Some of my Mistress’s writing friends have been talking about the ‘page 99’ test. If you want to know if a book is any good, don’t read the opening or the ending, don’t read the blurb on the back, read page 99. It works on the theory that an author makes a special effort at the start and the end and that to be any good the middle has to be good too. Anyway, which my Mistress was going through my book doing some editing for me, I turned to page 99 and what do you know? It was my birthday. Obviously, what appears on page 99 does vary according to how you print it, but I did conclude, with a sigh of relief that I might actually pass the page 99 test. I just need to get my paws on my Mistress’s other books now to see if I can give her some advice on how to improve them.
Because the girls are now getting on all right together we have been given our toys back. I have counted the toys we have been given back and there aren’t as many as were taken away. I think the ones in the worst condition may have gone into the bin. I did try to discuss this with my Mistress and she said she didn’t want Megan eating bits of plastic, which is a fair point, but she didn’t actually tell me whether she had kept them for us, until Megan has outgrown the eating plastic phase, or whether they have gone to dog-toy heaven. What is funny is that Megan keeps leaving the toys we do have in a neat pile. I think she just likes to keep them near her.
We had quite a lot of people in our house for a meeting yesterday. The girls were consigned to the back of the house, but I was allowed to greet everything and have a good sniff. It was interesting to which people belonged to which dogs that I sniff as I go round the village.