animals in the shed

Miss H and our guest Poppy Dog

i feel quite sure that lovely ladies and lovely gentlemen don’t really approve of their dear upholsterer keeping a possy of animals in her shed, ahem, workshop.

truth is though, for a shed dweller there is nothing nicer than the company of a cat draped over a chair purring its approval at your work, or a little brown hen wandering in to see how far you’ve got.

it is company. and animals are really quite polite when asked their opinion on handiwork, they don’t laugh when you jog around to the theme tune of the Archers and are very sympathtic when listening to a soul rattling on about life in general.

but this week we had a guest: Poppy Dog. it was most exciting as we don’t have a dog and we have been musing for some time about the wisdom of such a thing, even though we’d all quite like one. Poppy came to stay for three days and was sweet and funny and fitted in quite well, but perhaps not with the cats.

i had visions of Poppy dog sleeping on the floor of my shed, listening to me warbling on and keeping me company along with Tom Kitten and Jammy Dodger. But my imaginery menagerie wasn’t to be. Poppy chose to spend her visit keeping Mr H company in his Man Den across the garden. in truth, this is probably a good thing as sharp tacks would be nasty things to stand on in bare paws. they are a little trickier to excuse should a lovely lady or gentleman turn up unannounced. and perhaps dogs prefer the tippety tapping of key boards and quiet rustling of paper to the far noisier tapping of a busy upholsterer’s hammer, mallet and chisel.

so there we were: one large wooden shed with an upholsteress, one cat, one hen and the quiet musings of Radio 4; and one large garden office with a Writer of Some Note, dozens of guitars, one doting dog and the rowdy sounds of 6Music.

Poppy Dog... a man's best friend