Message from Mabel

This isn’t one of those sorries you see on the television when you know the person doesn’t really mean it; it’s a proper, grown up sorry. The sort of sorry you say when you’ve torn the electricity bill into little pieces, or chewed the arm off a Barbie doll. A real lie-on-your-back-with-your-legs-in-the-air type of sorry. 

Here goes: I’m terribly sorry, my Dad Tom can’t write his blog today because he’s not feeling well.
He’s lying on the sofa demanding cheese and onion crisps. He hates cheese and onion crisps, but right now that’s all he wants, which is great for us, because he opens a new packet, then remembers he doesn’t like them, and drops them one by one onto the floor. That’s where we’ve been sitting, me and my sister Truffle. We’re waiting for the next crisp to fall, with one eye on Izzy, who’s chewing a big pink doughnut. 

“You do it yourself, Mabel,” he murmured first thing, when I tried to lick his face awake so he could take us on our morning walk. He was probably talking about the walk, but as it’s now 3pm and he still hasn’t risen from the sofa, I thought: I can’t let his readers down, I’d better write his blog as well. 

Jo can’t do it – she’s worse than him, eating pickle out of a jar with her finger. Izzy’s speaking Spanish, shouting at the television as some boy called Diego is trying to save a hippo. “Say Excava, everyone!” Diego tells her, so she screams “Excava!” with no thought for the sensitivity of a spaniel’s ears. 

Any dog knows that means “dig”, which is what I’ve been doing all week trying to find my lost rabbit holes. They were there last Saturday: then Dad came with a big digger (excava-tor, he called it), and the holes just disappeared and he put this green stuff on top. It’s quite easy to remove the green stuff with your nose, and you can quickly escava a new hole with your paws till Dad shouts at you and puts the green stuff back. Great game. 

Anyway, back to this blog. I mean, how difficult could it be for an intelligent dog? He only ever writes about what just happened to him and Izzy, never about us. A thousand words about losing his wallet, but Truffle and I never get a mention. Yet we chase rabbits and everything. This is our big chance. 

Truffle said not to tell you about how I put the mouse behind the piano last Thursday and Jo was so miffed she screamed, so instead I’m going to tell you why Daddy’s feeling so woozy. You see, in our household, we had a bit of a night. 

All yesterday he was in such a tizz. Jo had invited a few people for dinner, but I guess the numbers grew, until the car park was so full of cars, Truffle and I got fed up barking at them. Dad had to go and buy a new top for the table, and stuck bits of wood on to hold it in place. There were sixteen humans, plus a vegetarian and someone who didn’t like dairy, so he got a bit under the collar when everyone started arriving and he hadn’t finished his canapés. 

We smelt scallops and pea soup and steak and chocolate cake, and there was a pile of fresh bread on the table that he refused to let Jo slice so people would know he’d baked it himself, and we could so easily have jumped up and had the lot, but Dad locked us in our cage. 

Humans are funny people. They arrive so quiet and polite and shake hands and talk about the garden and the colour of the kitchen walls, and later the noise they make grows louder with every bottle Dad opens until, by 2am, everyone is singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” round the piano. 

So now we know: my Dad’s allergic to singing. There can be no other explanation for why he’s lying on the sofa, telling Diego and Izzy to be quiet. And failing to write his blog. Sorry, everyone.

Morning After The Night Before