General Chat

...there were Christmas presents galore.....it looked like Santa had lost a bag of presents but how could that be??

What to do.....Fido was trying to get into one of the presents, Allan opened it and found a tin of biscuits good he thought we're all starving.

After munching until they could munch no more they started opening some more and what should they find but......

Allan raised his head and sniffed like a Bisto kid!

'Ugh, wet sacking, reminds me of wet sports days at prep school'

Nevertheless, old Fido was having a field day, sniffing and wagging his tail like billyo.

'Lets get this over with' though Allan, let Fido have a dekko, then I will chuck it a ball I just happen to have on my person, and we can kip down here for an hour or two'

Allan carefully undid the rope around the top of one of the sacks, pulled the top apart, and peered inside......

He remembered too that his pipe smoking resulted in an aerated front to his Bri-nylon shirts, when tiny bits of smouldering tobacco dropped on him. No wonder he'd had to wear those loud-patterned wide kipper ties to hide the holes.....

Ah yes............

Allan was brought back into the present day abruptly, when Fido suddenly launched himself into the far corner of the shed and barked furiously at a heap of hessian sacks.

What had he found?

The aroma made Allan search the few remaining brain cells that floated around his cranium as they stirred up distant memories.

That's it, he thought. Very many, well too many actually, years ago he used to smoke a pipe but the pipe tobacco was too strong for him, so he used to buy ordinary cigarette tobacco and mix it with 'herbal' tobacco freely available (well at a retail price) at all good herbal stores.

This gave him an aura of sophistication and the aroma of a compost heap.

Happy days, thought Allan through the mists of time.

'How can that be?' said Rick. 'You are 6ft tall, slim and good looking with athletic form, while he is 5ft, fat and as ugly as sin, man'

Allan, gently suggested he was looking in a distorted mirror, filched from the Hall of Mirrors at the local amusement arcade.

Fido was sniffing furiously, he could smell cake, but could not get to it.

A drug fug hung in the air, didnt smell much like Old Holborn, but yet again, some people smoke tea-leaves. Maybe it was Earl Grey wafting around in the air.

'Oh do shut up, Rick. Standing there gloating like the old billy gloat you are. Fido led us to this hut on the allotment as he's a trained sniffer dog. We've tried to teach him to use a hankie but he still sniffs all the time.

He brought us here as he thought that he detected the scent of drugs and it appears that he may have been correct and I suspect that you may have consumed some or all of them, otherwise why would you be stood there with a full length mirror talking to Allan's reflection saying that it's Allan's long lost twin brother ?'

To this day he hates the sound of the xylophone and Morning campers...and having his picture taken.

Allan slowly approached the stranger but Rick suddenly said "So Allan met long lost twin Herbert. He's been telling me all about the skeletons in the closet so to speak....how you ate so much they couldn't afford to keep two of you and that lovely couple wanted the good looking one but settled for Herbert instead"

Allan was still speechless.....then OH said......

that funny holiday camp on the East Coat. All those chalets in neat rows, woken every morning with sounds of a xylophone binging-bonging, and those dulcet tones of that lovely Welsh lady.

Once breakfast was over, all the kids used to congregate in the main square for exercise and games.

Mind, Allan was always curious why they had their height, weight etc taken on the first day of their two week stay.....

Allan knew where HE had been all his life ( well apart from the odd times after a good night out with his mates, when things got a bit hazy ) but where had this other chap been lurking?

Where had he been in their formative years?

Then Allan remembered, very vaguely, that there used to be family trips to.....................

and what should they see.....someone who looked like Allan twin...rolled up trousers and all...well you could have knocked Allan down with a feather until he noticed who the second person was...none other than Rick himself...Allan would have burst into the shed but Fido beat him to it dragging Allan behind him.

"By 'eck" shouted Allan twin "what a lovely dog and what have you dragged in with you?".....then for a second there was silence then "Oh gawd it's my long lost twin ma said you'd turn up one day"

Allan for once was speechless.......

whimpering as he went. The dog, not Allan.

