Gather round me, my dear pals, I have a tale of mediocre derring do, with a smattering of insect based intrigue. This tale is of scuttling floor crawlers and air flappers…oh and the dogged persistence of the furry winged night butterfly. Not an imaginary menagerie from my sub conscious brain compartments, this is based on events at Spindle Towers within the last day!

It has been very hot in deepest Hampshire, and I am not a fan of the heat. I have been systematically kept in from outside frolics, had a damp tea towel draped on me and been forced to lay on my cool mat. The numpties are worried that I might choose to sprawl on the lawn and bake myself into a stupor like a spatchcocked Sunday roast. What folly! The sultry air that envelopes me is not a friend of mine.

One problem with the hot weather is that we fling open the doors and windows at Spindle Towers, to try and encourage a cool through breeze. This works and is actually rather pleasant to have the breeze whistling through my sizzling undercarriage, but it also means that every single scampering critter enters through the windows of mercy.

We have all been besieged!! The Tiny Terror has been set upon my persistent flappy moths at night, orbiting her head whilst she tries to read her Kindle, which is backlit. Then we have the grasshoppers….and according to Hector you are only allowed to say that word in the style of The Master to David Carradine in Kung Fu.* As a side note, it seems you can pronounce most insects in a comedy voice, another example being ‘moth’, in the manner of Inspector Clouseau.

This evening I suffered a full on assault from a grasshopper that interrupted my sweet slumber by launching itself (without invitation or due care) onto my pointy head. The shock of waking up in such a beastly manner (did you see what I did there?) really was very upsetting. 

Never have I moved so fast, my heart thumping in my Spindlesome chest. I heard a prolonged, high pitched shrieking, which turned out to be me. Kerfuffle doesn’t even begin to cover it. All hell let loose and I ended up then over rotating my limbs and getting them entangled in my duvet which then tried to eat me as I fell over. I noticed that the humans were naturally very upset by this, until I realised their fevered shuddering and snorting was actually laughter, and not the tears of distress that I had expected.

I was calmed down by muvver. She gently cradled my little furry face and chirruped soothing words into my lug holes whilst Hector ran to get the medicinal cheese cubes for immediate application.

This is not the first incident I have had with a grasshopper. * See blog ‘Spindle v Grasshopper’ which recounts my nocturnal struggles with the little blighters. 

The truth of the matter is, that it can’t be overestimated how sensitive a hound can be to external stimulus. A surprising number of things can cause genuine, buttock clenching terror within our tender souls. I myself have a problem with fluttering bunting. This is not an unpleasant medical condition as it may imply, but the terrifying garden decorations that quiver little ominous, colourful flags of doom.

I have also been taken by surprise by a lone runner bean that I found lurking on the kitchen floor (snake) and once when an empty poo bag floated past me (jellyfish). 

An acorn becoming unexpectedly trapped in the gap in ones paws can also be very upsetting. When this happens to me I merely stand with the affected paw held up limply, waving in the air and I whimper until someone removes the acorn for me.  

I have merely touched upon the surface of some of the perils that a hound may encounter, no matter how intrepid they are.

Hounds are often accused of over reacting and being drama queens, but I reject this as mere fluff. We are merely victims of our own delicate constitutions and highly sensitive natures, natures which should be cosseted and fed cheese during any emergency.

It is with this thought that I will leave you all, until next time…