I should know better

In a week when the world is recovering from two more natural disasters, and I have to face two funerals, I could do with a little light relief.

Marcus and Red Sonja did their best to provide it this afternoon.

I had decided that he would be Red Sonja`s last husband. Her final fling. She was in emphatic agreement about this. (Well, perhaps not about the "final" part.) She made it clear that she thought he was gorgeous. He made it clear that he was up for it.

"Up for it" is a good description. You see, Red Sonja, aka Red Sofa, is a rather....... large lady. In every direction. I have been known to describe her as "the Hindenburg with fur". As a human, she would make an excellent Wagnerian soprano.

Marcus is a little lad. Small, finely made and utterly determined. Sonja`s romantic overtures kept sending him flying - she would give him a playful nudge, and he would go rolling over, pick himself up, and gamely start again. When I had stopped laughing, I bent down and lent a hand.

Rather more than a hand was required. Marcus resolutely assaulted the target area, looking like a small mountaineer on the north face of the Eiger who had started out with a map, but unfortunately without ropes or pitons. The summit was a long way up. You could see him thinking about it, wondering if others had perished in the attempt, and muttering "because it`s there"...

I made him a platform out of old decking tiles and we tried again. And again. What we really needed was a small Papillon-sized trampoline.

At last in desperation he made a sort of salmon leap - and suddenly he was there, with all four feet well off the ground, clinging on like a limpet, no doubt thinking that the world looked really small from up there. Sonja was delighted.

No, of course I don`t have a picture. This is not a doggy porn blog.

Instead here`s one of Decibelle, triiumphant, having trampled her enemy in the dust.