My dearest pals, I hold up a weary and sun kissed paw to you in the fondest of greetings! I am relaxing, as is the Spindle way, in the garden. I have had a busy few days and I simply MUST report to you that I have made a new pal! We ventured out from Spindle Towers for the first time in months at the weekend, and went for a bbq with some friends whom we hold in high regard. I myself was holding the prospect of the bbq in high regard, as we all know that there is an international law stating that there must be sausages at such an event. 

Once there, we settled ourselves at a respectable and ‘science led’ distance from each other and then I saw a fellow hound! I could barely believe my beady eyes. As any hound staff will already know, we have an affinity for any of our pointy nosed people. 

Her name is Ciara and she is a beautiful silken mole like greyhound. I shall pay particular attention to her nose which was very like Madame Cholet, the celebrated Womble. It had this amazing ability to turn at a right angle (only one direction though) when the merest sniff of anything edible was present – or indeed some distance away. It could be employed as a naval safety device, an unswerving rudder for any aquatic emergency.

Her preternaturally sensitive snoot however, was something of an issue at home apparently. It seems that she had put a snout too far on more than a few occasions, when she had undertaken ‘unauthorised food retrieval’. 

We both had a bit of a chat whilst the human slaves busied themselves with each other. We sat in a cool, shaded area, on a sumptuously soft rug. In the spirit of abandonment, we both kicked off our slingbacks and put on our leisure bonnets. 

As we sat and sipped our margaritas, we compared our lives over the past few months. I will not go into details as one must protect one’s fellow sisters, but I will say that there has been mention of her going on HRT. She has stated that she would prefer not to do so and that an additional 500 calories added to her daily snaffle bowl will act as a cure all for any present and future ailments.

I nodded agreement at this sensible deduction and recounted brief snippets of news about myself. I think she didn’t quite believe me when I described Nelson to her, so I invited her to come over to Spindle Towers for bridge and cocktails one evening, where she could be introduced to him.

I may have mentioned that this was the first time that we have been out in months, so it was with a fair bit of trepidation, but they are all really rather spiffy people. We were there to be together and to think happy thoughts and share memories of a special anniversary, and it was a lovely day to do so.

Ciara and I were enjoying a spirited debate of torque and tension, when her nose began to vibrate and twitch to the side. This high octane whiffling alerted us to the appearance of sausages, which were then all carefully put into what I can only describe as the ‘Smash Aliens’ head from the pretend potato advert. Worse than that, the head was on fire! I may be employing dramatic licence here, not like me I know, but I don’t see why they have to be cooked before we get our flappy chops around them. Yet wait we did like the outstanding hounds that we are.

Ciara and I were shade bathing when we heard the unmistakable clink of cutlery. We were both vertical and poised for snackage in record timing. Some of you may understand how difficult it is for a hound to sit, but my friends, sit we did, as we saw a huge pile of sausages on the table. If you listened very carefully, you could actually hear them calling out to us, like plumptious salty sirens. Alas, we had to wait for our pork fest, while the humans all fell on the food like ravenous vultures first. 

Later, Ciara commented scathingly that she couldn’t see why her sausage habit was such an issue when her hudad clearly had a clotted cream addiction and watched as he dived head first into a tub of the cholesterol massaging nectar.

Naturally I was on my best behaviour as I was in a new environment, not so much my mon amie supermole! I must say she was very persistent as she had circled the table like a basking shark. There were very little people there too, and I noticed that when she was flapped away from the table, they used less obscene nouns and verbs than the inhabitants of Spindle Towers. 

All in all it really was a greyt day out and it was with a heavy heart that I dragged my furry undercarriage back to the car.

So there you are my dearest pal, a small piece of freedom! There will be more careful freedoms to come, but until then, I remain a most contented Spindle.

Pip pip!!

(Spindlehound art by my friend Kat, who is not a cat)