'Oh my God, it looks like we've murdered somebody in here!'
We are both standing in the bedroom doorway, staring at the extra sheet spread over the bed. It is covered in blood stains ranging from reddish brown, bright red and pink. I don't reply. I just stand there thinking to myself that this was one of the reasons why I originally said 'No'.
It all started around the beginning of June last year. We booked a last minute festival in what Keith assumed was North Wales. We loaded up and got in the van on the Friday morning. Turned the engine on, turned the SatNav on and put in the postcode. Keith did a double take at the location, even insisted that I'd given him an inaccurate postcode. The location was about 3 hours further away than we thought and, in hindsight, we should have turned the engine off and stayed at home. But, daft buggers that we are, we set off anyway...to Pembrokeshire... in South Wales.
Financially, the festival was a disaster for us. There were at least six other traders doing pretty much the same thing as us, sales were low and we didn't even break even. I now use that particular festival as a guideline to any other poor ones that we do, that is I tend to say, 'Well at least it wasn't as bad as that one we did in South Wales that time!'
However, as dark clouds have a silver lining and all that, we found a positive and that was in meeting a chap called Justin who had a stall opposite. He just had his transit which he had rammed full of stock, mostly shoe boxes, t-shirts and work clothes, and had managed to clear a space amongst it to set up his bed. We had our caravan at the time so whenever I made tea I also made Justin one, (and those who know me know I drink a lot of tea). As the weekend developed, so did a new friendship.
Two weeks later we rocked up at Mighty Dubfest, which is held at Alnwick Castle, one of the locations used in the Harry Potter films. Justin was there too but not on his own this time. He had three little dogs with him. Two of the dogs were older Dachshunds and the other a 7 months old, female terrier. She was completely black. Justin was rather quick to tell us that 'Hetty' was actually for sale and, as we were friends and if we were interested, we could have her for less than he was originally asking. (I'm guessing you've sussed out that Justin is of the 'salesman archetype' by now).
Although the previous night had been a bit blustery and some of the traders had issues with the wind and their gazebos the night before we got there, our weekend turned out really well. On the Saturday afternoon it dropped cooler and Keith sold quite a few woollen jackets in a short period of time. I had offered to take Hetty for a couple of small walks as I always need to walk a lot anyway, but Keith was becoming quite attached to her, going over to fuss and play with her. As we were wrapping up on the Sunday afternoon, she seemed to be spending most of the time around our tent. I thought Keith was just keeping her out of the way while Justin was taking his stall down, but I then started to realise that there was more going on than that. When I finally confronted him about it, he obviously thought that I would be quite happy to take Hetty home with us.
Apart from the fact that we were actually right in the middle of moving home and shop, I automatically thought about all the downsides of having a dog, the dog hair, the barking, not being able to just go out anywhere, walking in the rain, vets bills and of course the dreaded 'in season' sessions.
So I said 'No!'
And both Keith and Hetty disappeared back over to Justin's van with their tails between their legs, feeling sorry for themselves.
Once home and over the following few days, we managed to get stuck in to painting the new shop and arranging things a bit better. We also managed to rope in a couple of helpers, namely Mum and our friend Amanda from Boo Barn Boxes who would come over from Coalville especially to help (she loves painting). At one point I even openly said that I felt better about things now that I could see it coming together. Little did I know that, in uttering those words, I had actually given Keith a green light.
The following weekend was VDubs at the Pub festival in Dorset. We had brilliant weather and a great pitch and not only that but the festival had a vintage theme to it too with girls singing 40's swing tunes in the marquee opposite us and there was a vintage bicycle ride out on the Saturday afternoon.
Right behind us was a German lady with a vintage clothes stall. She was loving the sun and all weekend would be wearing either a 50's wiggle dress or capri pants. She had a little fluffy white dog too which we all constantly made a fuss of. She managed to rope Keith into doing things like parking up her caravan and putting up her gazebo. Our friend Driftwood Steve was almost opposite her stall and, watching all this going on, was pissing himself laughing. The first night Keith had made a large fish pie and shared it out round a few of our friends including our German neighbour. Then the following evening she brought round some real German Bratwurst sausages for us.
VDubs at the Pub was one of those festivals where we did most of our packing up on Sunday night but didn't leave till Monday morning, as Dorset is quite a fair run out. And I noticed that we weren't taking the same route home as we did there. We came back on the M1 which I thought was strange, Keith risking Monday morning motorway chaos. Of course, so far up the motorway I am thinking I need to get out, stretch my legs and back, get some lunch and go for a wee (like I said, I drink a lot of tea) and Watford Gap Services seemed like the ideal stop. But no, we went flying past that entrance. Keith seemed set on going further on to where apparently 'the food choices were better'. We finally pulled in at Leicester Forest Services and found a parking place which accommodated both the van and caravan.
As I clambered out, the family who pulled in next to us alerted me to the fact that I'd left the air vent up in our caravan, so I went inside to shut it back up. Coming out and walking back round the front of the van I was met by a familiar character with a small black dog in his arms. 'Here's your puppy!' Justin exclaimed, sounding as excited as, in theory I should have been. However, I was a bit dumbstruck. Obviously I had no idea that I was going to gain an extra family member on the way home. Not only that but we had no bed or food bowls or food even. I'll admit I was rather annoyed at the time, stuff had gone on behind my back and I even wondered if Justin knew just how little I knew about what had gone on. But after he'd left, Hetty was quite happy to be with us helping us eat our KFC chips. In fact she's been incredibly happy to be with us ever since. She's happiest when all three of us are together but not so much when one of us is missing. She really doesn't like it when both of us are missing, or so the neighbours tell us. But often she is the star of the show and attracts a lot of attention and a few fans.
No I wouldn't give her up now and God help anyone who hurt her. She has her annoying moments as any dog does, especially when she lets off highly potent farts when a customer has just walked in the shop, or decides to bark when we are having conversations with people and ignoring her, or spreading her 'fibres of joy' all around the flat. And as for the bi-annual bloodbath, well we finally had her spayed a couple of weeks ago. Admittedly, I had the weirdest feeling that part of me was missing when I came back home without her after dropping her off that morning. Two days later it was difficult to stop her from doing her usual bouncing onto chairs and up and down the stairs. She'd come back from the vets with a medical vest on to stop her from licking her wounds. It was very much like a baby's romper suit and romping around in it was exactly what she intended to do. Thankfully she has still healed quite well. But when she is calmer, I could spend hours just watching all her different, crazy, quizzical facial expressions and mannerisms and cuddle her forever. However, as much as I could never be without her now, Keith still likes to occasionally remind us of the time that 'Mummy said NO'.
