dogs – Debbie Young's Writing Life

This post first appeared in the November 2018 issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News

(Photo of conkers by Dawid Zawila via Unsplash.com)

While I was growing up in a suburb where many roads were lined with horse chestnut trees, playing conkers was one of my favourite autumn games. I still can’t walk past a freshly fallen conker without picking it up and slipping it into my pocket. My grown-up excuse for collecting conkers and taking them home is that they’re an effective spider deterrent.

Nature’s timing is perfect, because the conker harvest coincides with the mass migration of spiders from our gardens into our homes. Escaping from the chill and damp outdoors is the arachnid equivalent of flying south for the winter.

However, I’ve just heard on the radio that ingesting conkers can be harmful to dogs. They contain a toxin called aesculin, also present in every other part of the horse chestnut tree, which can make dogs very ill and in rare cases prove fatal.

On his podcast, the radio presenter, Rhod Gilbert, wondered how to reconcile his arachnophobic wife who fills their house with conkers and a pet dog who perceives every conker to be a dog toy. How to keep both of them happy and safe?

My cat Dorothy suggests the answer. All summer she’s been snacking on flies and moths. Rhod just needs to follow her example and cut out the middleman (the conker).

If he trains his dog to eat spiders, his problem will be solved.

For more information about dogs and conkers, visit: www.bluecross.org.uk/pet-advice/conkers-and-dogs.

(photo of 1905 performance – public domain)

* With apologies to 18th century Irish playwright Oliver Goldsmith for repurposing the title of his excellent and very funny play, She Stoops to Conquer.

Meanwhile in other news…

I’ve just launched Sophie Sayers’ fifth Village Mystery,
Springtime for Murder,
now available in paperback and ebook.

If it’s a more seasonal read that you’re after,
check out her third adventure,
Murder in the Manger –
a cheery antidote to festive stress.

Coming in 2019:

Murder Your Darlings (Sophie Sayers #6)
Flat Chance (Staffroom at St Bride’s #1)

Sign in a Belgian park — Unsure whether it’s compuslory or prohibited

(Further adventures in our motorhome tour of France, Belgium, Luxembourg & Germany)

As we travel through Belgium, my nine-year-old daughter Laura is enchanted by the constant parade of dogs that pass by our camper van.

“Ooh, look at that cute doggie!” she coos in Dinant, as a low-slung white one waddles past, sporting a red knitted waistcoat. The words “cute” and “dog” are inseparable in Laura’s vocabulary. She never met a dog she didn’t like.

But her enthusiasm is diluted when she realises that Belgium’s dog owners lag behind Britain’s in terms of doggy hygiene. By the second day of our stay, she has become adept at navigating poo-strewn streets, especially after she has, with a regal air, designated Daddy as “Dog Poo Detector”. His role is to walk several paces ahead of us, issuing necessary warnings. Daddy immediately regrets his earlier explanation of the importance of the Groom of the Stool in the court of King Henry VIII. What starts out as a casual stroll soon turns into a balletic gait as we prance along pavements, deftly leaping aside for the protection of our shoes whenever so instructed by our leader.

A Big Job for a Belgian

Considering the state of the pavements, we are surprised to encounter in Bouillon, on the banks of the River Semois, an enthusiastic street cleaner. He seems intent on sweeping up every last speck of dust from the ground. His must be a demanding job and we speculate that he’s going to need a bigger barrow.

Trier street theatre: levitating man — A few days later Laura discovers how they avoid messy pavements in Trier, Germany

We watch, fascinated, from within our camper van as he progresses across the car park. Slowly, slowly, he works his way across towards our space, filling his dustpan time and time again. Upon reaching our motor-home, he carefully works his way around its perimeter. I feel I should lift my feet so that he can sweep underneath them.

Such attention to hygienic detail does not seem to tally with the laxity of the locals towards dogs, which we still can’t understand. Despite the tidy car park, later that day at the supermarket we are unable to relish what appears to be the leading brand of Belgian biscuit. It is called Plops.

Here are some other posts you might enjoy about our Easter motorhome tour of France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany:

Why Belgium is Being Rebuilt

Just When We Thought It Was Safe to Go Back Into La Piscine

When in Belgium, Drink as the Belgians Do: (In Praise of Oxo)