Birthday boy and house fires

It was Jake’s birthday yesterday. He’s now two, bless him. He looked a bit bemused when I sang Happy Birthday to him, a la Marilyn Monroe singing to the president (but without looking like her, alas). But he graciously accepted a handful of mini doggie biscuits.

I took the little man for his birthday walk, which he enjoyed, followed by at least twenty high speed laps of the front lawn, before I finally got him indoors. I hasten to add that it was Jake only who did the high speed laps.

I got stuck into cooking a late Sunday dinner. Wayne had been asked to do extra hours at work, after I’d got the meat out of the freezer.  I decided to cook an evening roast dinner, so we could eat together. As I was preparing the vegetables, Jake suddenly launched himself at the back door, in an absolute fury of barking and growling. I opened the door to see what was there, expecting to see either a strange cat, or one of the cheeky brats from along the street, invading the back garden. But no, Jake raced up the back steps to the back gate, growling and barking like a mini Cujo.

I could hear the static, hiss and tinny voices emitted by an emergency services radio. I then spotted a ladder and blue lights looming just above my neighbour’s garden wall. I could hear a lot of activity, men calling out instructions to one another, with radios going nuts, as I spotted a policeman running past, through the slats of my fence.

Uh oh, I thought, another dumped and torched stolen car. Nothing new there. However, there was very little smoke for a car fire, so curiosity got the better of me. I scooped Jake up, to stop him getting out on to the road, and stuck my head out through the back gate. There were two or three fire engines, police vehicles, as well as ladders up against a couple of the houses.  I couldn’t see very well past some trees, and as there was no-one available to make enquiries of, I returned indoors, to check on my dinner.

I popped out again, a while later, to put a bag of veggie peelings in the green recycling bin. I heard a raised and angry voice in the street. So, I went out for another nose. Some dippy woman was giving a poor fireman hell. Apparently, she’d continued to drive along the narrow road, despite seeing it blocked by emergency vehicles, until she could advance no further. She finally got the message, went into reverse, and promptly scraped her car along a stationary vehicle.

Somehow, that was the fault of the fire brigade, for having the audacity to park their vehicles in the road, whilst responding to an emergency call. She expected them, en route to a call-out, to stop, and cordon off the road, to warn drivers of an obstruction, thereby wasting valuable time that could be used for saving lives. Silly moo.

Anyway, I got talking to the fireman, and learnt that there were two house fires in progress, just down the road from me. Luckily, no-one was hurt, the fires were confined to the roof spaces of both houses, and brought under control before the flames could travel along the rest of the terrace. Phew! Jake thoroughly enjoyed himself, barking at all the activity, and scaring the wits out of a poor fireman, by lunging at him, teeth bared. Anyway, that’s all for now. Sorry about the long post.