Life with a transgender poodle

Before I talk about my extremely stressful day, I really must answer my mum’s comment. Dubstep is a type of music. According to Wikipedia it is a ‘genre of electronic dance music that originated in south London, England. Its overall sound has been described as “tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals”.’ So now you know. I’m pretty sure you’d describe it as ‘noise’.

But, back to today. I’m not sure whether I’ve described how the Talking Newspaper day is organised so I’m going to. If it’s not news then skip this bit.

Because we read the papers for three different areas each Thursday, there are three shifts of readers, engineer and presenter. I really like Farnham because it’s the first one. It means I’m home nice and early and can get things done around the house that require the attention. My least favourite is the Alton papers because it’s last and I’m not home until 6pm. Mind you, what I generally do is complete any tasks before I leave. In the middle is Haslemere which gives me a bit of time either side.

So, basically, I have it pretty much sussed. I have my rostered times and days and go to the newspaper office, pick up the papers and then on to the studio. It’s always worked perfectly. I used the past tense deliberately.

Today I turned up at the newspaper office and asked for the papers only to be told that “David has already collected them.” This was odd. I asked a few times just to make sure it was the Haslemere papers and she told me the same thing each time. I walked out of the office, a frown almost furrowing my brow.

I was undecided how to proceed. If I’d written down the wrong edition on the calendar then I could check at home on the master roster however, I could also check by walking to the studio (I was about halfway betwixt the two). My biggest fear was that if I had the time wrong then I might actually be down for the Alton slot. Or, worse still, there could have been changes that I didn’t know about. I dithered for a bit, drinking my Starbucks outside the Royal Mail exchange before deciding the best option was to walk to the studio and find out what the devil was going on.

And it was hot today! Even walking the dogs in the park this morning was warmer than it’s been for a while. This is quite annoying when it’s actually cold enough to put the central heating on at night. Not that I do but I see that others would. Actually the walk was deeply embarrassing.

Sometimes, Day-z thinks she’s a dog. Rather than a bitch, I mean. I have no idea why or where she discovered this strange belief. She will hump her sister. Which really annoys Carmen. Particularly when she’s asleep. Which is most of the time.

The strangest thing is I have no idea where she found out how to do it. I mean they have never had sex with other dogs (I’m 99% certain) or, to my knowledge, actually noticed dogs having sex. Still, Day-z quite often manages to simulate it with her sister.

Generally, these displays of odd sisterly behaviour are confined to the house (and sometimes garden) but today, to my absolute horror, she did it in the park. And there were people everywhere. I was mortified! Though I’m pretty sure no-one realised they were both female, as I hurried them off into Badger’s Wood.

Anyway, that’s by the by. I wound up at the studio to find David happily cutting up the Haslemere papers smiling but confused when I turned up. I smiled back and grabbed the roster. No, I was right. I was slotted down for the Haslemere edition and his name was nowhere to be seen. And it was like a light bulb going off over his head.

He had made a swap with the presenter for the Alton paper but had written down Haslemere instead. Given there wasn’t much I could do, I volunteered to take his Alton and left him to his scissoring. I picked the papers up on the way back home.

This had seriously eaten into my time so I spent the hour I had cutting up the papers on the dining table before heading out again.

To cut this overly long story much shorter…I presented the Alton paper and didn’t manage to get home until 6pm, all my jobs neglected. I could have worked till dawn, slaving away or I could take the sensible option and not go to work tomorrow. I was sensible.

One good thing was the wonderful afternoon light as I walked home. This is the park bench just as you enter off Bear Lane.

And to be entirely fair, it’s not like I didn’t do anything today. I organised for a real estate agent to come over on Tuesday, I discussed the replacement of the side fence with our neighbour then purchased the panels to rebuild it, I rang up and corrected an order from the bird food place we use because they’d forgotten something and I walked the dogs.