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Monday 18th September 2017

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I always wanted a dog when I was a kid. And I always wanted Operation. And Mouse Trap. And a snooker table, but my evil parents who made me practice drawing number 8s in the cupboard under the stairs would never let me have any of those things. Apart from the snooker table. And look how that turned out.
I should write a misery memoir about how I only got my way on about one in four issues. Even though they were definitely right not to get Mouse Trap as I played it at Tim Banwell’s house and it was shit.
I would ask them to get a dog and they would say, “But who would walk it?” And I would say, “I would walk it.” And they would counter that I would walk it for about three days and then it would rain or I would want to watch cartoons or just not be arsed and they’d have to walk it themselves. “I promise I would walk it every time, I just want a dog.”
But they didn’t relent. Or have another baby. Even though I said I would walk that every day too.

My parents were correct though. I definitely wouldn’t have walked the dog for more than the first 3 goes. Even now I am 50 (which by the way, I still don’t believe) and supposedly responsible, I sort of resent how much dog walking there is to do. And how, for now at least, I can’t leave the dog alone for more than a few minutes and so can’t do anything. I have been a little bit ill for the last few days and the early morning walk has been an especial chore and nature has thrown up less rainbows and gossamer for me to marvel and snigger at. 
I like finally having a dog after almost half a century of waiting and I love her very much, even though she did a bit of a wee on the floor today and woke me up at 4am, licking my face for no other reason than she was awake and wanted to hang out with me. I took her out into the garden in my pants in case she was about to Jackson Pollock the carpet (only using the brown paint from her palette) but she just sat in the grass and looked up at me and wondered why I was doing this.
It’s just me and her for now and that’s OK. Careful what you wish for it might come true. 

Tonight though, having cooked myself some haloumi cheese and feeling a bit better, I walked Wolfie through some pretty intense rain and loved every minute of it. We were just a boy and his dog, fulfilling the verbal contract that the boy had made with his parents. 
And I am going to buy Operation on the internet tonight. You won’t understand what that means as you live in 1970s Cheddar (obviously no one in 2010s Cheddar knows what it is either). Plus I just ate a Twirl and didn’t share it with my brother and sister. You don’t rule me any more. I can do what I like. 
You were always 100% correct.

Episode 4 of As It Occurs To Me is now up in the usual places.


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