She did...what!!??

It's been something of a week. And not just the fact that seven days have passed.

Lily the Lurcher has had one or two settling-in issues, for which Lurcher No.2 is still bearing the scars. Having been an only dog for almost 9 years, she's had a little trouble adapting to having two other lurchers around the place. If one of them so much as dared go past her at anything more than a sedate walk, she nailed them to the floor with her teeth. She's a feisty old boot! But she has gradually settled in and learnt to live with them in harmony or, at least, what passes for harmony in a three-lurcher household.

And then she surpassed herself.

The completion of the move from the flat to the cottage on the Bank Holiday Monday meant that the goldfish had finally arrived at Chez Lurcher. Unforunately, OH managed to drop the fishpond as he was moving it, leaving a crack down the side of it. Whilst it awaited repair, Fsh (for that was her name), was living in a temporary pond made out of a large enamel bowl with plants and bits and pieces in it to create hideaways for her. Except they weren't hideaway enough.

Lily had been showing way too much interest in Fsh for my liking - sticking her head straight in the pond up to her eyes with no thought for breathing and her ears perked forward rather too keenly keenly definitely falls into the "way too much interest" category. So I barricaded up the pond and surrounded it with plants and bits of wood and anything else I could lay my hands on, including my bike.

Thursday night I came home from work to find wood and pot plants everywhere but where they should be. And no Fsh in the pond.

Lily had eaten her.

Alive.

Expecting some sympathy from my fellow Gap colleagues, I was greeted with howling, hysterical laughter,with a little bit of sympathy chucked in for good measure. And a surfeit of fish jokes. And one clever person, who knows who she is because she reads this blog, with whom I had the following conversation:

"Cod that's awful. It's hake-ing the pee a bit that a floundering foster would do that. She probably only did it for the halibut, I mean everyone knows it's sole food, but even so it's better not to get into a roe about it and keep carping on like an old trout, so sprat'll do." Said she.

" 'eel be singing another tuna when I knock you off your perch!" I retorted

"I did think I was skate-ing on thin ice." She responded

And on it went in that tone.

Saturday morning, my vet telephoned me (Ms Vet adopted Lurcher No. 2's littermate so we're kind of family). Now you'd certainly expect some sympathy from your vet wouldn't you? Trying to hold back the laughter, she said:

"I know we recommend a balanced raw-food diet Angela, but it really should be dead first"

*Sighs*

Other things that have made this week a week of weeks:

We lost Apollo Gemini Valentine who curled up in his hamster cage and went to sleep forever.

The parents arrived for the weekend. Four people and four hounds in one very small cottage when it's persisting with rain has all the makings of being a very fraught time. But it passed in a pleasant haze of hot tea, the Telegraph General Knowledge crossword and the Sunday Times.

Lily won't get in the car. And I'll leave that saga for the next blog because it's worthy of one all by itself.