Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Real life | 19 July 2018

I was about to carpet the upstairs of the house but then the dogs went outside into the frazzled undergrowth

issue 21 July 2018

Instead of carpeting the upstairs of the house, I had grass fragments removed from the dogs’ ears.

I can’t say I enjoyed the grass removals as much as I might have enjoyed having carpet to walk on. I had picked out a lovely stripy pattern that wouldn’t show the dirt, and was really looking forward to not slashing my feet with splinters every time I stepped out of bed on to bare floorboards.

But then Cydney and Poppy managed to coordinate the shoving of razor-sharp pieces of vegetation down their lugholes, hospitalising themselves just a week apart.

Cydney was first, dashing around the green outside the house and diving headlong through the frazzled undergrowth, burnt to a crisp by the heatwave, then coming out with her tail between her legs. She shook her head and held it on one side. I knew that had to mean at least £200. A quick once-over produced a near-hysterical squeal when I got to feeling behind her right ear.

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