I am a magnet where exciting events are concerned.
After a punishingly difficult day in work, I arrive home to a moaning, grunting 16 year old, and somehow manage to get him into the car and off to guitar lesson.
Jim is riding pillion in the passenger foot-well, crouching low and looking worried as usual. Not a good traveller.
Dump son in Pwll, head off for Felinfoel, to access the cycle track at Y Plas.
Jim does his racing about, snuffling in the nettles and undergrowth, and eventually does what he needs to do, and I address the product responsibly…..
….however, the deed is not complete. Oh, my goodness! Jim is running around with a long piece of grass attached to his bottom! And he is in the crouching position. Oh, my God! I don’t have any more bags with me! And judging from previous experience, he will wish to, er, produce more produce very shortly. He pirouettes and twirls, keen to rid himself of the irritation.
I walk briskly to and fro, into the undergrowth and the concealing darkness of the woods, recklessly forgetting the Blair Witch Project experience of last night. It is of utmost importance that this grass is passed. Soon. My plan is to walk down to Furnace, passing the rugby pitch, up Constitution Hill, and back down Pentrepoeth Road. But I dare not do this if Jim needs to, er, evacuate.
I have a brainwave. I pick a large leaf, and tentatively try to remove the offending article from Jim’s bottom.
I am very tense. If anyone should approach now, what on earth would they think?
A respectable looking woman, in a long pink skirt, with shell pink top, stooping down and doing unmentionable things to her dog’s rear end…. I could be branded a pervert. A weird woman who looks up dogs’ bottoms……
I am in luck. No-one is around. I take the bull by the horns and the grass by the end, and tug hard….out it comes, covered in produce. Yuck.
And just in time.
For then, the Llanelli version of the Tour de France arrives on the track. And I had considered 6pm to be a pretty safe time to go dog-walking, assuming everyone else to be at their dinner-tables. Wrong!
Middle-aged keenies, teenage speedies, kiddy learners and struggling ladies all pass me by, all very polite and respectful, except for one or two charmers, who speed by at 30mph, and who are given the Malakas sign behind their obnoxious backs…
Good. Panic over. Heading south along the Pentrepoeth part of the track, I am delighted to observe a spectacle of doggy misbehaviour.
There are some very nice houses here, “upside-down” types, with balconies on the first floor, where the household dogs are given free rein. And there they are.
Two dogs are barking their heads off. A St Bernard and a golden retriever. They do this each time anyone goes by with a dog. It is their dog-given duty.
Then, the St Bernard feels the need to perform, and decorously mounts the retriever and humps away vigorously, in full view of the general public. The retriever pretends not to notice, and continues to bark, in time to the humping. Two hefty dogs of uncertain sex, humping away rhythmically on the balcony of a smart house on the main road……
I nearly choke, I am laughing so much….
I needn’t have bothered laughing. Going past the Stradey Arms, I realise I have to cross the road, smartly.
Heading for us is a massive dog, resembling a Dogue de Bordeaux wearing a bear-skin, as black as night. Jim has had an “encounter” with this guy before.
True to form, Jim delivers a verbal attack, pulling and straining on the lead; everyone looks around. It is so embarrassing. An innocent–looking, sweet-faced Labrador with a feeble-looking female owner, launching an offensive on a far bigger specimen.
My arms are nearly pulled out of their sockets (I switch arms regularly) I put my sunglasses on hurriedly, in spite of the overcast sky.
Going past Furnace Rugby Club field, the Youth team are training. Their press-ups leave something to be desired, and a bottle of pop would have more fizz than those chaps (but don’t let my husband read this, he is the treasurer)
Up Constitution Hill, good for the quads and the G.Ms, (must do this more often) and back onto the main Stradey Rd.
Head for home, get overtaken by husband and son in the Saab, tooting and waving happily…
…and we had no red wine in the house.
Damn!
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