FFF: Bertie has a nightmare

I'm afraid that this month, with just a few hours to go before the deadline, neither Bertie nor his assistant had even started on their monthly Final Friday Fiction assignment for dear YAM-Aunty. In truth, they had been wondering whether to take part this year.

But late on Thursday evening Gail picked up her library book, 'Swell: A Waterbiography' by Jenny Landreth, and on page 87, located these lines as per the FFF instructions:

Line 8: at all suitable for swimming. Some women's clubs had
Line 12: Premier Club. Other familiar names pop up - on a 1903
Line 16: is this our Mrs Fawcett, famous suffragist? The dates fit, the

But by then Bertie was very tired, and as he drifted off to sleep words and phrases from the selected lines mingled in his mind with a scene from a recent watery weekend....
.

.....So the bold little dog confidently crossed the narrow bridge, pausing as he did so to look down at the raging torrent beneath. Gosh, this river does not look at all suitable for swimming, he said to himself. A few minutes later his owner tried to follow him across, but she tripped as she was stepping on to the bridge, tumbled down the bank into the water, and within seconds was being carried down towards the sea. At times she was completely submerged, then, buffeted by the powerful current, an arm, a leg or her head would pop up again. Initially the little dog did not panic. He thought, well, my owner is, for a woman of her age, a reasonably fit and strong swimmer, surely she'll be OK? But as she was swept further downstream, doubts intruded and troubling thoughts flitted across his mind. Who would feed him and take him for walks in the hills if she didn't survive? Would he find another home where he would be allowed to cuddle up to his human at night, and be given a dinner of fried liver on his birthday? Oh it was all too terrible to contemplate...

But then Bertie felt a warm foot nudging his rear end, and woke up with a start, and was mightily relieved to realise that it was all just a bad dream and he and Gail were safe and dry in their home in Aberdeen.

Oh well, perhaps you should go over to the links on YAM-Aunty's blog to see if any of the other FFF-ers did better with the 'fiction' element of the challenge this month...

FFF: Immortality?

Once again, we are delighted to be taking part in YAM-Aunty's Final Friday Fiction challenge. Our November book is 'The Great Soul of Siberia' by Sooyong Park, and on page 87 we find:

Line 8: Passing on the gene, in September even the creatures
Line 12: On Crow mountain would be good, and the wild walnut forest
Line 16: Bad either, the upstream region of Shauka River was probably

Bertie has been quite restrained this month, his piece is barely longer than the three lines from which the prompts are taken.

Bertie's Suggestion

When I have shuffled off
This canine mortal coil
You'll miss me, probably.

Passing on the genes
For perfection
Would be good, don’t you think?

So how about you have me cloned?
A snip at fifty thousand bucks these days.
Why stop at one?

Imagine a multitude of Berties,
Bringing bouncing bliss
To the many not the few.

Click here to link to the other FFF challenge entries. We can promise you an excellent read!

FFF: In his dreams...

This Friday we are once again taking part in YAM-Aunty's Final Friday Fiction challenge. Our prompts this month come from Nan Shepherd's 'The Quarry Wood', and the lines from page 87 are:

Line 8: But the full certainty of understanding
Line 12: Not little, for only thus could he endure
Line 16: So he grew, oft surrendering complete

Following the pattern set by our earlier efforts this year, this story is once again only part fictional...

A Narrow Escape?

Once upon a time a smart, handsome and utterly adorable fox terrier got wind of the fact that his human was planning to desert him in order to go jetting off overseas for the Christmas period.

At first he refused to believe that this could possibly true. But then he overheard a phone conversation in which the owner gave details of her credit card to 'Dothedogs Kennels', a notorious canine internment camp located deep in the forests of Aberdeenshire where the plaintive cries of temporarily abandoned pups could not be heard, and the full certainty of his predicament became clear.

Fortunately, this wily wiry fellow was, true to the terrier type, resourceful and determined. He formulated a plan to wheedle an invitation for Christmas in a warm house with friendly folk who understood the importance of a regular supply of tasty treats, a soft bed, frequent games of tickle and tug-of-war, and long walks in the hills at least every other day, for only thus could he endure the absence of his beloved human.

He immediately set about endearing himself to a soft-hearted neighbour, worming his way into her affections and onto her comfiest sofa with his cheerful and gently bouncy ways. He always made sure he looked his best and never ever rolled in deer poo or decomposing fish when in her company. Of course she could not resist his fuzzy little face, and when she heard of his imminent imprisonment, she cried:

"Oh please tell me this is not true! I cannot imagine how your human can think of surrendering you to such a vile place. No indeed, I absolutely insist you must come and spend the Festive Season at my house, where the treat jar is always full and  your every wish will be my command."

