Parking goldfish in colourless driveways

Thanks to a general amnesty for blocking people's driveways offenders, I found Bessy asleep under a car parked in front of our driveway this morning. Margaret said parking in such a fashion was all the rage these days, given that private property is little respected in some quarters. I said I might give it a go, if I could get the car out.

Felix tells me that someone parking in front of your car is considered, in some parts, to be a sign of things to come. I asked if he meant as a fabled obstacle of some sort, a test of my character. He didn't respond immediately and we drank our tea. Later I asked again what he meant. He said I'd have to work out his sign before I could understand the sign of things to come. Bessy yawned and we left for the surgery.

When we arrived, George was on the roof looking out with the binoculars he has applied false eyelashes and mascara to. As a boy of four George had stalked rodents in the highlands of Ethiopia whilst singing melodies of great merit to his younger brother, Arnold, and dealing in coffee beans with local farmers. I asked if George felt blocked in some way in adulthood. He turned the binoculars on me and said that he knew how to get rid of blockages, if he needed to. I gulped.

I found Cookie with Mrs Carmichael dedicating the goldfish in the tank to a new deity they'd just that moment invented. This is what Mrs Carmichael does with her time. The deity was the god of summer things with no colour. All Mrs Carmichael's deities have no colour somewhere in their name. I asked if this blocked her to new business that demanded colour from gods. It would seem not. The goldfish had turned grey and Cookie was ecstatic.

Perhaps the person parking their car in front of our driveway feels life is getting less colourful, and wanted to change that a bit by parking the car for Bessy to wake up under. How thoughtful.

The disreputable walk on daisy stilts

I found Margaret reciting some sort of incantation in the kitchen. She doesn't believe in any Gods and neither does Bessy, but Bessy's ears do a little pirouette and she begins to walk on stilts. It makes Margaret laugh when she wakes up feeling sad, which is fine, but it took me an age to persuade Bessy to come for a walk without the stilts.

Felix tells me he balanced the needs of himself and the world last night, whilst sitting on the bench. It was clearly an exhausting exercise, since he hadn't made any tea. I asked what had brought the need to balance. It seems there are times when he feels a disproportionate equality coming on and this is what spurs it. To me that sounded like equality, just more so, but refrained from commenting because Felix was clearly past discussing it.

It was with some relief to find that George was looking equal with the world this morning. However, that relief soon dissipated. He told me my first patient was very cunning and liable to bring himself into disrepute without anyone realising it. I asked if that meant he was unduly equal as a consequence. George, with hands on hips, said the disreputable had no right to a consequence. That seemed a little dark for first thing in the morning.

Cookie's mother was, Cookie tells me, a desperate protector of the world of daises. I mentioned this to the apparently disreputable patient as I tried to work out what he was going to do that would bring him into disrepute. I didn't work it out, and I didn't see an act that would do anything other than ensure the man has my highest opinion, but Cookie told me it had happened regardless, though she didn't see anything either.

Which brings me back to stilts, and finding one's balance with the world, and celebrating the disreputable people just in case they help, or they're not disreputable.

Sharpening the unavoidable by blowing bubbles

Bessy woke us up this morning with yelps from the bathroom. She was eating soap and blowing bubbles, something she finds endlessly amusing. Margaret refuses to allow her to continue, mind, because she believes too many bubbles ruin a dog's self control.

Bessy was, however, still blowing bubbles when we wandered up to Felix on his bench. He said bubbles helped to give a dog's mind a sharpness they wouldn't otherwise have. I said I thought Bessy was sharp enough. He said that was a control freak speaking and that if I challenged him again on the matter, it would prove I was. I was rather put out by the suggestion but avoided contesting it for fear of making the situation worse.

George's mind is still sharp. He is a role model for me, he told me as I walked into the surgery, if I only paid attention. For example, look at his analysis of the proportion of vines with sub-optimal grape quality, that developed into full blown vintages having been mashed by size nine bare feet in the remote corner of Chateau Lacroix's northern courtyard in 1957. I agreed that this was a huge intellectual feat, and left for the safety of the surgery.

Mr Bunrose was in for some periodontal treatment. He's a very genteel man and seemed a little flustered as he entered. Apparently he'd bumped into an old school acquaintance he spent his life trying to avoid. Seeing how upset he was by his failure on this occasion, I suggested he gave up avoiding him so that he wouldn't fail in future. He said it was impossible to not try and avoid someone whose sole intention in life was to be unavoidable. Cookie said there was nothing wrong with that, as to avoid one's true self was shameless cowardice.

Which brings me on to the squirrel stealing all the food from the bird table. I wonder if he's doing a bit too much bubble-blowing and inducing a little too much unavoidability into the table.

Occupying character with traits whilst free falling

I found Margaret sitting on the kitchen table with a leg in the air. Her thoughts were crackly, she said, and she thought this might help - like it does with a radio. Bessy often wakes in the morning with her legs and tail sticking up in the air. It means she's been free falling in a dream and I've woken her before the parachute opens. I think it startles her somewhat to see my face next to hers mid-air.

