Dead Dog

What a day! I started to write earlier before the rest of the day intervened and the topic du jour was going to be broccoli.

I think I’ll hold that one in abeyance for a quiet news day as events have arisen which will regrettably force the subject of vegetables eaten for dinner last night right off the news agenda.

Firstly my temporary visa came through today which means that I can work. More precisely it means I can work legally. To be exact, I could apply for legal work if there was any available on the island.

Last week a job in the supermarket was snatched from under my nose and I narrowly (and thankfully) missed out on a job as a deck hand on a fishing boat.

But lo and behold today I picked up the local paper and flicked straight through to the classifieds section and found one singular, solitary, sole entry which is as a milker for 800 cows. There’s no mention of the pay but I imagine that milking 800 cows would command a fair price, perhaps you get paid by the udder. I’m not what you’d call over qualified but I do have my own stool and a bucket (plastic unfortunately but once I’ve been paid for my first week I’ll splash out on a metal pail or two and one of those wooden things that place behind your neck when carrying said pails).

From what I can remember of milking I should think that each cow will take about 15 minutes once I’ve got into the swing of it so that means in an 8 hour day I should be able to do 32 and I’ll have the remaining 768 done in 24 working days so allowing for sick days and holidays I should be able to get them all done in little over a month. Perfect! I’ll call them up later tonight.

Not only that but I also saw a dead dog today.

It was under a bush and appeared to have a broken neck. I saw it at the start of my walk and suspected the worse but continued on to the beach taking the precaution if hunting out a dead-dog-poking-stick for use on the way back. I thought it may be deaf or very poorly and didn’t like the thought of leaving it out in the cold when I could whisk it away to someone who knows about such things. I poked it and it failed to move but thankfully it held together as I’d have been most perturbed were its leg to be prodded off.

As I withdrew the stick and myself from beneath the bush I couldn’t help noticing several sun bleached bones scattered around the general area. Perhaps, I thought, this is buy the most recent in a long line of dead dogs, a canine version of an elephants graveyard. Or perhaps a large predator broke it’s neck and left it there for consumption at a later date. Or maybe it’s neck was broken in a domestic incident and it has been disposed of in haste to avoid upsetting the children.

I’ll keep an eye on it and let you know.

So you see. How could broccoli compete with another dead animal to add to the glorious list of dead animals spotted on my travels. There’s reportedly been a sperm whale washed up on a beach not too far from here. That would be one for the album.

Broccoli? Pah!