"Nothing Like A Bit Of A Shop To Put Things Right..."

I wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something....something like,

"Ok, you've had a great time here in Paradise, now bugger off and let someone else have a go."

I say this because this morning on my run, I was chased and almost attacked by a whole coterie of dogs.  I noticed three other runners on the road, none of whom were so much as sniffed at, but when I passed...MENTAL!

Luckily there was a machete-clad villager on hand to take pity on me and call the pack off, but still...why me?  Why do dogs in every single country I visit feel the innate urge to tear a chunk out of me?  I don't get it...

Perhaps it's time I turned my attention away from the pursuit of 'perfect pins' to something more worthy...like...I dunno...single-handedly supporting the local tailors by commissioning a load of new clothes which in principle will be amazing, but in reality leave me looking like I've been in a charity shop massacre.

It's been awhile since I terrorised any local tailors - the most recent in memory being back in Goa when I almost made a grown man cry over the prolonged and seemingly endless alterations required to outfit me successfully in a black leather mini skirt.   (Long-standing blog devotees will recall this incident from a few years back...)

('Black leather mini skirt?!' I hear you cry...'What the ____?!'  Yeah, fair enough...don't know what I was thinking, but I still have it and damnit I'm going to wear it one day - no really I am.)

Anyway, the other day while the husband ducked into a used bookshop, I took a helmet-clad Dumps into a little store selling silk tops and dresses.  He immediately made himself at home, sitting cross-legged by my pile of bags on the floor, liberally helping himself to great chunks of banana bread whilst I attempted to fit tiny little silk things over my rather bulky outfit, thereby getting hopelessly stuck and requiring the assistance of the unimpressed sales girl to forcibly remove me from said fabric.

All the while Dumpie sat, instructing me through a mouth full of bread, to keep trying on more things, while he either approved or vetoed the various garments.  It was was like that scene in the Sex In The City Movie (the first one - the latest is vile), except instead of three fashionable friends, I had a 'mini-mate' egging me on.

In the end he forbade me from getting a bright blue minidress (he's right - what business have I in a bright blue minidress??), but implored me to purchase a lovely blue silk kimono top instead.  He clearly has refined taste - or maybe he just prefers his mother looking more like an elegant cocktail-toting glamazon as opposed to a crisp-scoffing slapper.  Fair enough.

At any rate, the real omen for me today was the traffic-dissected rat, innards splattered everywhere, which I had to avoid stepping on during my run.  I have Lady Gaga to thank for that, because if I hadn't been scowling at the stupid lyrics and daydreaming of how I would do it better, I might have been too caught up in my running music to notice, and would have likely had a Grade A Conniption - right there on the road - had my foot accidentally made contact with the bludgeoned and bloated body.

Oh, and did I mention that yesterday morning a rat nearly fell onto my head?  As the husband and I sat typing at the kitchen table, we heard the unmistakable sound of scuffling and I looked up just in time to see a giant rat scrambling for a beam, hanging on for dear life before righting itself and disappearing under the eaves.  I went offline for the rest of the morning due to shock.

Anyway, right now the universe seems to be telling me to shut the heck up, stop bothering poor readers with the trite annoyances that clutter up my everyday, and go find that chocolate I stashed the other day.

Eeew...chocolate and dead rat...'Fruit 'n Rat' Chocolate....by Cadbury's...coming soon to a Sainsbury's near you...?