And so it came to pass, and the wire fox terrier lived happily ever after. At least in his dreams...

FFF: Davy Learns a Lesson

Today we are again delighted to be taking part in YAM-Aunty's Final Friday Fiction blog hop. Inspiration(??) comes this time from lines on P87 of 'Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks: The Essential Alan Coren'.

Line 8: unable to apologise to her, since reconciliation was also
Line 12: Piu-Fong bowed, and began singing a song about the shortage
Line 16: time for bed; the main target of their abuse was the fact that

I, Bertie, am pleased to report that this month's story is, for once, entirely fictional (Gail has never owned a canary, nor any other caged bird). However the description of the habits of Aberdeen seagulls is most definitely grounded in reality...

Davy Learns a Lesson

Davy the Canary lived a pretty good life in a second floor tenement flat near Aberdeen harbour. His owner Fergus fed him a tasty and nutritious range of seeds and grains, and let him out of his cage on a regular basis, allowing him to fly around the high ceilinged living room and sit on a perch beside the window from where he could watch cranes loading the supply vessels bound for distant North Sea oil platforms.

Davy was grateful to have escaped the miserable fate of his forbears, who were so often and sometimes fatally employed as noxious gas detectors in coal mines. But one thing was missing in Davy's life - the companionship of some feathered friends.

The only other birds Davy saw from day to day were the herring gulls who flew past his window in great numbers and perched noisily on the warehouse roof opposite the tenement block. How he longed to be part of the gull gang.

It has to be said that those who live a somewhat solitary existence, separated from their own kind, often tend to develop unrealistic ideas about their station in life....

Well it so happened that the summer of 2018 was unusually warm and sunny in Northeast Scotland. So much so that one balmy evening Fergus threw caution to the wind and actually opened his living room window to let in some fresh sea air. How could he have forgotten that Davy was flitting around the room enjoying his daily exercise?

In the few moments it took Fergus to realise his error, Davy flew straight out and across the street to join the flock of gulls.

Fergus looked on distraught. But what could he do?

For so long, Davy had dreamed of the exciting times he might spend with Aberdeen's dominant bird population; of flying out to sea, cavorting with bottlenose dolphins and executing daring maneouvers in pursuit of - as he imagined it -  abundant shoals of fish swimming near the surface of the salty waters.

Reality strikes hard sometimes.

This gentle wee songbird strived tirelessly to ingratiate himself with his coarser new companions. He chirped his little heart out, only to be met with rude and aggressive squawks. He soon learned that these so-called 'sea' gulls had long since abandoned the, to his mind, noble pursuit of hunting for food out on the ocean wave, in favour of raiding the bins outside the local fish processing unit and stealing packets of crisps from the city's convenience stores. Before long Davy found himself craving those tasty and nutritious meals provided by Fergus.

Worse, for 'fun' the gulls would hold competitions to see who could leave the biggest splat of guano on the cars parked by the quayside, with extra points awarded if that car was a brand new Audi, BMW or Porsche. Poor Davy tried his best, but became the target of their abuse and earned "null points" after he could only manage a dropping the size of a flattened pea, deposited on the bonnet of a rusty Skoda.

Weeks passed, and the final straw came when Davy overheard the female gulls laughing among themselves at his pathetic attempts to fit in.

Meanwhile, in the increasingly forlorn hope that his much loved canary might one day return, poor Fergus had been leaving his window open every night, despite the falling temperatures as autumn approached.

Fergus was beginning to fear he might never again see his dear little feathered pal, when all of a sudden one night when it was about time for bed, a flutter of yellow landed on his shoulder. Delighted, he exclaimed, "Oh Davy, is that really you? How I have missed you!" Davy began singing a song and, unable to apologise in words, he rubbed his head fondly against Fergus's ear.

A few days later, Fergus returned home late from work, carrying a small cage. "Look Davy, I've bought you a wee canary to keep you company. His name is Humphry".


THE (HAPPY) END.


Click here to find links to the other FFF tales.

FFF: Kolya the Nizhny Novgorod Terrier

After a couple of month's absence we are delighted again to take part in YAM-Aunty's Final Friday Fiction. Today's effort is, we admit, an ever so slightly contrived tale. It is of topical relevance although the source text for the phrases, Vasily Grossman's 'An Armenian Sketchbook' was written in 1962.

