Working My Way through Retirement

Since last putting pen to paper I have been bitten rather badly by a very strong-jawed dog. I usually carry a stick when I go out walking along the creek but since I was about to turn the corner into my street I had just thrown it away. There’s a house near the corner with three yellowish dogs that run out barking and woofing when you go past but who then putter off inside the yard having had their say. However, this particular morning, the three yellowish dogs cantered out and did their usual act and were swaggering back inside with a satisfied air when from somewhere in the back yard a bigger black and white dog roared out and raced straight at me and clamped a vice around my ankles: blood and puncture marks everywhere. I stood frozen on the spot until I recognised a little girl from the school in the yard of the house. I called to her to call her dog off but when it heard my voice it gave a satisfied growl and raced back to the previously mentioned yellowish trio who were now standing looking at me in a very interested manner and looking at their new-found black and white hero with great respect. You could almost see him dusting off his paws and saying to them, That’s how you do it chaps. I limped off home shaken with leg hurting like hell; not to mention the blood - soaked sneakers. Someone took me to the hospital and so it all went on.