Cats and dogs

I’m a cat person – not a great fan of dogs. Except of course, dear reader, your dog, who is doubtless quiet, fluffy, loyal, obedient, a soothing presence and not too large. More or less like a cat, in other words. Well, all right, cats aren’t really loyal.

The kind of dog I don’t like much is the size of a small horse, with rippling muscles, a bark fit to break the sound barrier and strings of drool swinging from its jaws. Like the one that woofed hungrily at me yesterday as I passed the college janitor’s garden. It was a Rottweillerish sort of animal, but with a bit of Great Dane in there somewhere. Fortunately it was in the garden and I was not, though it was clear by the way that it bounded up to the fence and hung its front paws over that it was just a matter of time till Fido was on the path beside me, munching on my leg. Or indeed my head.

However, the janitor’s wife was in the garden too, digging away. She’s a lady of about my age, though she generally makes a lot more effort with her appearance than I do: carefully blonded hair, a fair amount of mascara and blusher and a lot of gold jewellery. On this occasion, she didn’t look her best - in her shorts - but she was in her own garden, wielding a spade, so shorts were no doubt a practical decision.

Seeing me saucer-eyed with horror, she called the slavering hound back and said, as owners of such animals always do, “He wouldn’t touch you.” Yeah, right.

Just then two lads came towards me on the path. They were eighteen or nineteen and clearly dog-fanciers, because they looked appreciatively at the hound and one of them said to the other in ringing tones, “He’s gorgeous”. Then he glanced at the janitor’s wife, whose gaze had fallen on him. Suddenly his face was suffused in horror as he clearly thought that she thought that he had called out to her that she was gorgeous. He went bright red and said loudly to her, “The dog. He’s gorgeous.” She smiled proudly, in obvious agreement, and the poor lad hurried mortified away.

Sometimes – not very often, but sometimes – I’m quite glad to be no longer young.

PS - by the way, Person from Salford, I dreamt about you last night! We were at a lecture and you introduced yourself to me. You were young and sort of Gothy looking. Most surprising.