Olive was back in town last night after being away for a bit. She came to stay at the castle and she wasn’t alone – she brought Keith, the dog, with her.

The three of us had lovely evening, watching TV and enjoying a delicious dinner. Keith barked at passing aeroplanes and played excitedly with a Brussels sprout for several hours. But unlike the kids last week he didn’t touch the pigs.

He did look at them longingly though, but he listened when we told him to leave them alone. The pigs are of course really dog toys, not just strange prizes for ‘fit free’ days. Thank goodness no one had told Keith they were designed for him to play with, and he left them in peace. That is, no one told Keith until Leftwing Idiot arrived this morning.

He noticed Keith gazing at the carefully lined up collection, and being kind as he is he let him play with Pink Piggy. The first I knew of this was hearing the familiar, incredibly over-stimulating, squeal of the squeaky pig – this immediately sent my tics bonkers. Keith, clearly reading my excitement as an invitation to play with me, bounded in with Pink Piggy between his teeth squeaking him happily.

Half laughing, half crying I covered my ears to block out the oinks. Leftwing Idiot, laughing hysterically, came to try and help me calm down. But I continued to overreact as Keith tossed Pink Piggy around my room making him squeak all over the place. I flapped so much I dribbled on my freshly laundered jumper.

Leftwing Idiot eventually retrieved Pink Piggy from Keith’s teeth. He gave up his prize more willingly than I’d expected, but watched very attentively as Leftwing Idiot washed the pig and put him back on the shelf with the others. Keith continued to look at the pigs but didn’t touch them at all. Soon they were playing happily with the soggy sprout.

The moral of this story seems to be, don’t waste money on dog-toy-pigs – buy sprouts instead. And you can always rely on Leftwing Idiot to ‘put the dog amongst the piggies.’