dave the puppy

well dear readers, let me introduce my new puppy. here is a picture of him taken on herself's phone so it does not do the little fellow justice. he really is very sweet, although alarmingly small.

we set off yesterday very early to go down to devon to collect him. after the google maps fiasco last weekend herself had the forethought to print off the directions from the computer before we left. she handed a wad of paper to himself, who expressed his displeasure that the directions used the numbers of the roads rather than telling you which town to head towards. you just can't please some people. herself pointed out that these directions were from multimap rather than google maps and that we were fast running out of alternatives.

we had reached dorset, accompanied by my boy asking at each lamppost whether we were nearly there yet. my boy asked for the postcode of the place we were heading for so he could look it up on his phone. my boy still has faith in google maps. the postcode began with 'e x'.

"i thought you said it was in exmoor" asked himself.

"it is," said herself, "that's why its e x."

"but e x is for exeter!" said himself.

"so?"

"exeter is nowhere near exmoor!" himself waved the printed out map at her. "its near dartmoor!"

it would appear that, had this little matter not come to our attention, we could have had to drive the whole way to north devon before anyone sussed out the error of our ways. himself groaned.

"you are priceless!" he said. i fully expected my boy to pipe up with the refrain "for everything else there is mastercard" but he was otherwise engaged reading his book on the modern history of weapons by this time.

eventually we found the farm where dave started his life. the kind man came out to meet us. so did a variety of small noisy dogs, larger slightly less noisy dogs and many cats, some with no tails. as this was the place where my late lady friend had lived before we took her home i wondered whether the lack of tails was anything to do with her, but the kind man explained that these were manx cats who had never had tails to start with.

we had a cup of tea and a chat. that is the peeps did. in spite of my efforts i failed to steal any tea at all, although i did liberate the kind man's biscuit when he wasn't looking. the little chap was in a cage with a fluffy duck. he was flaked out, having had a bath and been hairdryed afterwards. my boy was entranced.

"he is the sweetest little creature i have ever seen!" he said. i let this one pass as he had of course never seen yours truly as a puppy. i was very sweet indeed.

after a fair bit of chat we set off for home. dave sat in the middle of the back seat on a towel between herself and my boy. i sat in the back and tried to retain a dignified aloofness. i didn't want young dave thinking his new uncle was a soft touch.

the journey back took forever. there were breakdowns, accidents, traffic jams and just delays. my boy started wanting a pee almost immediately and kept up a constant reminder of this fact until we found some services. rather wearing i have to say.

eventually we got home. young dave and i were left on the floor to get acquainted. i made the mistake of giving him a little nudge with my nose which sent him screaming and wailing into the kitchen. the young chap appears to have been rather molly-coddled. soon knock him into shape though.

last night herself slept on the sofa in order to be available for trips out into the garden in the night. i took the precaution of sleeping upstairs. if the choice is between himself's snoring and the squeaking of a puppy, give me the snoremonster any day.

dave is giving me a rather wide berth this morning, which can only be a good thing. i have heard what puppies can do to an old dog's beard...