I should know better

After two episodes of travel to championship shows in the luxury of a car, thanks to a kind friend, I am contemplating the joys of the old white bus again next week.

There is no comparison.

Mind you, car travel can have its little problems.

A friend lent me a book on hairless dogs, and I recognised many of the dogs and people in the old pictures as those I knew well - alas, many of them gone now.

It made me recall travelling to shows with Crested friends, many years ago, bombing down the M6 to in a Volvo estate. The driver believed that motorways were designed to be cruised at 120mph, and every time she spotted a police car she stood on the brakes and everything in the back shot into the front at lightspeed.....

But that`s not the memory that came back first....

We were once going down to Coventry to a club show, with several dogs. One of the party insisted that her dog could only travel loose, otherwise he would be sick. Boy, was he a nuisance ! He hopped from front to back and annoyed everyone. Then he migrated into the back of the car, where he was quiet for some minutes.

Then a horrible but familiar smell began to fill the car. We pulled over and investigated.

The loose dog had become really loose. In fact he had had diarrhoea. Lots of it.

And with unerring aim, he had had diarrhoea in his owner`s open handbag.

Think a moment, ladies. Lots of things you can just throw away. But not a handbag. You have to salvage quite a lot of the contents. In short, the owner had to go through it. We tried not to look....in fact we tried to get as far away from the smell as possible.

The rest of the journey was very silent. The loose dog was in a box, and all the windows were fully open.

Those were the days.