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Friday 12 August 2011

Walkies

Every evening this week I've had a walk along the seafront. This is because I leave by the sea. It would be a potentially risky venture to try and have an evening walk by the seafront if you did not. But luckily for me, I do. Already I'd dodged a bullet.

As regular readers of this blog will know, in addition to the true meaning of the phrase "crushing disappointment", I've been in something of a fug this week. "Something of a fug" is mum speak for "depressive episode". I find walking along the seafront helps. Plus it's more healthy for me than the other thing that helps: massive consumption of carbohydrates. As a bonus, there's a little nature reserve near the beach, too, where I can look at little egrets, my favourite bird.

It's normally fairly uneventful. A near miss with an arsehole cyclist here, a jogger who looks like they are suicidally depressed wheezing past there. Today, though, there was a dog.

Dogs, as you might expect, are not a rare sight. They are normally, though, accompanied by an owner. Today's dog was, too. Kind of. The owner slumped down on a park bench, stared at the dog for a while and then just left it to bugger off. It buggered off into the nature reserve, it buggered off into people's gardens, it buggered off onto the beach. Mostly, however, it buggered off in the same direction as me.

It's fairly grey and windy this evening, so there weren't many people around. If anyone had seen me, though, they'd probably have reckoned from my proximity to the dog that it was my dog. What I want to know is, what's the etiquette here? The owner was rapidly diminishing from view. My new pet dog, Rover, excitedly ran a few yards ahead of me. He looked excited. Or excitable. What would I do if he bit someone? What if he did a poo? Can I be held legally responsible for the actions of a dog if I'm the absolute nearest person to that dog?

The other thing was that Rover looked a little bit like a smaller version of the dog in Ghostbusters. The one that chased after Rick Moranis. And I'll be honest, it was starting to freak me out a bit. You go out for a walk to raise your spirits and end up raising Gozer. That would be just typical of my luck.

Luckily for me Rover did not bite anyone, or do a poo. He had a bit of a sniff of the crotch of a shuffly man before legging it back towards the park bench where his owner had probably now forgotten that he even had a dog in the first place. It was exciting to own a dog, but also a bit nerve-wracking. I think I will stick to enjoying other people's dogs.

Near home, some men and a woman were raising a beach hut. They were not Amish.

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