Spill The Beans

Shame on you

I came down yesterday morning, warm and flushed from my night with the electric blanket, to discover the remains of a cocoa tin in Hugo's bed. The lid was off, the tin lining had been chewed and peeled right back, dried powder on his cushion. Panic nearly blinding me, I tried to remember how much had been left when I made a mug of hot chocolate the night before. A third, maybe a quarter, and the tin contained 125g. That meant he had eaten at least 30g of highly concentrated chocolate, the most toxic of all varieties for dogs. I rang the vet who checked Hugo's weight from his last visit a month or so ago then gave the verdict that it was indeed a very high dose of poison but probably too late to do anything about it. I know from experience now that when he does his foraging around the kitchen he does it shortly after I've gone to bed. After that he sleeps too soundly to move. That meant he had eaten it around eight hours previously. I was told to watch out for anything suspicious and call back immediately. But there was Hugo, gazelle like in his grace and beauty, gobbling up his breakfast and avid for a walk. How could this be? I spent a very uncomfortable day alert to any changes in him but there were none. There could have been a completely different outcome, and I break into a sweat every time I think about it. I must never again leave anything out that he might take a fancy to and apply his brute strength to accessing, no matter how innocuous or impenetrable it seems to be. He might be my best friend, my soulmate, but he is still a dog.

The Evidence

I spent much of the afternoon with him stretched out beside me on the kitchen sofa, the Rayburn creating comfort where outside there was nothing but drizzle and chill. I was reading Girl On a Train because someone had told me it was very good and I'll probably see the film. But where was the female protagonist's alcoholism people kept talking about, the abuse, the memory loss? My version had none of that. My kindle told me I was 60% through and so far nothing more than a rum and coke had been consumed. I decided to google it, and that's when I discovered that I'm reading Girl on a Train by Alison Waines, not The Girl on The Train by Paula Hawkins. I'm not the only one. Alison must be laughing all the way to the bank thanks to the thousands of people worldwide who have made the same mistake. I did wonder. It's a thriller too, but not terribly good, not awfully interesting though enough of both to keep me going. I'll have to finish it now, and then I'll buy the best seller. Out of interest there is also The Girl From the Train by Irma Joubert. What is it about girls on trains, all written by women?

We went to see King Lear last night, Ruth and I, transmitted live from Stratford. It's a long play, two hours before the interval, so we had supplies: wine, coffee, sweets. I popped out at one stage to check on Hugo in the car and he was asleep. But I'd only been back a few minutes when the sound disappeared, and we watched the actors moving around on the stage with mouths opening and closing like fish. The stage had been pulled right through the stalls, and the audience lined its length. The silence made you focus on the choreography as the performers covered the whole space, weaving around each other, something I probably would not have noticed before. We waited for 20 minutes, and then one by one we got up and left. There will be a full refund. But will we ever get to see Anthony Sher strut his stuff live from the RSC? How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a rudely interrupted play.

New Home for the Lawnmower

Covered