The evidence mounts

A day much like any other day. Birds sing in the trees, lambs gently bleat in the paddock outside unaware of the fate that will befall them in the not too distant future, chickens peck at the door of the coup waiting to be let out. An alarm clock sounds: rousing one innocent and harmless boy from his dreams of things probably best left unmentioned.

Walking to the kitchen he has a bowl of cereal and puts the kettle on the stove to boil. As the cereal bowl empties and the water approaches boilding point 2 creatures watch from the shadows - calculating the precise moment to strike a deadly blow. Unaware of the horror that watches from the shadows our hero decides that some toast and a cup of tea might be a nice thing. In the shadows an ancient and cunning evil stirs.....the moment approaches.....

Walking to the fridge he savours the the feel of the packaging on the recently bought bread before reaching for the milk and turning round to pour hot water in the waiting mug. Seconds tick by. Milk is poured and returned then returned to the open fridge.......

Wakefulness knocks at the door of the morning routine and says: didn't you put the bread in the fridge? A blurred memory of last night suggests that yes - this is in fact correct. So where precisely, wakefulness asks, is the bread?

Looking again the fridge is suspiciously empty.

I turn to the shadows. They are also suspiciously empty.

Realisation dawns. I utter the words: oh you bastards.

I find my flip-flops and heedless of the lack of clothing I currently employ run from the house. In the furthest corners of the garden, around the side of the barn I find 2 dogs - one of whom has my loaf of bread in his mouth. At least - he has half a mangled loaf of bread that I assume is most likely mine, unless he's suddenly learnt to bake overnight. Unlikely given the lack of opposable thumbs.

I tell said dog exactly what I think and put together this poster so that no others will fall into the same trap I have:

The curious incident of the poo in the day time

As happens on many occasions I came home late the other night. The house was exactly as I had left it: chickens in the chicken run, dogs shut up in the extension area thing, sheep in the pen and not a mouse was stirring. Or so I thought.

Having let myself in and fed the dogs I walked to the bathroom and out of the corner of my peripheral vision caught sight of a strange brown package on the floor. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be poo. "That's funny" I thought to myself. As well as a few other things. My eyes travel up and notice another poo - probably from the same animal my detective skills inform me. At this point I briefly consider whether I might have poo-ed on the floor by accident in my sleep, and whether a foray into Wikipedia to find out about poo analysis might reveal the nature of the guilty person but decide that I'm really not that interested. My eyes travel further.....

And I notice a third poo. Of a distinctly different nature. Not just slightly different but totally and thoroughly different - like the difference between a jacket potatoe and a bowl of rice pudding for example. "That's funny" I think to myself. As well as a few other things.

A sane voice in my head says: there are 2 dogs and they probably just snuck past you whilst you weren't looking and for some inexplicable reason left you some poo on the floor.

A less sane voice says: I wonder if some kind of other animal has gotten into the house and done that? It's quickly followed by a paranoid voice that wonders if Oxfordshire has a new serial killer that leaves poo as their trademark before dispatching their victims. Suddenly the rabbit warren that is the house I'm staying in becomes a much more frightening place as visions of "the killer poo-er", most feared person since jack the ripper walked London's streets fill my mind.

A bucket & several pieces of kitchen towel later and the poo is gone (except for the more liquid aspects which were a tell tale clue that the poo was fresh, ergo the culprit must still be in the house). Unable to contain my paranoia any longer I find a conveniently placed hockey stick and camping lantern and sweep the lower floor of the house. Thus armed and looking like a bizarre & modern-art version of 'The Light of the world' I begin rushing through doors prepared to brain the killer poo-er with a child's hockey stick until I ascertain that the ground floor is 'clean'. At least, it's clean of other human presence.

Only the upstairs remains. There are 2 ways up stairs so I boobytrap one of them and use the other. Fortunately each step screaches with the agony of old wood - thus alerting my unknown assailant to my every move. At the top of the stairs there are 3 ways to turn. I decide that between my cleverly devised boobytrap, the noise of the stairs & the difficulty of watching in 3 directions at once I might as well just go to sleep. A short but coincidentally timed phone conversation later in which a friend assures me that yes, there probably is someone else in the house with me, I call the whole adventure quits. But not before I find some way to barracade the door to my room.

The mystery is more satisfactorily solved when I notice that one of the dogs seems to eat a lot of grass and I remember that the poo had been full of what looked like either grass or thread. I further remember that cows need some strange amount of stomachs to process grass and that humans can't do it anymore (something to do with the appendix I think) so probably it was a dog.

The bowl-of-rice-pudding poo however, remains a mystery.

A dog's breakfast

Meaning either: a complete mess, or the thing that a dog has for breakfast. Sadly both things applied to the doughnut I bought for my own breakfast this morning after an extremely wet & enthusiatic golden retriever nearly pushed me off a bridge and then destroyed my bag in order to get to the doughnut inside it. Needless to say the half eaten, wet & covered in dog hair thing that I rescued was inedible. The dog's owner looked quite embarassed about the whole thing but I couldn't find it in my heart to be angry - just mildly annoyed and amused.

The parallel with this week didn't escape me. Since having a really nice weekend I somehow seem to have ended up with a week that's involved a one way trip to chaos & destruction. I have no plan of escape currently, only a glimmering hope that somehow the lord might have some kind of plan. If he doesn't then I could be in trouble. I'm beginning to wonder if the lesson might be: there's a way to be ok in the middle of chaos that's to do with Me - you don't have to control chaos in order to be 'ok'. I think that's worth checking out.