The shed had one small window to it, and Allan could see two figures moving around inside.

Various glooping noises were coming from inside, and the windows were steamed up. 'Not the Man In The White Suit?' thought Allan.

The dog was sniffing furiously, whatever it was, it had got right up his nose.

Allan and his OH crept up to the window and peered in....

"How convenient that tunnel was there" said OH " here in the middle of nowhere"

"Don't question it woman" Allan wanted to say but wisely didn't instead he said " Fido want a treat?"

Well what dog wouldn't, so Allan told him to find it then......unknown to Allan Fido is a drug dog and he suddenly got a whiff of something from a nearby garden shed and he was off........

Nope, it was a police helicopter returning back to base.

Allan, his wife, and Fido, hid under a convenient railway tunnel until it had safely passed over.

Fido was really enjoying his new-found freedom. He'd not had so much fun since he ran berserk in the Police Station and chewed the Superintendent's new shoes.

"Like a typical man he can't multi-task, one minute he's going to do a TV interview about pies and the next he's off somewhere else for puddings"...OH thought "and for this I got my hair done"

Suddenly Fido...surely not his Police dog name maybe he's pet name...stopped...and just stared out to the distance.....Allan could make out flashing lights in the sky...what was it...a drone...nope....was it an Ailen space ship......

It was a dental surgery.

Ah thought Allan, this must be the Phil which the voices in my head were constantly on about, as he checked out the name of the Scottish dentist, Phil McCavity.

There was no one about so Allan and his wife decided to continue on their journey to the untamed North to seek out the black pudding which he so desired and which had so recently been cruelly snatched from his grasp.

Surely now that Fido had the scent of the black pudding from their clothes, he would be able to track one down

'Fame will have its own rewards' thought Allan. 'That Phil will have to wait, along with that young slip of a gel he sits on the sofa with'

It was still dark when Allan and his OH set foot outside the car, along with the dog. For a medium size dog it sure had a big tongue. But not everything is at it seems is it? How many times have people been disappointed? Answers in a sealed envelope pleased, addressed to Marj Proops, Here, Somewhere.

My goodness that dog could track, also field. He was pulling at its lead, and dragging the two lost souls along the hard shoulder. A light in a window was ahead. All three trecked doggedly towards it......

Of course this was totally forgetting the interview with young Phil and the morning show....the things people do for a bit of pie.....

Quite why Allan wanted to reach the M6 is unclear.

From their calculated position in UK, this was not the direct route to Melton Mowbray and his pork pie quest, but as he was at the wheel, we'll let him choose.

The neck-licking became more frequent and forceful and OH wasn't helping the situation by saying that the beast looked really hungry.
If they abandoned the car, what would they do with the dog?

Then a bright thought came to Allan.
This dog could track.

Maybe they wouldn't need to actually go to Melton Mowbray. Maybe the dog could track some pies elsewhere...............

Their twentieth time round the roundabout.

Allan was just about coming round from his salami-induced trip to discern a direction Marker 'THE NORTH'. Taking the appropriate exit he gunned the motor.

Five minutes later he heard heavy breathing and felt a tongue lick the back of his head.

'Not now love, I've got a headache' he simpered.

This response was met by an almighty barking noise which Allan conceded was beyond anything that his wife could produce.

Carefully adjusting the rear-view mirror Allan was confronted with the vision of a pair of brown eyes, long snout and a slobbering mouth filled with more fang-like teeth than he had ever seen before

The thought that had been hammering on the door of his brain was finally admitted.

The vehicle that he and his wife had so recently requisitioned previously belonged to the dog-handler.

It was only the lingering aroma of black puddings that was keeping the creature as docile as it was.

The sooner that they could join the M6 the better

It was at this point Allan realized the sandwiches in the police car weren't their lunch but confiscated eatable drugs....who needs brownies! He knew he shouldn't have had the extra one.
Allan kinda remembers the next little while but then again maybe not.....he thinks they drove around and around but then again it might have been up and down. In fact it was......