How old is your dog?

Thursday saw a bit of a change when it came to work. Out on the road with one of my team, which was cool. So a chance to see what it’s like, as they say down at the coal face and from the looks of Surrey, Sussex and Kent it aint too bad. Beats mining silver and cooper in Chile. Daylight is always a bonus and the thought of spending 3 months in a deep hole with 32 other men just doesn’t do it for me. I wonder if they used paper scissors stone to resolve difficult em passes? Now most of you have thought it, but haven’t said it out loud, but we all know the saying “what goes on tour stays on tour.”  Long lonely days with nothing to do but amuse yourself and nothing to occupy idle hands. Plenty of dark corners, no chance of the wife coming home early unexpectedly. Now I understand why toilet paper was the first thing they asked for. And just how close did their bonds of friendship become. If on the first night with their wives they asked if they could do it with the lights off you would understand, but what if they asked to do it doggy style while both wearing a miners helmet? You would definitely start to worry. Now imagine the first flight to Mars with a round trip of 5 years, that’s going to be a challenge, have the scientist allowed enough weight for tissues and lotions, 5 years is a long long time.

The day went well, a sneaky bacon burger at a roadside café was a treat and apparently if you eat alfresco and in a different county then the calories and fat content don’t count either, double bonus. My chauffer for the day dropped me back to my car at the Bluewater pantheon to consumer excess at a very reasonable time, but I resisted the urge to spend. The Apple shop is a complete credit card magnet. Apparently if you go in the store twice in the same week and don’t buy something then your knob goes black and drops off. It’s true!! I must say though from what I did see the economic recovery is in good hands, I reckon this part of Kent is single handily spending our way out of these troubled times, either that or no one is watching any TV or reading the papers. Silly me I was forgetting X Factor doesn’t have a money matters section. Spend on you crazy fools spend on. 

As I mentioned before I’ve hit that landmark in life that usually precipitates spending to excess and wanton acts of stupidity that hark back to an earlier hormone driven, care free, invincible time in your life. Then everything was possible and mortality was left to those fools who chose to live life in the slow lane. Now I’m at the stage where beige chinos are very dangerous and it’s not so much where the next pub is, but where the next toilet is. Anyway rather than buying a sports car I’ve decided to run a half marathon. I’m being joined in this escapade by two willing accomplices. My brother who last ran any kind of distance in the last millennium and a good friend of mine that has just passed 30 and is staring down the rest of his life. I think it stared back at him and he blinked first.

Thursday night was the big kick off, a short run to get the ball rolling, nothing too strenuous, just something that would just break a sweat and get us in the swing of things. 3 miles was agreed, a fair start I thought and off we went full of beans. Then something stupid happened. 3 attacks of stubbornness, 4 moments of macho bravado and hay presto 7 miles in the bag. As we reached home 80 minutes later we were a complete mess, Steve was so tired he couldn’t a) get the key out of his pocket b) put the key in the lock or c) even see the door. But that didn’t matter I was sitting on the doorstep and with no intentions of moving.

 As we slumped near deaths door (like complete drama queens) we both agreed that if an axe wielding manic burst from the trees across the road neither of us had the energy to run one more step. Our only defence would be telling him we were way too tired and we wouldn’t even scream as he hacked insanely at our decrepit bodies. So he was just wasting 37 good swings, 9 glancing blows, 5 air swings and £4 to have the axe sharpened next week. So why bother at all. Frankly it was a crap idea but at the time it was all we had. An hour later I had summoned up enough energy to walk the 13 yards to my car and managed to drive home, shower (proper stinky) and go to bed.

Now that got me to thinking, dogs really stink and so does cat breathe. What is it with this stupid dog years thing? I hear people saying it all the time “Marmaduke here is actually 108 years old this year, in dog years obviously.” Rubbish he’s 14 just because dogs only live for about 12 years they don’t need their own time measurement system. A year is the time it takes the earth to travel once around the sun. Its roughly 365 days long (stop it with the old leap year shit, this is just basic science I’m not trying to pass an A level here) it has 12 months and 4 seasons. Winter for sleeping, spring for shagging, summer for families and autumn for getting fat. It’s a constant and it’s the same for everyone, cats, dogs, fish, birds the lot. If dogs had 28 seasons a year (7 dogs year x 4 seasons, keep up) then we’d be up to our eye balls in puppies and they would definitely lose the cute and cuddly status and become a cheap turkey substitute at Christmas. Dog years, it’s pointless, it’s stupid and just plain wrong, so stop it now or I’ll send Wayne Rooney round to meet your Nan.