The phrases are:

Line 8: professors, old revolutionaries, sculptors, architects, actors
Line 12: a sullen looking man, he had cast a quick glance
Line 16: administration had decided to make use of his phenomenal

Kolya the Kanine

The Black Russian terrier Kolya lived, or should we say eked out a precarious existence, sheltering in the basement of a decaying apartment block in Nizhny Novgorod.  He was streetwise enough to have survived three frigid winters in this once closed Soviet city. Kolya was born to a bitch owned by a retired professor of nuclear physics. A sullen looking man, he had cast a quick glance at Kolya's wonky ears and too curly tail, and concluded that this puppy, the runt of the litter, could never be sold for a profit and to keep him would be an unjustified drain on his ever diminishing pension. So Kolya was cast out into the cold, to take his chances with Nizhny Novgorod's ever growing band of street dogs.

This tenacious terrier survived, feeding on scraps scrounged from dustbins outside a nearby restaurant. Left-overs of the local speciality, green shchi, made from soured cabbage leaves, salt and pig fat, sustained his skinny frame. You had to be tough to endure this environment, and although Kolya was in fact gentle by nature, he developed a facade of aggressive behaviour, his repertoire including a truly terrifying snarl.

Come 2018, a certain Russian President issued a decree that the city had so be cleared of street dogs ahead of the FIFA World Cup*.  When the dog catcher came round with his net and his van, Kolya tried hard to make use of his phenomenal snarl, but all to no avail - Putin's henchmen are not so easily deterred. Kolya found himself incarcerated in a pound with half a dozen other dogs, and all had similar stories to tell.

Initially the decree had required the stray dogs to be shot, but a public outcry had resulted in a stay of execution for Kolya and his fellow prisoners, who were still awaiting their fate when English football fans started arriving ahead of their nation's game against Panama.

It is of course well known that English people (even football fans) are uncommonly sentimental about dogs.

It just so happened that a couple of likely lads from Newcastle, Gary and Ryan, were staying in a hotel next to the dog pound, and were woken by anguished howls during the night. On hearing about the decree, they asked to see the dogs, and a visit was arranged.

Ryan had long yearned for a pet, and when he set eyes on the poor half starved pups, his heart melted and he asked if it would be possible to take one of them home. Gruffly, but with the slightly unnatural smile she had been practicing ahead of the World Cup (having been taught that foreign visitors expect to be smiled at, an alien concept to many Russians), the lady in charge of the dog pound said "Yes no problem, just select the one you want".

But of course Ryan found it impossible to choose. "I know", said Gary, the more practically-minded of the two lads, "Why don't we randomly label them from zero to six, and then we'll come back tomorrow and you can take the dog whose number coincides with the number of goals England score against Panama tonight!"

And so it was agreed. Poor Kolya was allocated the number six, and looked enviously at the dogs who were zero and one, and trembled with foreboding, so convinced was he that, once all the World Cup visitors had departed, it would be the firing squad for him.

After all, it was impossible to imagine that England, with their lamentable recent record, could ever score six goals in a single World Cup game. Wasn't it?

The next day, Ryan and Gary returned, looking, frankly, more than a little green about the gills. They were singing, or rather croaking " Six-one! Six-one! Six-one!"

Yes it really was true. England had scored six goals. Kolya's snarl transformed into the broadest of smiles as the reality of his reprieve sank in.

So Kolya will be going back to Tyneside to live with Ryan, as soon as the paperwork and vaccinations are sorted out. He can look forward to fattening up on a diet of meat pies from Greggs and will henceforth be known as Harry Kanine.

And this Russian fairy tale has a second happy ending. Once Ryan and Gary told all their mates about the likely fate of the remaining six dogs, the pound was flooded with adoption offers from slightly hung over England fans, and all the former strays will in due course be living lives of relative luxury, as they remind their new owners of one memorable night in Russia.

*This element of the story is sadly based on fact.

FFF: Magical Realism?

Gail, it's YAM-Aunty's Final Friday Fiction time again. I trust you have your story ready!

Oh dear Bertie, I have been struggling terribly this month. I selected a book about Scotland that I greatly enjoyed reading recently, 'Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey' by Madeleine Bunting, but the phrases on page 87 have proved terribly difficult, and as you know I am not a natural at this story telling business anyway.

Let me have a look. What do we have here?

Line 8: The pictures of animals are a form...

Line 12: Common abstract elements in the lozenge representing Logos...

