DOG DAYS
Mitti and Roany are 4 year old Dalmation / Labrador crosses. They are not our dogs. They are our grand-dogs. And they spend a lot of their time at our place. Roany belongs to Charles and Kim, who live behind us, and as soon as they go out to work or anywhere else, Roany heads straight to our place. Mitti belongs to Peter, who leaves her with us while he is working at the Post Office.
This morning, I needed to go and do a lot of food shopping, and as usual the grand-dogs came in the car with me. You see, I am a bit of a soft-touch.
When I came out of the supermarket with a very loaded trolley, I discovered the boot of my car was locked. I should explain that we rarely lock our cars on Norfolk Island. The key just stays in the ignition.

One of the **** dogs had pressed down the central locking with their paws!

A few helpful passers-by asked where my spare key was. It was also in the car, of course.
Where else??
Colleen Crane, who carries all sorts of stuff around with her "in case" saw my plight, and went and got a few bits of wire and stuff from her car. The window was open just a little bit under the weather shield. But nothing worked.
So I rang Bernie. He came with a coat hanger.
After only a couple of attempts at unlatching the catch, I managed to drop the coathanger into the car.
So we rang the garage. They brought a piece of wire that was even shorter and more useless than the bit we had already been using! The mechanic eventually resorted to a screwdriver.
And all was well.
Well, not quite. You see, I had kept my shopping trolley under cover, because it had been raining. However, the rain had stopped, and so Bernie decided to load all my grocery bags into the back of his open truck. On his way home, there was a real cloudburst, and all my shopping and groceries ended up very soggy!
To cheer ourselves up, we went out to lunch and took a bottle of wine. That just about wrote me off for the rest of the day!
The dogs are forgiven. You see, I love them dearly.
And the spare car key is now in my purse!