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7 years ago, I made a decision.

I was burnt out, knackered, broke and exhausted. I had a day job, 2 small children, a boyfriend who lived in London (aka the beloved) so was a single mum. I spent most of my life heading for meetings that I was supposed to be at the following week. I was often to be found in the school office blaming my CRAFT (Can’t Remember A Fucking Thing) disease for my latest fuck up with permission slips which meant that my little gits couldn’t go to Legoland or something and the rest of the time I was setting fire to one meal or another.

I was struggling.

We’ve ALL been there. So you have to make a change. You have to do something to take away some of the pressure from your quickly unravelling sanity.

What do you do?

Or more to the point, what did I do?

Let me tell you what I did.

I got a puppy.

A delicious, gorgeous, totally edible and as it turns out, completely untrainable labrador puppy who you all know as Spencer.

He arrived as if butter wouldn’t melt in that perfect little mouth of his. Before long, he had eaten the kitchen floor, the cat flap, most of the front door and then he moved on to parts of the village.

He has been done for shoplifting in the village shop. He has nearly killed me on several occasions, once where I tied his lead around my neck whilst casually talking to a very posh man who was rather scathing about how badly behaved my puppy was only to be proved right as Spencer the bastard dog took off like concorde basically garotting me in the process and as all the colour drained from my face and my lips went blue, all the posh man could say was

“Ooooh, who needs to go to puppy school?”

Once I had actually reached a rather gorgeous purple/puce colour he realised I was actually dying and let Spencer off the lead to pursue his cat as it turns out who was sent scuttling off into his perfect garden breaking a load of pots as he went.

Not sorry.

The next memorable occasion was when I unhooked the fecker off the gate posts outside the school, assumed my usual “bendzeeknees” water skiing position as he loved to use that precise moment to cart me off down the street, but not this time, oh no. Spencer was on point for this moment. His collar snapped, he fucked off at great speed totally unrestrained towards the village pub, leaving me momentarily stock still, looking like someone had removed a chair from underneath me and the film had been paused, to then do what physics demanded which was to fall backwards, arse first into the school hedge which as luck would have it was full of thorns.

Who was there to fish me out? The headmistress.

“You again Emma, how’s the puppy training going?”

Spencer was already ordering his first pint by the time I got myself out of the hedge.

But, despite being a criminal, a thief of ALL foods from Big Macs out of delivery driver’s vans to eating an entire chicken pie off my kitchen table just before a load of guests arrived and then throwing it all back up in hallway. Despite being a complete deliquent who will devour a live rabbit at the most inopportune times and places and then throw them up in my handbag. Despite all the monstrous turds that he produces, mainly in the pub garden or indeed on all my long suffering neighbour’s lawns. Despite all these things, an SOOOOO many more, I quite simply cannot imagine my life without this utter utter bastard git of a dog.

He has MADE this family. He attended our wedding, came with us, along with an array of kids and two other dogs, on our honeymoon to France where he disgraced himself at just about every service station possible, even entered a public lavatory where I had left the door slightly open to be exposed, pants around me ankles, on the throne with Spencer at my side for all the French to see.

He has made us laugh, he has made us cry, he has been there when we have been sad, just for a massive hug or quiet chat.

Spencer Churchill Skeates, you are a legend. I have never known a dog to be able to fart on demand or indeed do the absolute opposite of what has been asked, that takes intelligence. We did once consider getting him trained up to be a guide dog for the hungry, but we worked out he would eat all the grub before the hungry actually got a chance. I digress.

You are like no other dog I have ever known.

To the funniest 7 years of our lives, may there be many more. We love you Spencer 🥰

Oh Spencer Spencer Spencer………..

Father’s Day has not gone well for this family.

First hitch, Emma losing control of her car whilst not actually driving it then pulling off one of the windscreen wipers as she attempted to clean them whilst they were still on.

This was closely followed by a small fire in the kitchen when attempting to make the beloved an interim extra crispy bacon sarnie. I really must try and master the combination of putting the grill on full pelt and actually remembering that I have done precisely that. Will try harder.

But Spencer has excelled himself today. He has rounded off a day of disasters, a celebration of catastrophes and an annual anniversary of accidents. I honestly could kill this bloody dog.

