Close your eyes and imagine this, my dear reader. I am reclining at full furry stretch, there is a cool breeze ruffling my neck curls and the sun is gently warming my flappy ears. I am on holiday! Once again I have journeyed out in Mavis the Campervan and I can now announce that ‘Sidmouth, I am within you!’. It’s a very lovely place indeed, I can report that there are a healthy amount of sighthounds and other varieties of furry playthings here, all of whom are very friendly. 

What is not so friendly, is when you are have an unexpected face-off with a seagull, who I believe, are only a few mutations away from Velociraptors.  All I was doing, was quietly, and daintily nibbling at my ice cream when the bugger slunk up to me and eyeballed me in  a very intimidating manner. I wouldn’t look away but I must admit that it really did unnerve me. Have you ever seen a gulls beak up close and personal? *shudders. It looks like it has dunked its beak in tomato sauce, but I suspect it is really the blood of the last Lurcher who wouldn’t share its snack with it. It took a sliding step towards me and I tried my best to loom back at it in a menacing fashion. In this world there are loomers and lurkers – it turns out I am a lurker. I must get this from the Mistress, as she wrote the book about lurking. If there is a dark corner, she will be found there, full of furtive and spirited intention. Fixating me with its cold, soulless eye it made a lunge for my cone. I was full of righteous anger and acted accordingly, which was to cram in the remaining cone with a paw, sideways in, and leg it round the corner to lurk. A dark moment in the day, I can tell you.

 A lighter one was on the bus as I travelled into Sidmouth. I have to admit I am not a fan of a bus journey, I will tolerate it but I certainly wouldn’t sign up for a coach tour of the Austrian Alps. Anyway, I had assumed the lurcher bus position of four paws, firmly braced and planted on the ground at slight angles to aid balance…I became my own flying buttress. This helps me gain some level of reasonable purchase as we whizz through he countryside lanes and miss marauding cyclists and sat nav mishaps. There was a bit of a kerfuffle at one of the bus stops, so I craned my neck to see what was happening. It was the arrival of a rather magnificent specimen of a labrador, he had the jaunty charm that sometimes makes a maidens knees tremble and undercarriage swoon somewhat. I must admit to a slight quiver, but I think I managed to retain my poker face and I hurriedly practised my pelvic floor routine. He lolloped onto the bus and went to sit down a few seats behind me. I was determined not to reveal that he had affected me in such a devastating manner, so I continued to stare out of the window and thought about rabbits instead. 

As I daydreamed, I could feel his pervasive gaze on me so I swivelled around to look. It turns out that I was having something of an effect upon him too, a favourable one at that. I had no idea that I could illicit such emotions! Aware that I was very much out of my depth I smiled shyly as I felt my ears ignite, then turned away, which only seemed to encourage him. To cut a long story short, in all his excitement…well…he did a huge wee on the floor of the bus. Now dear reader, labradors are quite big dogs, but even so I had absolutely no idea that they could hold such a volume of liquid! He was bundled off the bus by his embarrassed human at the next stop (cockily throwing me his calling card as he went) and off we trundled again.

I would now like to bring your attention back to the aforementioned winding lanes that undulate like a majestic serpent through the glorious Devon scenery. Devon is a very hilly county. It was because of this that I spent the rest of the journey trying to synchronise lifting my paws up to miss the tidal wave of wee that kept sloshing up and down the bus. I was very glad that I had decided against wearing the crinoline that day. I was exhausted when we arrived and had to have a sit down and a cup of tea and a bun. 

The word on the street, or in the van, is that we are off to the donkey sanctuary tomorrow! I have promised to be on my best behaviour and have agreed that I will remain on my lead at all times for the jaunt. The tiny terror is completely beside herself with excitement as she is apparently very fond of donkeys and has a dream (one of which I am allowed to tell you) of having a couple of them at home. Maybe six. Hector is less excited about the visit, presumably he must be less keen on donkeys. 

As you can see, I have my spiffy holiday hankie in place.

There is never any excuse for not being stylish.