It’s a hot evening and the dogs are very tired, especially Cairo who had a little adventure when she chased a mystery dog earlier today.

Her turn of speed is still quite incredible and she was almost a mile away by the time I got to the top of the field she’d run from.

I was sitting drinking a beer when Milo wandered over and said that they’d like a story to doze off to.

I had a little think and this is how it went.

‘OK Cairo, you’re not the first escapee dog that I’ve ever had and you’re not the worst.’

She gave me a tired look and let out a little sigh.

‘Let me tell you about Lucky.

One of my brothers brought him home, I don’t know where he got him from, but he was a medium sized Doberman with a full tail and floppy ears.

My brother got bored with the work involved with having a dog very quickly and so Lucky became mine. It was me that walked him, fed him and cleaned up after him.

It was me that chased him and climbed all over the neighbourhood fences when he escaped.

The little sod could climb a six foot fence in half a second and he’d be gone.

Fence after fence.

Onto the roads and away.

Sometimes I’d be able to catch him, but the neighbours weren’t exactly happy with a dog and then a man climbing their fences, although one or two found it funny.

With me so far?’

The dogs blinked sleepily, still just about awake.

‘OK – let me tell you one more thing about him.

He hated being left alone and he’d eat anything ANYFUCKINGTHING that he could because he was so stressed.

He ate through the back of a sofa – and out of the front of it.

He pulled a doorframe off the wall and chewed it up.

He ripped a mattress to shreds.

And much more.

Including carpets and clothes.

Anyway.

I was living with my parents at the time and my dad worked away from home some weeks, my mum still worked and I was working shift patterns at a computer centre.

On one of the day shift weeks, I wandered home, walked Lucky and then had dinner with my mum.’

The dogs looked curiously at me, they’d seen my dad but had never met my mum.

‘You never saw her, she died a very long time ago but she had a couple of things in common with you two.

She was small, only Four Feet Ten Inches tall, but she was very, very clever.

And so she asked me if I felt like a beer.

We walked out of the house and instead of going to our regular pub, she walked me to one that we didn’t like.

I looked at her, she was up to something.

But what ?

‘What’s going on, why are we going to this fucking shithole?’

‘I just feel like going there’

I knew that this was a lie, but why?

We walked into the pub and I bought us drinks.

We sat down and I scanned the room like I’ve always done.

I saw something strange and gave my mum another chance to tell me what was going on.

‘So why are we here?, this place hasn’t got any better and half these cunts are already drunk‘

‘No reason – honestly’

‘I don’t believe you.’

I scanned the room again and saw the same anomaly.

A man was staring at us.

Mum was only 19 when I was born so he was early 40s, same as her.

I looked more closely at him.

He was scared.’

The dogs were more awake now, sat on all four paws, the possibility of blood and violence waking them up.

Milo raised a paw.

‘Where was Lucky?’

‘He was at home, but I didn’t tell you when he escaped he’d sometimes be gone for hours and when he got home, he’d have a muzzle full of foam, he looked rabid but really he was just tired and happy.’

So the bloke was scared, but I didn’t know him. He was scared of me but not because of me.

I looked at my mum.

‘Who’s he? Has he been giving you trouble?’

I glared openly at him now, sure he’d tried it on or done something or threatened her.

He went a very pale colour of green.

He was fucking TERRIFIED.’

The dogs were fully alert now, the promise of blood, real or remembered making them hyper attentive.

‘Mum, who. Is. That. Fucking. Bloke. What has he done?’

She looked at me and I knew that she was lying but…

‘He’s nobody, I don’t know him. We shouldn’t have come in here, you were right, let’s go to the other pub.’

I was completely wired now, just one notch below violence, I knew that he’d done something,

I walked her out of the pub and stared at the man the whole way, he was 20 or so years older than me and he was more scared than I’d seen anybody for ages.

So we went to the other pub, I played pool and flirted with the barmaid and then walked mum home.

I let it drop for the night

And then the next evening after work, I had Lucky on my lap and was sitting talking to Mum.

She looked at me.

‘You were half right last night, whoever he is thought he was a big, tough man. He talked to me on the street the other day and said that people are sick of him’ – she nodded at Lucky – ‘getting out and that one day somebody is going to shoot him.’

I smiled at her.

I could see it now.

‘What did you say?’

‘I told him that I was pleased, that I hate that dog, he’s eaten anything nice that I’ve had, but that my husband and my boys love him. So if he’s brave enough, perhaps he should tell you to your faces.’

I smiled again.

And there the story ends Doglets, nobody was hurt but that man avoided us like the plague for as long as I lived there. I’d see him occasionally and he’d scuttle off.

She destroyed him without anyone raising a finger.

Did you enjoy th?’

I stopped speaking.

They were asleep.

Another long day, full of fun and adventure over.

It’s Saturday evening, I’m sat listening to music and drinking beer while I type this.

The dogs are asleep somewhere after another long day of walking and running around with an occasional nap or snuggle break and life is very calm.

I’m now at the point where I’m really not that fussed by anything now, I KNOW I should be angry at the constant horror show that this country has become.

I should be raging at our incompetent and possibly corrupt government, I should be mortified and disgusted that actual terrorists get better treatment than normal concerned people and I should be screaming from the rooftops about Prevent classifying concerns over mass immigration as a potential terrorism red flag.

But I just can’t hold on to the anger these days.

So much is wrong and I don’t think it’s fixable, the roller coaster of civilisation has started the longest and scariest descent of the ride and the maintenance crew has been replaced by Bonobo monkeys who seem to have found a drug stash, so I don’t think that there’s going to be an ascent.

Not for us anyway.

So my little brain has started to cocoon itself off, I’m focusing on the good things, daily long walks with the doglets, getting to grips with the things that need fixing – the photo at the top is a shed door. I was going to pull the whole thing down but I’ve cladded the outside and put in a new floor.

If it ever stops raining, I’ll make a new door and fit it.

Simple little tasks that I’ve not typically done throughout my life – I’ve always been too busy.

I’m joining the welfare committee of a local ( national) Forces Adjacent charity and joining the Mayor in a few weeks to open a school fair.

I’m horribly respectable – and according to my mental lifecycle clock, I’m about ten years early for this sort of thing.

Just to keep my hand in with the old world of work, I’ve given the Feral Ponies an introduction to a major company and they’ll get an internal recommendation from one of the directors ( if they want to apply for any jobs) because I’ve vouched for them.

It was nice to be offered an open ended ‘ we’ll have something for you if you want it’ too.

But I don’t really.

Not right now, I want to go for early morning walks in fields of grass, barley and wheat, I want to watch the birds of prey and listen to the quails in the undergrowth – while waiting for Cairo to decide that they might be fun to chase.

I want to watch Milo grin at me so that I’ll throw him a treat and I want to just stop and stare at the beauty around me.

The days are still getting longer for a few weeks and the crops in the fields are ripening quickly, I’ve got lots of sawing and cutting, drilling and fixing, painting and oiling to do – all watched by the doglets who seem to like this new life and follow me everywhere around the grounds.

It could be a lot worse.

So for now, I’ll take the calm and peace. I’ll put the anger aside, I’m not sure it’s helping anyway.

Better to try to be content than to fight this battle against shadows created by our own government.

Anybody who reads this drivel even occasionally knows that I love books.

So, like Galadriel, I shall diminish and fade into the background.

I think.

Maybe

“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”

She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

“I pass the test,” she said. “I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.”