Fun at the fair with Waffle and Bun Bun

For reasons too complicated to explain, I find myself on a train to the Game Fair at Scone with Waffle, the working cocker and George (aka Bun Bun) a two-year-old lop eared rabbit. George travels rather crossly in a tailor-made bunnybag with shoulder strap, carrying handle and gauze windows, through which he has on several occasions attempted to gnaw his way to freedom. Waffle makes a tart of herself, sitting on every lap that will have her. George sulks in his bag ignoring his Tesco mini corn on the cob.

At Scone, my daughter, with whom George is being reunited after his holiday in the country, gaily wonders if we should take him out on his lead. Common sense prevails and we leave him in the car with the window partly open (rabbits like dogs should not be left in cars with the windows shut) fully expecting to come back and find the vehicle surrounded by a pack of terriers.

I send the daughter and Waffle off to find friends and expensive doggy knick knacks, none of which we need.

In the meantime I am detained at the BASC stand learning how to cook year-old frozen pheasant on a portable gas ring. The demonstrator tells us she is “cooking with poo” which raises not even the mildest snigger from amongst the small crowd of onlookers. Consequently she feels obliged to spoil it all by revealing the recipe is from Cooking with Poo ,a book by a Thai chef.

At lunch I find myself sandwiched between two Edinburgh lawyers who turn out to be huge supporters of the SNP. When I express cautious surprise they smirk and gurgle with delight rubbing thumb and forefingers together in the international gesture denoting loads of money. The SNP’S land reforms, changes in farm tenancies, sporting rates and the digitalisation of the Land Register have created a lawyers’ bonanza. Talk about the law of unintended consequences. I find myself quoting the only line anyone remembers from Shakespeare’s Henry VI cycle: “The first thing we do; let’s kill all the lawyers.”

Reunited with Waffle we enter the gundog scurry where I rather let her down by sending her off as the starting pistol cracks but before the dummy is thrown. But she tears about enthusiastically and finds both dummies pretty quickly which she surprisingly drops at my feet without the usual tussle. Alas we are not in the running for first prize, a Tuffies dog bed.

Back at the car George has disappeared. He is discovered amid a pile of little plastic nibblings, remains of the under-seat electric trunking. I tell him he is a very BAD rabbit. But he couldn’t care less. At least the brake lights still work. n