No gain without pain

Today has been somewhat frustrating as the Lesser Demons down at Dante's have found other souls to torture and I have been able to take a break from pushing my rock up the damn hill.

Unfortunately I'm not one to sit idly by. I'm not a great fan of pushing boulders up hills but I like to keep busy. So for the time being, it is the old slope / boulder interface that fills my working day. Consequently I get a bit tetchy when I'm not fully occupied. The mind starts to wander and that can be disastrous.

For instance, this morning the shoulders were a little sore on waking and that was either hefting a piece of furniture in to the Prius or the enthusiastic tugging of Tyson and Marauder as we took our daily constitutional yesterday.

Whilst T&M go by the joint alias of the Straining Staffies in this journal, they are actually pretty good at "walking to heel". This is because TP and I have spent much time and effort in taking them to Puppy Classes. It might be worth mentioning that some of the effort is applied to cleaning up vomit as Marauder is not a good traveller.

But I digress ...

They don't generally pull at the lead but if there is one thing to make them try to wrench my shoulders from their sockets it is horse shit. They absolutely love it. They will guzzle it down like the Health Conscious (or gullible as I like to call them) shovel down Activia Yoghurts and bottled water.

It actually got me thinking, does horse manure contain the canine equivalent of Acidophilus bacteria? Should I be developing up a horse pooh / natural yoghurt mixture and knocking it out via Pets at Home with a considerable profit margin?

So, where is this going .... all I need is an intelligent horse, an off road skateboard, some safety equipment and I have the basis for a new adventure sport / dog exercise experience. It goes like this .... The intelligent horse, let call him Mr Ed, completes a pre-ordained dog walking circuit and carefully deposits a "road apple" every 50 or so yards.

You may have noticed at this point that I type Yoghurt in a strange way and my spelling of metres is completely off the wall. This is because I am very much pre-decimal. My Sat-Nav only shows Roman Roads ..... "Yes Centurion, continue down Via Fossa for another Quattro Mille Passus and you will have arrived at your destination"

I then attire myself with the safety equipment, mount the off-road skateboard and pick up T&Ms leads. You get the picture. How much fun is that going to be as we charge round the route, the dogs encouraged by the regular small equine deposits. This is definitely a winner. If the UK needs a new sport to add to the Schedule for 2012 this could be it. Its got it all - competitiveness, thrills, spills, speed and danger! Sort of Ben Hur meets an Ealing Comedy.

Back to reality.

I've not really mentioned my preferred forms of transport before. There have been a couple of references to the Prius and it might get a minor role in one of the future journal entries but I have had a life long love of motorcycles. For some time the object of my affection, AFTER 30%, TP, T&M, Eddy and Potato has lingered neglected in the garage.

A combination of house moves, building projects, ill health and general stuff meant that she did not get the attention she deserved and she gathered dust for several years. Lets call her the Vespa.

The Vespa is an alias but it serves quite well for she is Italian and designed, when viewed from above to look like the silhouette of a woman's torso - wide at the bust and hips, narrow at the waist. Vespa is also Italian for wasp - do a google image search on "waspie" and you will see why it is a good alias.

Oh I was almost getting poetic there - I forgot to mention that she roars like a lion and has a fuel economy of a BMW 2.2 litre, in-line, 6 cylinder, petrol engine, Yep its amazing what a couple of race cans and a new Ignition chip will do.

So - she needs specialist attention and there's not a lot of it in these parts so when I managed to a) locate a man just 30 miles away combined with b) a friend with a van we get c) servicing bills that will make your eyes water.

So rarity + scarcity of skilled resources + neglect = This Years Bonus.

Ho hum - as I said "no gain without pain".