Felix regularly parachutes into occupied territories, though he's stayed out of the Middle East. He tells me, though, everywhere is occupied, so his choice isn't limited. I asked if he'd ever parachuted into himself. He said that was one place that was too occupied, what with living and so on. I said that sounded like he thought I wasn't occupied sufficiently. He looked at Bessy and they both sighed.

I wonder, with George, when he's polishing his nails or texting his girlfriends, if he is sufficiently occupied. He reminds me often that it may seem like he's doing nothing but there's always the past to recall. For example, today George told me that in his youth he'd traded character traits with City Bankers and made himself a small fortune. I asked if he'd ever run out of traits. He scowled and said he had enough character to trade for eternity.

Cookie was gazing out of the window at our next patient who was sitting in the yew when I returned from my lunch. I asked her to call the patient in but Cookie said there was no need to since we could do everything from here. It's a trick of Cookie's that I play along with from time to time. I therefore gave our patient an inferior dental block and proceeded to place the filling she needed, with her seated on the yew tree and me in the surgery all the time. It's an impossible thing, but Cookie manages to get my hands to occupy two different spaces at the same time, though I've given up trying to work out how.

And so here I am now, thinking about free falling and occupying, and wondering whose space I'm falling into without knowing it.

Artistic imbalances and moral puddings

Margaret tells me there is a theoretical risk of Bessy's temper losing its balance today. I'm cautious when Margaret gives these warnings owing to their usual inaccuracy. However, even if the risk is small, I insist Bessy luffs - a word I have come to love. The imbalance, theoretical or not, is, as a consequence, yet to materialise.

Felix went to see his brother last night. Said brother, he told me, has formulated the hypothesis that war is the byproduct of making babies. Bessy looked disappointed, owing to her having delivered several dozens of puppies into the world. I told her it was only a hypothesis and she should continue with her luff-pose. Felix said his brother had another hypothesis: that war was the byproduct of trying to correct imbalances in the world. Bessy lay down and sighed.

George was part of a chain gang in his youth owing to an imbalance, apparently, in his morals. It is why he is so able to detect such imbalances in me, he says. One day, whilst affixed to a chain, he carved a beautiful pattern in the rock he was supposed to be breaking. He was freed because the governor recognised his moral imbalance was responsible for a magnificent work of art. I asked why he had given up the life as an artist. He said all life is art and, anyway, the rock thing was a doodle.

Our last patient this morning came in to have a wisdom tooth checked. He told us he is a manufacturer of horsewhips. Cookie said that was disgusting and nobody would ever find her eating fluffy puddings made from animals.

And that brings me neatly back to unproven theories about a dog's temper. Regardless of their veracity, they help start the day with some useful exercises.

Misinterpreting the handprints on a white elephant

Bessy woke this morning with a new doctrine that she wished to foster upon our small family, if not the world. It took some time to elucidate given her disrespect for the early morning, but is, as I understnad it, that we recognise the importance of White Elephants to our way of life. Margaret said we spent enough on Bessy already and, if she wasn't careful, she'd invoke the doctrine of slaughtering White Elephants. Bessy picked up her lead and we went to see Felix.

Felix tells me he is the opposite of a White Elephant. I asked what that is. He said that it was so unique, there wasn't an idiom for it yet. I suggested a black cockroach. We drank the remainder of our tea in silence.

George was looking very severe as I walked into the surgery this morning. He has a doctrine too: that I am to be treated like a self-aggrandising vagabond of little importance on Tuesday mornings, or any other morning he feels it necessary. Today I asked him, despite the frown, what he thought about White Elephants. He said there was nothing more flattering than to be pampered and spent money on, despite knowing one's lack of self-worth. I thought that was rather sad, so went to find Cookie.

Cookie was dressing up Mr Sickinabucket ready to do handprints. Cookie is experimenting with ways for patients to express themselves while lying in the chair with their mouths incommunicado. Mr Sickinabucket is a man with a lot to express.

When I had the rubber dam isolating his lower left central incisor, ready for root-canal treatment, I asked if he had ever considered his vast expressive ability as a form of self-aggrandisement. He indicated I look at the sheet of paper, which by this time had numerous multi-coloured handprints on it. He proceeded to dip a single finger in the paint, then apply it to the paper. Cookie said that it reminded her of a young plant that has had all its leaves eaten by slugs and that the slugs were probably sleeping well at this moment with a full belly. I don't think that was Mr Sickinabucket's intention.

Which made me think that doctrines, like any other expressive form, seem doomed to misinterpretation. On the other hand, it makes life more fun, which is a doctrine I'd like to instigate - at risk of being misinterpreted as something I haven't yet thought about.

Plastered heels

Being Saturday, Bessy took to her heels and hasn't come back. Margaret asked if we might plaster the walls with our youthful dreams again. I said we weren't youthful anymore. When we're three hundred years in the ground, she said, we'd think these days were youthful. So we're going to dream and plaster the walls, which should be fun.