Thursday February 14th 2008

Thursday 14th February 2008.

I did something daft last night and I'm regretting it. I feel stupid today and wish I could just learn to keep my bloody nose out of things that don't concern me.

Last night I took Kali for a walk at about ten o'clock. Somewhere near us a dog was barking continuously. I came back into the house and although I hadn't heard it before, after taking our dog out, I could now hear it plainly from inside the living room. At two in the morning I was lying in bed and could still hear this poor dog barking.

As I stressed later, I'm not complaining. I never complain to people about anything, I'm firmly into the idea of live and let live. If my neighbours want to play loud music, fine. If it's inconvenient to us, then what the hell it won't last forever. The barking dog was not bothering me in any way other than the fact that I was worried.

Why hadn't the owners let it in? I began running scenarios through my head and landed firmly on my faovurite, that this dog was owned by an elderly person and that they hadn't let their dog in all night because they were lying either hurt or dead in their house somewhere. The more I listened to the dog, the more I became convinced that the barking was not just a, 'let me in' bark but was anxious and distressed. I'd be distressed too if I'd been barking in the cold for at least four and a half hours.

I woke Russ, who wasn't at his most receptive at three in the morning. “It's nothing to do with us, just ignore it and go to sleep,” was his only input. I lay down but still the noise of the barking dog kept me awake because I couldn't stop worrying about it. What if they were abusive owners who left the dog tied up in their yard and hadn't fed it for weeks? What if the owner was epileptic and had suffered a seizure and hurt himself? What if, what if, what if.

At three o'clock I got up and went downstairs. I rang the police. Only, I didn't, I rang somebody else thinking that it was the police. My eyesight is terrible and it was dark because I didn't want to turn on lights and upset the reptiles. The phone rang and rang and rang and I let it, thinking that the police might be to busy to answer their phone, being tied up with criminals. For the next half an hour I expected somebody to have taken my number from their phone and to ring me back with a mouthful of abuse for waking them at three in the morning.

Second try I changed the three, to a one and did actually get the police on the phone. I made it very clear to the lady on the desk that I wasn't complaining. I was just concerned that somebody might be in trouble. She said that she'd send somebody around to see what was going on.

I went back to bed feeling like a good citizen, but something was wrong. There was a ominous silence. During the time I had been downstairs the dog had been let in, or had wandered off, or had died or something. I lay there willing the dog to bark again.. it didn't.

Sure enough five minutes later a car headlights lit up the street. I heard voices outside and crackly voices coming through a walkie-talkie. They were standing outside my house as I asked them to do to locate the whereabouts of the myserious barking dog.

All was silent.

I felt really stupid and woke Russ up to tel him so.

“Told you so, go to sleep,” he mumbled.

I did what any good citizen would do in those circumstances, I rolled over and went to sleep.

Being a good neighbour has been heavily on my mind lately. For one thing Marty's just bought a new stereo. I've laid it on the line to him that if I get a single complaint from the neighbours, then he'll find it smashed into a mazillion micro chips and put out for the dustbin. My other concern is perhaps more serious. I keep reptiles, reptiles have to be fed, therefore I also breed a wide spectrum of insects. When you are dealing with over a thousand crickets a week, inevitably there are going to be escapees. It stands to reason that on occasion one of these is going to be pregnant. This is unpleasant, for weeks you find yourself chasing round after very lively young crickets. It happens, we deal with it, no big deal ... but what if an escaped pregnant cricket or locust managed to get into next door? There'd be hell to pay.

Despite it only being Thursday and not Sunday we are going out tonight. It's Valentine's Day. I've booked us into Club 6, a top notch restaurant charging top notch prices. Because I've had my stomach removed I will eat very little and come out feeling aggrieved at paying thirty quid for thirty pence worth of food. It's more to please Russ really, he loves eating out.. and if it makes him happy.

He came bursting into the shop earlier with a dozen roses for me. Sweet gesture but a bit embarrassing, we did the gifts thing in bed this morning. I bought him aftershave and he bought me choccies and a teddy. The chocolates are gorgeous, we had some for breakfast, the flowers are beautiful, and the teddy is cute. I'm a lucky woman at peace with my lot.