Losing Wilf

I’ve had a mad morning. My Friday lessons are usually smooth and easy and fun, but this week sees the culmination of the Chinese New Year celebrations and many of my students are either back in school, or about to be. They are a mix of over-tired and over-excited, and my usually fun Friday turned into hard work. Before the end of my second of four lessons, I was already losing my marbles.

Add to this, the worrying sound, muffled only by my headset, of a Strange Noise in my House. I couldn’t hear it properly, because, aforementioned expensive and excellent headset, but deduced that it was either a dog savagely destroying something in the living room, or, possiby (but not necessarily) worse, a dog throwing up. I even convinced myself I could smell it. Yuk. When I’m teaching, I can’t leave my computer, but luckily this was nearing the end of my final class, so the wait wasn’t too long. Imagine my surprise to find neither a destroyed living room, nor any signs of dog-vomit. Phew. Things were looking up. Temporary relief lasted approximately 15 seconds until I realised that I also couldn’t find one of the dogs. Now, the weather has been nicer this week and I am certain spring is now springing, but even so, we are not quite into ‘Leave the back door open so the dogs can come and go between house and garden’ weather and I was pretty certain that both dogs had been shut in the house with me all morning. Still not able to find Wilf, I had a quick look upstairs. He doesn’t usually go upstairs, and he wasn’t in the bathroom or main bedroom. The other doors were all shut. No noise, either. I conceded that I must have left him outside after breakfast and the weird noise must have been him scratching to come in. No big deal. As I said, the weather’s pretty good, we’ve a big garden, and he’s safe out there. So I opened the door and called him.

And then the problem got worse. Wilf, star of my author photo shoot, is a Good Dog. He (unlike Sam) comes when he is called. Always and quickly. He’s like an ambulance. Fast, loud, and very reliable. Except he didn’t come. And didn’t come. And didn’t come. Not in the house, not out of the house.

I looked in stupid places like behind the sofa, and in the bath, and then outside. I ran to my neighbour, and then back around my garden and then, leaving Neighbour to look around her garden, with the help of Sam (who thought this was all great fun) I went to look out on the road. Let’s switch to present tense for full dramatic effect. Still no Wilf. Panic is really setting in. I’m yelling into my husband’s voicemail (because, you know, he can help from 40 miles away, right?), and racing round my garden in my wellies like a maniac, getting Quite Worried.

Logic says he has

A) Got Out

B) Been Taken

C) Changed from Excellent and Well-Behaved Dog into Little Bollix and is just ignoring me

D) Got shut somewhere.

And sure enough, a third look upstairs found him shut in my son’s bedroom. He refused to tell me how he’d got there, or why he hadn’t made any noise when I was calling him. He simply legged it past me and went next door to tell Sam and Neighbour how traumatic his morning had been. And I went round too, for a nice sup of tea.

And that’s why I’m late with my Blog today. I asked my husband what I should write about and he said, ‘Losing something, but not necessarily Wilf.’ I suggested ‘Sanity.’ but honestly, losing that is nothing new. It was easier to tell you about Losing Wilf.

In better news, did you notice that I learned how to change the text colour? Awesomely exciting!

Enjoy your day; try to stay sane and not lose anything. If you do happen to lose something, look behind a closed door.

Love, Jinny.

PS. I am still looking for new words to develop Benedict’s story. I got a few great suggestions, and the next episode will include the wonderful word ‘silhouette‘, but I still need plenty more. See last week’s blog for more info on that. Here’s a silhouette photo I took a couple of weeks ago. I can’t promise Benedict will meet a horse, but this one is very friendly.