Poor Freya!
Happily running around, making friends with a boisterous collie, having already befriended a large number of other dogs and humans. Her little tail almost wagged off with joy.
Then like an invisible streak of Mexican, he struck.
Apparently, Earl the Chihuahua chases anything that runs. Freya was a perfect target and totally unprepared. Normally she would have hit the ground and squirmed her obsequiousness but normally she sees the dog before it sees her. This was not the case with Earl.
And then he hit her. It was a perfectly timed headbutt to Freya’s back legs. The poor thing went flying and then the squealing started.
Her screeching noise was almost too high for human hearing…sadly. As she managed to reach me and leapt into my hands, her face was a mask of fear, as if she’d seen Cerberus himself rather than a dog actually smaller than her.
She climbed onto my shoulders trying to escape…then fell off giving Earl fresh hope of reaching his quarry.
Meanwhile Earl’s owner was yelling for him to return between crying out apologies to me.
It really was mayhem and it took Freya a while to calm down. Of course she was perfectly alright but she hid her head against my chest and insisted I carry her until Earl was nothing but a dim dark memory.
What a kerfuffle.
Then, after a few hours of unsuccessfully teaching Freya to use the doggie door, I headed off into London to see The Winter’s Tale.
We saw the production advertised months ago when Kenneth Branagh announced the season for his new theatre company. As soon as we realised that Kenneth and Judi Dench would both be in it, I was ordered to buy tickets.
And it was a sell out though, bizarrely, the two seats in front of us remained empty for the entire performance.
Even more bizarre is the play. I’ve never seen it before and only managed to read the synopsis for the first half before meeting Mirinda for a pre-theatre drink and wander. As it turns out, I’m rather glad I didn’t read the details of the second half as it would have spoilt the twist.
Given we were plenty early, Mirinda showed me the Covent Garden Christmas lights and we wandered among the tourists before heading for our seats in the very hot Garrick theatre.
The play was very enjoyable, the performances as good as you’d expect from some of our greatest actors. Interestingly, it was quite different watching Shakespeare in a proscenium theatre rather than the Globe but still entertaining.
Of note in a very noteworthy cast was Hermione (Miranda Raison – Jo in Spooks) and a very boisterous Antigonus (Michael Pennington – Lark Rise).
Actually everyone was great and the end of the play was peculiar and thoroughly unexpected which is always delightful.
An excellent night out…though the theatre was ridiculously hot.
