Well here we are again and welcome to March! This month we pass from more darkness per day to more daylight, via the Spring Equinox, and given the present vaccine programme roll out the change seems appropriate. Even from my canine perspective things seem to be looking up a bit more. Two years ago I wrote about seasonal affective disorder which may also explain the upturn in mood.
Commenting on the weather may be risky – well you know who to blame if we get a return to wet and windy winter next week – but all of us at "Madai base" enjoyed the week of proper cold which solidified the vile muddy conditions in the fields and along the canal tow paths. Perhaps you didn't stop to consider, but when everything is frozen that also includes our hosepipe so no more chilly wash down after my morning walk. Would you fancy a blast of icy water on your bare belly before breakfast? I thought not!! And now we have proper, though too early, spring conditions which let me lie out in the sun and roll in the dry grass.
Like many in the Village themselves recently got the call-up for operation jab and what a fuss they made about it all – excited telephone calls to family both before and afterwards, and when they went down to the Civic Hall "to be done" they were so overcome that they had to sit down for 15 minutes in a quiet space afterwards! For me it's just part of life – one moment you're in the back of the car going off for a walk (learning point for trainee dogs, themselves have NOT put their wellingtons in so stop to consider where you might be going) and the next you've stopped off to see the vet-lady who ruffles your neck while something nips it and then when you turn round to see what's going on they squirt something up your nose. No fuss on my part, what about you? On the way to the car himself has to give the lady at the desk a present of a plastic card. I don't think she wants it and gives it back with a bit of paper that must have rude words on it as he goes a bit pale.
I think the whole jab thing must have unhinged themselves slightly – earlier in the week the little people over the water had challenged their grandparents to a Jerusalema dance competition. Perhaps you are familiar with this "craze" but it had passed themselves by. Here and also here are a couple of links to some examples, in fact the second one is just by where the leprechauns live. So, crazed by vaccination themselves recorded a short dance video which of course also stars me. Strictly family viewing only I'm afraid.
However as recompense himself has, for your delectation and delight, selected a vaccination song for you based on Leonard Cohen's 1984 song Hallelujah. Can you do better? Entries on a virtual postcard as usual to madaithelabrador@gmail.com. A gravy bone to the winner and a box of ear plugs for the rest of us.
In the meantime let's hope we have further good news next month
Madai, your rovering reporter
