All Gaul – Madai's September Blog

Hello again, it's me, Madai the black barker! I recently sent my people away for a few days while I had my holiday at Auntie Audrey's. She runs a special holiday place for dogs near here: I don't know its real name as I didn't see the sign because I was busy looking out of the back of the car giving a hard stare (a la Paddington Bear) to a driver who was too close when we turned in off the road, but I call the holiday place Muttlins. My people have known Auntie Audrey for a long time, and she makes a special fuss of me. There were lots of other dogs like me there on holiday, and Auntie Audrey has young people to help her. They pretend to work there and stroke us and take us for walks. As it is very exciting there I had to bark a lot to get myself noticed, but when I did that once I got back home again my man-person gave me a hard stare and said something I didn't quite catch.

Best of all since I've been away the maize cobs have grown and the apples and pears have started to drop. I'm a very keen gardener at this time of year – its important to keep the grass clear of fruit as otherwise it rots and spoils the lawn. I can also stand on my back legs to pick plums! Wasps have the same idea as I do about fruit, but they have a bad attitude, and take it from me that they don't taste good! I don't think they hear very well either when I try to tell them that the fruit is mine.

Anyway you are probably wondering about the French reference in this month's blog: my man-person has got excited about galls on oak trees and has taken to photographing them when I take him out for a walk. A bit quercky (the misspelling is his idea of a bad pun, I let him put that in to keep him quiet, prize to the first reader who contacts him with the correct explanation). I also said he could put some pictures in my blog so here are some we saw today, artichoke gall, marble gall and knopper galls.

It turns out that the galls are caused by wasps! Shock horror!! Are they French Gall Wasps? Is this what we have to expect with Brexit?

Madai – your rovering reporter

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