Monday, July 4, 2011

Little lamb who made thee - that skimmed latte? (with apologies to William Blake)

Sunday was a beautiful morning, and Husband and I walked the dog up to the Shot Café, one of the more picturesque local spots. The café is perched on one of the headlands looking out to the Heads as the looming cliffs that guard the entrance to Sydney Harbour are known. It was all a fairly normal scene of couples and families sitting around having a leisurely breakfast/caffeine intake, dogs are not supposed to be around the tables but this is the suburb of indulged pooches and our particular menace was tucked under the table. One of the other tables had what I assumed was a particularly prissy type dog, clipped to look like a lamb, but then in a reverse of the wolf in sheep’s clothing gag, it folded its gangly white legs in a completely un-canine way and revealed itself as the real McCoy, a week old lamb on a fetching blue lead and harness that set its snow white fleece off to perfection. The dog noticed the sheep imposter at the same moment as I did and did the equivalent of a doggy double take before spending the rest of breakfast doing back flips in a vain attempt to pop over and lick its chops.

The concept of taking your lamb out for coffee made me laugh and reminded me of the book I am currently reading (and loving), “Wait for Me” by the Duchess of Devonshire, the youngest Mitford sister. Early on she recounts the story of her paternal grandmother who used to have a pet pig that accompanied her on a lead to church.

Have now decided the black Schnoodle is passé and am contemplating what type of pet accessory a fashionable girl such as myself should be escorting. I could rustle up a Guinea Pig no problem but it could take us some time to get to the post office and back. In the interim I’m taking the said Schnoodle to be clipped tomorrow, so I will of course be requesting a lamb like clip and he can masquerade as the black sheep of the family, a role he fits to perfection.

2 comments:

  1. That is very sweet -taking a lamb for coffee. My mum used to collect us from school walking the donkey - thank God there was no PTA she would have been a pariah. I have been known to wheel out the tortoise to impress the boys' friends - never at breakfast though...Lovely post x

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  2. Hi BW - am now hysterical at the thought of taking a tortoise on a lead round Mosman - I feel it would lend a certain class to the whole proceedings and I could tuck it in my handbag along with the rest of the rubbish of daily life that lives there, when the pace of life becomes too much.

    Cx

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