. herself assumed that this was a dalek feature and carried on with editing photos on her mac. then there was a loud explosion of expletives from the kitchen. we all rushed in and found himself standing on a chair, dressed only in a towel, flapping ineffectually at the smoke alarm. on the draining board was the bit of dead pig with clouds of smoke coming off it.

"this f-ing smoke alarm!" he shrieked. he actually said the whole rude word but i am aware that some of my readers may be of delicate sensibilities and i have therefore edited this somewhat. "well what do you expect" bawled herself, "there's smoke everywhere! its a smoke alarm. its whole purpose in life is to alert us to smoke. its just doing its job! the bloody pig is on fire!"

"i'm just searing it" said himself. i just hope he doesn't ever try to burn anything. there was a flurry of opening windows, while herself tried to dissuade him from wrenching the smoke alarm out of the ceiling. she has only just replaced the old smoke alarm with a new one after several attempts and did not relish balancing on a chair with a screwdriver while the rellies tucked into the dead pig.

while all this was going on the daleks circled each other warily, uttering threats of extermination in their garbled and rather tinny voices. "i am not living in a wooden house with no smoke alarm!" she protested, "so you will just have to learn to put the fan on and open the windows before you set fire to your lumps of dead animal!" although i am not with her on the vegetarian thing, i have to say that meat cookery tends to be a bit fraught round here.

things have quietened down a bit now. the peeps are waiting for grandma and the uncles to phone. the plan is we meet them on the downs for a walk. normally i have no issues with grandma's girly dogs. they do pretty much what i tell them, as all girly dogs should. (it was hard getting herself to type that bit but i draw the line at censorship of my writings). however, grandma is looking after a third dog while his owner is away and she seems to have thought it might be a good idea to bring him along too. i am hoping he doesn't think he can come swanking in here throwing his weight around.

anyway, the plan is that we get to know each other on what the peeps call neutral territory. i am not sure why they think the downs are neutral territory, given i pee all over them every day of the year. just hope the new chap gets the hint without the need for spilt blood. i may have to learn to use the remote control on the dalek so i can tell him "multiple spectrum scans are enabled"...