The House of Dogs

11 October 2010

Autumn has well and truly hit round my way and true to form, I have come down with a rotten cold and to be honest I feel like death warmed up. The problem is that I haven't been able to take any time off as I am booked up this week. Chris has asked me to go round lots of his properties and do a few odd jobs. So it has been a case of a few hours here and half a day there. It makes life interesting I guess.

But feeling like this and having to work through it just makes it last that much longer. Claire has been telling me that I should just spend a day in bed and get over it properly, but I do always tend to carry on. I guess it serves me right if I end up really ill. But isn't that what they invented Lemsip for?

Anyway, as I said I have been here there and everywhere this week. I have fixed a broken toilet cistern in a student flat (what a tip that was!) and mended some leaky taps in a nice flat in town. But one of these jobs has been a bit on the weird side.

I spent two days this week doing various jobs around a little terrace on the outskirts of town. The couple that live there have a bit of a dog obsession. Everywhere you look there was dog memorabilia. Dog statues in the garden, dog pictures on the walls and even stuffed toy dogs on the beds. Added to that is the fact that they have two huge real dogs. I am talking massive, like St Bernards only not as fat.

The lady of the house doesn't work and has the responsibility for these two dogs and she is only a little thing herself. They practically pull her down the street and jump all over her and everything all the time. One of them just barks like a mad thing at every little noise. It was really starting to get to me by the end of the first day.

She was telling me that they got the dogs because they don't have children....what am I supposed to say about that? I felt like telling her that if they were kids they would be much better behaved. I wonder what she does all day. This woman is certainly a stay at home Mum of an entirely different kind. What a luxury to be able to stay home just to watch over a couple of hounds.

Anyway their house required some major fixing of doors and walls – you guessed it – the dogs had been jumping all over those too. The door handles had been chewed off, there was a hole in one wall which needed patching and there are scratch marks all over the place where they have been jumping up. I wonder if Chris even knows that the dogs are allowed inside.

Still it has meant an interesting week. I am going to do a bit of delegating over the next couple of days and ask Katy to take over a bit. I need a rest!