Heavenly creatures...

Animals are fascinating aren't they? Our 2 Jack Russels are now just short of a year old and we're trying desperately to get them house trained before the remodeling is finished. We were all prepared for this move to the new house, having bought a lovely (and rather large) dog run for them to stay in during the day while we're not here and the builders are. Unfortunately we hadn't consider the possibility of having a particularly unfriendly and grumpy neighbour - shall we call him Bob - and so we're forced to keep them indoors most of the time.

Bob isn't an immediate neighbour, he's about 200m away, across the brook and up the hill. Unfortunately he has a pretty good view of our garden and, it seems, he really doesn't like dogs. We'd been here about a week and the dogs were struggling to get used to the new sounds and smells and the steady stream of strange people coming and going on the property. It seems that in this week the dogs barked a fair amount while we weren't here. This seemed strange to us as they were perfectly fine when we got home in the evening and none of our immediate neighbour's had complained (even after they were asked). Bob however felt that it was his 'neighborly' duty to welcome us to the village with a particularly sarcastic little note. He made it very clear that we were to 'do' something about those dogs as he wouldn't put up with the noise. I was ready to super glue his letter box shut and mail bomb his doorstep with doggy-do but RO felt that there was a more 'English' way of going about it. It seems that he was right (for once) and after several nights of mithering about whether the dogs had behaved during the day, he seems to have admitted that things are better.

This may all sound perfectly reasonable but it seems that Bob has a bit of a reputation. Its been said that he would complain if a Blackbird was singing in his yard! I've since learnt that he is affectionately referred to as the Great Wall of China, what I haven't figured out is whether that's because he sits up on his little hill peering at everyone or whether its because he's a big, white monstrosity, I guess only time will tell.

VP