Line 16: earth, air, water, fire, the four properties heat, cold, moisture...


Well Gail, this reminds me of something quite remarkable that happened a while back when you were out at work. Perhaps we could weave a story around that?

Oh, did I never mention about how all your pictures of animals came alive one day? I mean, to be precise, the animals in the various paintings decorating our living room, study, and bedroom walls - they all of a sudden, quite unexpectedly, sprang to life. Yes really!

Gosh it was so exciting. First the jolly band of penguins marched off down the hallway to rendezvous with the geese from the farmyard picture in the study. There was a terrible commotion when my brethren, the pack of fox terriers, set upon them. The air was filled with fur and feathers and there was earth and water all over the carpet... As it was daytime the wise owls slept through it all, but our Highland 'coo', accustomed to the tranquil moorland environment, did not appreciate being disturbed one bit and stampeded up the stairs, whereupon the hoppity mountain hare in the top bedroom jumped out of his picture frame and nearly out of his skin.

Fortunately, it all happened on the same day our cleaner comes, and as we know, her powers of transforming chaos and mess into a spick and span household are beyond magical, which is why you never detected that anything unusual had occurred.

Gail you are looking quite perturbed! Well I'm sorry I never told you about this before. Why, I knew you'd only worry.

Perhaps in future you should just buy paintings comprising abstract elements? That might be safer don't you think?

THE END

Click here for YAM-Aunty's blog, where you'll also find links to the other FFF pieces.

FFF: Talitha's Tail/Tale

Today I, Bertie, am entering YAM-Aunty's Final Friday Fiction challenge.

The source text is P.G. Wodehouse's 'The Code of the Woosters', and the phrases (from p87) to be used in the story are:

Line 8:  I noted that he was looking at me oddly

Line 12: filling in till...

Line 16: ...had better go and inform...

I have to confess that in my enthusiasm I have by some margin exceeded the recommended 500 word limit, but I am confident you will want to read on through to the story's dramatic denouement.

Talitha’s Tail/Tale

I, wire-haired fox terrier Talitha, could tell from the minute I was able to open my eyes that my litter-mate Lucy-fur was a piece of work.

Granted, she was a pretty thing. As wee pups, she and I were judged by our breeder to hold great promise as future show dogs, both being true to our breed type and with perfectly set WFT tails, so we were not put up for sale. But somehow it was obvious to all that I was the one with that special quality, and destined to be a star in the show ring.

Of course it didn’t take long for Lucy-fur to twig that folk tended to favour me. “Oh look, isn’t that Talitha just such a character, she really is such a adorable, sparky wire-haired fox terrier”. Such comments directed towards me were common, and not one bit appreciated by my sister.

One day when we were a few months old, Lucy-fur and I were playing outside in the nearby field, and Lucy-fur dared me to jump over a deep muddy ditch. “Bet you can’t do it Talitha, you’re just a wimp!” she taunted me. I was a tad reckless in those days and overestimated the strength of my rapidly growing, pipe cleaner legs. I took a running jump and failed to clear the water.

You will never convince me that Lucy-fur was unaware of the rusty old lawn mower hidden at the bottom of the ditch.

Oh the pain when my tail got caught in the mower blade!  I squealed and squealed as I tried and failed to free myself. Lucy-fur looked on with an ill-concealed smirk and said “Oh Talitha, what a shame, I had better go and inform our breeder of your predicament”. The upshot was that my perfect WFT tail was so badly damaged that it had to be docked to an inch long stump. I was then no longer eligible for the show ring, so the breeder decided to sell me after all, and I went to live with a nice man called Frank.

To be honest, I was not sorry to be shot of Lucy-fur, but oh how I did regret missing out on the glamour of life as a show dog. I would have so loved all the attention and excitement…

By the time I was three years old, my owner Frank and I had developed the sort of telepathic bond not uncommon between human and pup. So that year, when I spotted Lucy-fur on TV, prancing around the show ring in the terrier group at Crufts, and I started to bark and howl with a passion, Frank understood the cause of my distress, that all I wanted in life was to be a show dog, and that I would not easily accept my fate as a mere pet with a docked tail.

Oh what it is to have a resourceful and creative owner! You will never guess what Frank did next.

On eBay he purchased one of those fox terrier wheelie dogs (at great expense, I understand). He cut off the tail and stuck it on my poor old stump. It took a bit of practice with glue and some concealed supports, but after a few attempts, I was proud possessor of a perfectly formed and eminently waggable WFT tail, and ready to enter the show ring. It has to be said that in private, the false tail was always carefully removed. In truth it was not so very comfortable to wear.

