Monkey nuts and motorways

I know I haven't blogged for two days, but I have just returned home after a long weekend in Leeds, and haven't had a second to put fingertips to keyboard. Overdue blog posts are all lined up and advancing upon me like ants carrying chopped up leaves. It's like a cyber horror movie. Even though I am running really fast, and the blogs are moving really slowly, they are still catching up. I have tried stopping and throwing something ineffectual at them (like a small twig), but nothing stops their terrifying advances.

So I have resorted to writing this post under the duvet, because duvets are the only thing able to stop zombie blog postings in their tracks. Cunning... yep that's me.

I must apologise because the blog postings are all going to be back-to-front, starting with my arrival back in Oxford today, continuing with what I did prior to that throughout the weekend. There is a good reason that I am doing it that way round, and it's because I have a hundred million blog photographs to go through, and I am too tired to do it tonight. As Izzy would say, "I have got some tired inside my eyes".

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After a three hour journey from Leeds to Oxford, I finally arrived at Steve's house ready to pick up Izzy and Naughty George, by which time I was feeling pretty knackered. I pressed the buzzer, and it was like I had never been away. Through the open window I could instantly hear a volley of Naughty George's barks, and Izzy shouting, "Is that Mummy? Don't tell her that I am going to hide under the bed."

"Hiya," I said to Steve as he opened the door, "do I really have to go through the rigmarole of finding Izzy's hiding place?"

"Yep," he replied, and then lowered his voice, adding; "she is under the bed."

"She's always under the bed," I replied wearily, "do I still have to act surprised?"

"Of course you do, she's five. That's what five years olds do."

Because I am like Mother Theresa, I feigned searching the entire house before 'accidentally' stumbling across Izzy's hiding place under the bed.

"RAARRRRR! I've found you!" I shouted, tickling her feet.

She laughed uncontrollably for about 15 seconds and then emerged from under the bed, greeting my four day absence in the way that five year olds do; "I'm hungry," she said.

I went to find Steve; "Izzy's hungry, have you got any snacks to hand?"

"Yeh, sure," he said before disappearing into the kitchen and returning with a handful of monkey nuts, handing them to Izzy.

Pic.No.1. Izzy's monkey nuts

Knowing that Izzy was preoccupied with her monkey nuts, I picked up the coffee that Steve had made me and turned to him to chat. Not thirty seconds passed before we heard an anguished wail coming from the other room; "Naughty George has nicked-ed [sic - it's past tense for five year olds] one of my monkey nuts!"

"Naughty George doesn't eat monkey nuts!" I shouted, walking into the living room where Izzy was hollering.

How wrong was I? It turned out that Naughty George was the mutt equivalent of those Brazilian Capuchin monkeys who have learned how to use tools to access food.

He had the monkey nut in his mouth, and he bit it gently until the shell fell away and then he scoffed the nuts inside. Bloody hell, my dog was transforming himself into the missing link. Question one: how did he know that there was something edible inside the shell? Question 2: how did he figure out how to get the shell off?

There was only one thing for it. After discovering Naughty George's ability to crack open nuts, I am going to have to pickle him in a jar of Formalehyde and sell him to some forensic Darwinists, making a huge profit in the process.

"Here, Georgie, Georgie...... here Georgie, Georgie......."