The Cooler King

Today we are inspired by Steve McQueen's character in The Great Escape film and I expect all readers to be humming or whistling that well known theme tune "Doo doo..... Doo DOOO d-doop doop" etc

Beyond our garden fence at present is an enormous building site, soon to house 250+ dwellings, but currently a mess of levelled soil, mud, part-built garages, scaffolding bricks, huge diggers and other man-toys and (more importantly to us) FOXes. Yep - those exciting wild nearly-dogs who smell and scent-mark and prowl and scream and yap and rustle the vegetation, and drive we westies mad with call-of-the-wild yearnings and boiling territorial protectionist rage. If only we could get through the dog-proof fence and chase them, we'd see them off for sure. Well, Megan and I would. Haggis would probably stay back and encourage us from the safety of the garden (and grass us up and do "girlie-swot, teachers pet stuff")

So what is my picture today? An uninteresting bit of chain-link fence down between the beech hedge and the new arris-rail / feather-edge fence? A low 4-course brick wall and a load of brambles? Well it was, till we discovered that by nosing under the wire we could squeeze between the wall and the fence and whoosh - we'd be gone.

So it was that late last night when Mum and Dad had finished celebrating becoming Auntie/Uncle again (fizz on the terrace - very posh!), and Dad had retired to bed, a very concerned, bringing "the dogs" in, Mum came up and said "I can only find Haggis!". Everybody got up again and fired up torches and scrambled down to look over fences and under sheds, round gates and behind bushes.

Nope. Haggis was the only dog in the garden. Then suddenly he wasn't because I'd come back, attracted by the hulla-balloo. "Deefer!... Where have you been and where's Meggie?". So I obligingly bolted back for the hole to go find her, but this time the humans followed me with torches and unfortunately caught the sight of me disappearing. Busted!

There then followed an exciting time where humans whistled and yelled and shone torches over fences, seeing the green eyes of foxes, and the white flanks of westies moving about, but then suddenly dog-treats were being offered and the game was up. The only difficulty was persuading Meggie she really would fit back through the hole downwards, and then we were in, and Dad wedged up the hole with some serious logs (those now in the pic and more besides), and we are effectively grounded.

We were filthy, but it was fun while it lasted. Freedom!

Yee hah
Deefer McQueen