Balls

A subject close to my heart. Very close. And, happily, the theme for TWO days in a row! Yes, it's true! Both yesterday and today have featured BALLS! Forgive me if I notice your lack of excitement...but it's okay, I find balls exciting enough to make up for any lapse on your part.

So. Today was "Day Off". That means pub shut, down tools and head for fun city! Today, we went to the beach. The beach is great. I don't know if you've ever seen one, but boy would you know about it if you did! They're kind of yellow to start with, and then a bluey-grey at the other side. Wet. Very wet. But also soft and yielding...ooooh. I love the beach. And, best of all, it's where I have my BALL! It's the only walk where I have my ball (which is kind of sad so I prefer to think of it as making the beach extra special). I get to carry my ball, and bury it in the yellow stuff...oh! and there's this slimy green stuff as well that gets heaped up around the place, and I bury my ball in that too! Sometimes I eat the slimy green stuff, but They don't like that and to be honest, nor do I much because it makes me throw up in the car on the way home. Still, I take comfort in the fact that That Whippet has to endure the smell of sick all the way home as well as me. I've not yet managed to get any of it directly on him, but I live in hope.

Anyway, back to the yellow stuff. And my ball. I dig holes and I run and run and run. And Dad and I have this Great Game. We play it all the way up the beach and down again. It goes like this. I have the ball, which I would do because it's mine. Dad doesn't have a ball. He doesn't play with balls. Unless he's playing with mine, that is. So. The game is to see how close he can get to me before I notice him and then run away. He tries to catch me and I run away. Get it? It's great! That's why it's a Great Game. Sometimes I let him catch me, because then I know he'll throw the ball way down the beach and I will charge after it and catch it and come running back and the game will start all over again!

Oh yes, life doesn't get much better than being at the beach! Or so I thought...Yesterday, I was surprised, no that's not enough, I was amazed to be given my ball in the Pub! It wasn't my beach ball but a lovely new tennis ball. I really was amazed because I don't normally get balls in the house these days (something to do with them being a danger to customers if I leave them lying around, I don't understand it myself, how could something as wonderful as a ball be a danger?). But there was no-one in and Mum was muttering something along the lines off "but he's chewed up all his other toys" which must have been directed at That Whippet because I don't chew toys, and then she produced this ball!

It was so new I don't think it had ever been played with! It bounced and I leapt. I took it under the big bench and then for a tour of the front room. It tasted great! And Mum kept bouncing it off the wooden floor and, boy! you should have seen it fly around the place! I was doing these great flying jumps into the back room after it. Really athletic! I didn't know, you see, if I'd be given it again so I really went to town. It was brilliant.

Balls really are a boy's best friend.