Normally in the country it’s a bit quiet. When the sheep were in the field opposite they shouted at me sometimes so I barked back at them, although I don’t know what they were saying. They didn’t seem to talk Dog. At night we hear owls which I think are a bit scary but I just snuggle up to my Mum a bit closer and then I feel OK. Sometimes a car will go past although more often we have tractors and then every day we get horses. They make a funny noise and smell a bit funny, too, so I just bark from the fence in the back garden in case they try to come and get me. We also get fast planes that whizz by overhead. Sometimes they are so fast you can’t even see them. Now I’ve said it’s very quiet I have made it sound very noisy but it’s nothing compared to a town, especially somewhere like Boston where there is a big market. Whenever I hear my Mum say Boston I always think “Oh, no!” and hope I’ll get left in the car to have a good snooze. They have a bus that drives through the market very slowly making a horrible loud beeping noise and it’s always trying to run me over and then I get tangled up with Archie and Mum and Mark and they all say “Oh, Lark!” My Mum did pick me up once when I was scared and that was nice but now she says I’m a Chunky Monkey. I’m not sure what that means but she doesn’t carry me about so much these days. I do have a monkey which can fly through the air for me to catch but she never says that monkey is chunky. It also makes a funny screeching noise which is not in Dog but I expect it’s saying “Please don’t bite me, Lark” or “You are so fast and clever, Lark” or something like that.

Anyway, the other night it was quiet until all these machines started making a noise. There were lights and lots of tractors kept going past. Archie didn’t like it and he barked so, of course, I had to bark with him as it’s one of my favourite things and if Archie doesn’t like something, then I worry because he’s such a tough dog and knows so many things. Mum said it was the farmers bringing in the harvest and working overnight which I think is a bit rude, ruining my sleep. Mark brought one of my beds into the bedroom so Archie could sleep in that and I snuggled between Mum and Mark. Archie even got on the bed at one point but he stood on my head and I nearly died so he had to go back in his bed. The other bad thing is that when a field is harvested (that’s the proper word), you get all these horrible little black flies called thunder flies and they make you itch like crazy. I thought they would make a noise like thunder which would be a bit alarming but they are just silent and itchy. Very, very itchy. Hrrhhmmnph. That is a Dog noise you make when you are very itchy.

Every so often, Mark goes into the garden and takes a big machine out which cuts the grass. I don’t know why he bothers because it’s nicer when the grass is long and you can hide in it and eat it. It’s also good for hiding things in. It looks like a bit of a boring job so I thought I would make it more fun. He has green slippers and I thought they were perfect for hide and seek so I carefully took one down from the bedroom and popped it into the machine while he was taking a break. When he started it up again, it made a funny noise, and so did Mark. He made quite a lot of noise, actually, and said my name a lot so I expect he was saying what a good game it was and how clever I was to think of it. Mum says she is going to buy him a new pair which I think means we’ll have more to play with. Unfortunately his slipper now has a big hole ripped in the side of it so he won’t be able to wear it again but it was such a good game, I don’t think he minds one little bit.

I like lots of different foods but there is one thing which is yucky and that is cheese with blue stuff in it. Mum was giving me a chewy thing that she wanted me and Archie to eat. I ate one and Archie had to eat 2. I gobbled mine down quickly and Archie ate his first one but didn’t want to eat the second. I thought I would get it but my Mum took it away and wrapped it in blue cheese. She cut me a piece, too, just to be fair, but honestly, it must have been created by pigeons because it tastes so foul and only pigeons are stupid enough to make something to eat which is not nice. Archie ate his in one bite, including the bit he thought was yucky but I expect he couldn’t taste it with that horrible cheese on it. Who would have thought there would be horrible food in the world?

This is the yucky cheese and these are the noisy planes.