Mum says her favourite time of year is late spring and summer, but I think these sunny autumn days might be my favourites. It’s such a wonderfully unexpected surprise to be able to skip along in the sunshine when everyone has told you how miserable November usually is in England. Anyway, before I go out to see what new adventures I can find today, (there was a load of chicken manure yesterday – so exciting) I thought I’d bring you today’s flashback.
2006
My mistress wants me to publish some of my dairy. It all came up as we drove to the dog sitter yesterday. She casually asked if I had thought of putting any of it together as a book. I was mortified. I explained to her that it was private and she shouldn’t have been reading it in the first place. She apologised for being away for my birthday and said she hadn’t realised that I would be so upset. I started worrying about all the other things I might have written about her in the last ten months and started to get quite cross. In the end we had a big argument and I wasn’t talking to her by the time I go out of the car. Now I realise how silly it all was and there isn’t much I can do about it until I see her. I feel dreadful. Seeing her looking so sad as she drove away when I wouldn’t say goodbye really got to me, but by then I was too late. I have sent her a text message but I don’t know whether she has had it or not. I did wonder looking back, whether anyone would be interested in publishing it. Perhaps I should try and find out. Maybe I could start with a book about all my woodland friends and leave my diary until a bit later. I wonder if my mistress would help me put it together.
It was funny reading that as I’ve never known a time when Alfie didn’t have books out. He published the first year of his diary, or at least he best bits. I love his woodland story too – Alfie’s Woods. Most people think it’s a children’s book but it’s not really, it’s for anyone who likes a nice feel good story as it’s all about the power of friendship .
Then when I read what Alfie wrote in 2009 I thought you might like to read all of that one again:
My Mistress was talking to me yesterday about it being twenty years since the Berlin Wall came down. It’s funny hearing that a city was cut in half by a wall and the people of the half behind the wall couldn’t travel to the other half. It started to make me realise what a lucky dog I am, living in a free society. Can you begin to imagine what it would be like to be told by your Government where you can and can’t travel? Can you imagine having a Government that would shoot you if you tried to do something they had told you not to do? It starts to put the benign ineptitude of our current Government into perspective. I think it also for me starts to put a little more perspective to things like Remembrance Day and the fact that there have been times in history when people have had little choice but to take up arms to fight against Governments that have lost the plot. I guess you just have to think yourself fortunate that that sort of thing hasn’t happened in this country for a while, but there are parts of the world where it is still happening and where normal people are afraid of their own Government. I suppose as well as those who have died in struggles over the years, it is a good time to remember all those engaged in struggles now. Not just those who are part of the military, but the civilians who are prepared to stand up to unjust regimes and who day by day lose their lives in the struggle.
I guess that’s all a bit sombre, but even a dog has times of reflection and thinks how lucky he is to be free. Ok, so I’m enslaved to a family, but I’m happy and I don’t risk being shot.
Perhaps I’ll make today a day for a bit of reflection. Thank you for sharing it with me.
Love
Wilma
You can find short stories to read at www.alfiedog.com
Alfie’s Diary – the Book as well as our other books are available HERE