Dexter Dog Diary, Week Three, Wednesday & Thursday
Wednesday, (çarşamba, 22 mart, 2010)
It is a bright, sunny morning, but the humans are not keen to get up; so much so, in fact, that he and I go out for a very short walk, then he goes back to bed! Late breakfast for them: basking on the roof for me, when she goes up there to read her book. Helen arrives and all three of them are off to Girne - market day already! – leaving me to chill-out in the manner that only a dog can perfect. When the Axes get back, there is just enough time for my tea and a pee and we are all off in the car again; she to line-dancing at King’s Bar, and he to Supreme at Karakum to rectify a minor blunder from this morning. It is the “fix-the-lantern” project: he thought he had all the required components but needs to change one of them – which we do – and return home to get it all assembled and on charge. This done, X dashes off to collect Y for dinner at Tim and Helen’s. They are tired when they get back and immediately hit the sack – but what has he unloaded from the car? Another guitar!
Thursday, (perşembe, 23 mart, 2010)
We are all up early for the usual routine: walk; breakfast; chores. He is working on the latest guitar, a red one with a smashed-in back that looks as if it has been repaired with a car-body repair kit. Even a dog can see that the whole thing is filthy. After lunch they are off to Küçük Erenköy, which is the next village to the east. When they return, spirits are high and they carry the unmistakeable scent of another dog. It seems that they have arranged to look after said luckless hound. I don’t know which of them to wish good luck – both, I suppose – or what advice I might offer my canine colleague. Things could have been worse… perhaps.
X continues cleaning, repairing and re-stringing the red guitar and Y gets out her phone to call Helen: her little face lights-up; “It’s in English!” she says; to which he replies; “Oh, ye of little faith!” Then I recall sweet little Opal from the Turkcell tree-planting at Kumyali. When she promised to get the message-language changed “next week”, this met with the same cynicism as Alex’s offer to have a word with the pool-man about the mosquito larvae in the Jacuzzi. But, lo and behold! The phone is fixed.
At last, I get my tea and we are off to complete the clockwise walk around the “mountain” that the cows messed-up the other day. When we get to the second ford, I instinctively set off up the hill through the gorse when they say “Come on, Dexter!” No cows! The walking is easy until we get to the Bahçeli road and we have to do some interesting descents down banks of crumbling mud. We all enjoy a bit of scrambling. It must be a lucky day because, when she goes to check the Jacuzzi, it has been drained. Thank you, Alex! Why did I ever doubt you? There is an evening of computer for her, chilling for me and guitar whittling for him.