Well you will not be surprised at all to learn that I aced the qualifying shows and made it to Crufts the following year. I was four years old and in my prime. And who should I meet an hour before the fox terrier class was due in the ring? Why Lucy-fur of course! My tail had just been glued on and I was standing around taking in the atmosphere, filling in time till the glue set. I noted that she was looking at me oddly, but thought nothing more of it.

It is hard to decide whether it was winning the WFT class or simply coming ahead of my arch enemy Lucy-fur which gave me more pleasure. To gain victory in the next round, competing against all the other breeds of terrier, was to my mind a formality. And so it proved.

I was in the Final, with a shot at Best in Show!

So proud and thrilled was I to have come this far, that I didn’t spot Lucy-fur, who had slipped her collar, lurking in the shadows as I waited patiently to be called into the arena one last time.

Suddenly Lucy-fur pounced, and growling with satanic venom, she dug her teeth into my false tail, and wrenched it away from the stump. She then ran off and disappeared out of the building while everyone was staring at me in horror. The skin on my stump was badly torn in the attack, and was bleeding profusely, and so no-one in the crowd of anxious onlookers suspected that the missing tail had not been real.

Of course, I was unable to continue in the competition. But friends, do not imagine for one minute that I was disappointed by the way my show career ended so abruptly. I was more than satisfied with my brief moment in the limelight. And what became of Lucy-fur? After a few weeks she was recognised rummaging in some municipal rubbish dump on the periphery of Birmingham. She was disowned by her breeders, and, on the basis of ‘unreliable temperament’, disqualified from ever again taking part in a dog show.

A most satisfactory outcome all round, and I lived quietly and happily ever after as a much loved and tail-free pet.

THE END

Click here for links to the other Final Friday Fiction pieces. 

FFF: An autobiographical tale

Today I am entering YAM-Aunty's Final Friday Fiction challenge.

My source text is 'The Wind in the Willows' by Kenneth Grahame, and the phrases (from p87) to be used in my story are:

Line 8:  As a matter of fact I did none of it

Line 12: Well very long ago

Line 16: Here where we are standing

[Regular blog readers will recognise that my piece is, as is traditional for first fiction, strongly autobiographical. I do hope this is allowed.]

Pees and Prejudice 

Our tale today is one of injustice, reconciliation and forgiveness. It is a true story, which starts off, well, very long ago. The main character is a wee terrier puppy called Bernie, and we begin when Bernie went with his owner Gill to stay with his Human Grandma and Grandpa for the first time.

Now it is important to  to understand that although Bernie was a wee puppy, he was already very advanced in his house-training and he absolutely knew the difference between indoors and outdoors and which was the right place to take a ‘comfort break’. In fact the thought of soiling his indoor territory was quite repulsive to him (as it is to most dogs).

Unfortunately, Bernie's Human Grandma held fast to the prejudice that all puppies pee on the carpet, as he realised when he overheard the following interchange between her and Gill:

“Gill, there are some dark marks here on the rug, I think it must be Bernie. Look, right here, where we are standing…”

In response, Gill sounded a bit irritated. “Oh Mother, that’s just a trick of the light, see it’s not even wet, really you are imagining things again.”

If Bernie had been able to speak, he would have added, quite firmly, "As a matter of fact I did none of it".

But repeatedly throughout this and subsequent visits, poor Bernie was falsely accused of peeing on the carpet. He felt quite hurt, and was not sure he even liked his Human Grandma that much.

Now Bernie is an older and wiser pup, and his Human Grandpa is sadly no longer with us, he thinks he has worked out what was going on. At the time of those early visits, his dear Human Grandma was so worn to a frazzle caring for her beloved but by then very sick husband that she could barely think straight. She just knew that as a good wife it was her role to keep everything in the house clean and tidy, and was anxious lest she be found wanting in this respect. So her brain started conjuring up problems that weren’t real.

These days, Bernie's Human Grandma lives in a very nice care home and is no longer responsible for the housework, and she is much more relaxed and loves having Bernie to visit and never ever accuses him of peeing on the carpet. And so Bernie has forgiven his Human Grandma for all the earlier misunderstandings, as he  can appreciate that it was neither his fault nor hers that the issues between them ever arose in the first place.

Click here to see the link up to the other FFF stories.

And a big THANK YOU to YAM Aunty for organising this fun challenge!