Daphne Ledward, Garden Planner, Gardener, Author and Broadcaster

Muffin's Blog

Mr Muffin goes to a birthday party    by Mr Muffin

12th November 2009

I told you in my last blog that the terrible twins were going to be four on November 1st and John and Daff were organising a party for them at the Patch (I can’t remember their ever organising a party for me!).

Well, the day of the party came, the gravy bones and human biscuits and buns were all loaded into the car, then the rain came down, the wind blew a gale, and John and Daff, who in my opinion, are far too soft when it comes to bad weather, decided to cancel it.

Instead, Daff lit us a nice log fire, and we spent the day playing musical easy chairs and sofas, which was better than nothing, but it wasn’t quite like a real, live party.

Anyway, last Sunday was a fine day, so the party was reinstated. At just after eleven o’clock, Auntie Cath and Uncle Darren, with their little girl Rheanna, who is five going on fifty, and their three ‘greys‘ arrived, bearing cream cakes, doughnuts, custard tarts and some other parcels wrapped in shiny paper. We dogs were all getting worried because they were a bit late and we thought they weren’t going to turn up, which would have meant that John and Daffers would have done some gardening instead, which is very boring and also means I would have to stay in the back of the big car all day as my poorly foot doesn’t like the gravel there.

We got to know their dogs this summer and they are quite nice, really, even though they didn’t come from Fen Bank and they are quite working class as they used to race, unlike my pack, which has never done a day’s work in its collective life. Fleck is big and black, though not quite as big as Mr. Paddidog, with flecks (no, not really!), Vixter is also black but smaller, a very vain dog who likes to wear perfume that he usually finds somewhere in our field or on the river bank, and then there is Flo.  

Flo is a little black girl who is very bald in all the wrong places and I find her quite embarrassing because you can see bits of her you’re not suppose to see. What is even worse, Mr. Paddy has taken quite a shine to her and they often go and sit together in his special triangle by the gate at the Patch for hours (well, minutes) on end. They come to see us quite often on a Sunday morning for a run (I always win) but this Sunday it was special, because there was food involved.

We don’t often get treats like cakes and grown up biscuits, but we assumed birthday parties would be different.

Well, Daff made teas and coffees and Auntie Cath spread the cakes and parcels on the wooden table at the back of the Big Shed, and then the bombshell dropped.  

The cakes were for the grown-ups! Surely there would be something for us?

There was – there were DENTASTIKS! Now, I ask you – have you ever been to a party where tubes of Colgate’s or Arm and Hammer were on the menu?  And to make matters worse, Daff couldn’t find the big bag of gravy bones she had put in the car the previous week when the party as cancelled, and all there was at the Patch were a few assorted treats and doggy choc drops in the bottom of a cracked biscuit barrel.

We quite like Dentastiks really, but don’t you think on an occasion like a birthday party you could be a bit naughty with your diet just for once?

After the cream cakes, etc. (bah, humbug) and Dentastiks, we had some races in the field, and then some more races, and then some more.  We found something dead and slimy and covered in maggots, which Vixter showed a great interest in and which nearly made Daff sick as she doesn’t ‘do’ maggots. Flo tore her dew claw and started to bleed, so we all went back to the remains of the cakes and choc drops.

By this time the twins were getting overtired and wanted to go back to the bit of concrete outside the Big Shed for a sleep in the sunshine.  Mr. Paddy and Flo had gone to his grass triangle by the gate for some ‘special time’;  Vic had wandered off looking for wildlife, Rheanna was looking for stones with holes in them in the gravel, and the grownups were talking serious stuff, so I got a bit niggled and made one or two threats sotto voce (yes, I do know what that means) to Fleck and got told off, so the party started to disintegrate after that.

Then Vic returned.  He had obviously found his source of personal fragrance and he smelt – well – obvious.  Daff accused Fleck of letting one go, Darren grabbed Vic and sniffed his neck carefully before accusing him of rolling in something bad, John said he didn’t know what all the fuss was about because he couldn’t smell anything (he’s lost his sense of smell, so that’s quite useful if we feel a bit windy or someone’s has an wee accident on the carpet), and shortly after, all the guests went home.  I expect Vic had returned to the maggoty carcass – well, l he’s welcome to it; anything like that would stain my lovely white fur.

I hear that they had to keep all the car windows open all the way back and Vic needed an immediate bath.  Flo had to have her leg bandaged because her dew claw was bleeding so badly.  The terrible twins were so tired they couldn’t eat their teas, so Sally and I cleared them up between us.

All in all, I think we had a most successful party.   I must get something organised for my birthday – on April 1st................

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