Wednesday 30th October

Photo from the Oliver family archive, probably taken by my Granddad Eddie

I posted the above photograph on my dad’s Facebook wall this morning as part of a birthday greeting, and a little while later my friend Gary emailed me a photo of him in the same car. What is weird is that we are about the same age, so it is feasible that we had the same toys way back in the early 1980s, but I can’t remember AA cars being massively popular. It isn’t as if all of my school friends used to meet up in our pedal cars and patrol the streets pretending to be the AA, answering calls from other kids whose bikes or skateboards had broken down and towing them to safety. Also, this toy has never featured in a nostalgia list about our favourite toys, even Peter Kay has never mentioned it before, and that unfunny bollock remembers everything.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am in no way a morning person, so might be wondering why I was awake rather early in the morning. The short answer is that we now have a dog living with us. I never wanted a fucking dog, and told Mandi that there was no way that I am getting involved with the day-to-day running of a dog. We are a two cat house and I don’t want to introduce them to potential upset and unsettle them. Mandi wanted to get a dog for security reasons, as I am out of the house several nights of the week due to work commitments. I returned from the studio last night to be greeted by an over-enthusiastic little dog jumping up at me as he obviously didn’t recognise me. As much as I tried to ignore him I found myself watching him and enjoying the sight of him enjoying his new home. His foster carer (he is a rescue dog) gave us a plastic milk bottle filled with gravel that he is scared of and runs to his bed when you shake it. I wanted this animal to keep his distance from me so kept the scary shaker close to hand for a bit, but a little later once he knew who was the boss I stroked him and made a fuss just so he knew that he was safe with me. I would never hurt an animal just because I’m not keen on them.

I later left Jack, (that’s his name) in his bed while I went upstairs to my office to sort out some stuff. Mandi had gone to bed; the same Mandi who adamantly said that Jack was not allowed on the any of the sofas and had to sleep in his bed. When I came back downstairs to get something to eat, I was met with this sight.

Not only was he on the sofa, he had made himself comfortable on my side of the main sofa. There are three sofas, a three seater in the front room and in our main living room there’s a two seater and a three seater. I noticed from the mess of cushions that Jack had been on each sofa and messed them up, presumably in a Goldilocks style testing spree. We seemed to be making an attempt at counterbalancing each other; I was trying to ignore the fact that we have a dog, and Jack was trying to show me that he wants to be my friend. Due to another bout of tiredness I ended up falling asleep on the sofa (in my spot – I moved him) and when I woke up, Jack was asleep with his head on my lap.

This morning after Mandi had gone to work I woke up with her, and decided to stay up instead of wasting the morning in bed. As I was downstairs, Jack was starting to get on my nerves a bit when all I wanted to do was make a cup of tea and wake up. I also wanted to go outside onto the front doorstep and have a cigarette, and realised that Jack probably wanted to go to the toilet, (to his credit he is fully house trained and hasn’t had a single mishap) so I decided to take him for a walk in the park over the road. I sent Mandi a text message as soon as I returned home:

“I took Jack for a walk so he could go to the toilet and stop annoying me. This doesn’t mean I like him”.

I doubt she was fooled.

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