We are invited round to my gorgeous parents for a Father’s Day lunch. My Mum always goes the extra mile with the old hors d’oeuvres. There’s always a vol au vent or two, definitely some nice smoked salmon fancies and the cucumber sandwiches are a staple. Today, as it was a special celebration she also added some mini Yorkshire puds with rare steak in them. Bloody marvellous. Fuck the diet.

We all sit down with our glasses of Malbec and start tucking in.

Then it happened.

Spencer had been sitting quietly and being way too well behaved for comfort, when he decided to do what we bloody well trained him to do when he was a puppy if he wanted a treat, he gave us all his whacking great paw.

His aim was just fucking perfect. One of his claws got stuck in Mum’s brand new table cloth which was then sucked swiftly off the table pulling all the fucking food, 8 glasses of wine and an entire bottle of coke with it onto the floor.

Absolute bloody carnage.

What was extraordinary was the silence that followed, deafening, but it was quickly succeeded by a shit load of swearing from my father, who has a really colourful vocabulary as it turns out and then slowly, every one turned towards my Mum.

Bless her heart, she was soaked in wine, coke and water and was now wearing most of her culinary concoctions.

Spencer had a field day. This was every dog’s dream, a floor buffet.

I am ashamed to admit that I was the only one that was hysterical with laughter. Apparently I have just blown my inheritance.

Spencer has been told to leave the country. Here he is contemplating the best way to do it. I have been told to go with him…………….

An old story that happened a few ol years ago……….of possibly one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. It was during my years as a single mother and as many of you know me, I am ridiculous enough whilst in a happy, stable (well it’s to Ed, so accident prone) marriage, but imagine me on the “blind dating scene…” A dear friend of mine had a boss who was single and she thought we might make quite a nice couple so she mentioned the idea to him. She did point out (and in fairness the poor lass had to be honest to protect her job!) that I think as she put it, “weird shit” regularly happens to me so to just be prepared for a slightly “different” sort of date. 
I think we liked one another pretty much straight away, he was quite quiet and reserved which I made up for by, well, just being me really. I rather brazenly asked him in for ‘coffee’ at the end of the date which he accepted. He sat on my sofa and he seemed to be in a little facial discomfort. He asked me if I had a cat, which at that stage I did not but the neighbour’s cat often used to climb in the window and make itself at home. He then admitted that he had quite an allergy to cat fur which started with his eyes itching etc etc. Anyway, I brought over the coffee and sat on the floor next to him (oh god, looking back I was SUCH a tart!). The conversation suddenly seemed to dry up so unable to deal with silences I began telling him about watching a show with Frank Skinner attending a tantric sex farm which I had found highly amusing. Steve seemed a little confused as to what tantric sex was so I went into great detail trying to explain what I understood it to be; lots of suggestion, not actually doing anything etc. Suddenly, assuming he had got the general idea, he presented me with his index finger pointing upwards. Old feckin looney tunes here thinks “blimey he’s up for a bit of this” so with no further ado or hesitation, I threw caution to the wind and popped said finger in my mouth (may I mention that fingers sucking formed part of Frank’s tantric sex show) and began, in the most seductive way I could muster, a little bit of gentle sucking (oh ok, I was like a lamb to a bottle!). Expecting a little more enthusiasm from his side, I was a little taken aback when he looked in horror at me and said “wtf are you doing???” Sadly, I was not taken aback quite enough to have removed his finger from my mouth and so mumbled back : “ummm, I’m sucking your finger……” hoping this would clear the whole situation up I slowly and very gingerly removed his finger and tried to establish some decorum to the atmosphere. “Have I done something wrong, Steve?” I gently and with my best innocent cat face asked. His response is something I will never, for the rest of my life forget : “you-have-just-eaten-my-feckin-contact-lens………………….” it was said very slowly, very definitely so there could be NO doubt that he was heard clearly. I now know why dogs put their heads on one side when they are not sure what you have just said to them. Then sadly the gagging started as I realised that he had been scratching his eyes because of the cat and it was all fitting together. His finger was NOT infact being offered as a gesture for me to get fruity with him, but he had removed his contact lens due to excessive eye itching.
I have NEVER in my my life, seen someone exit my house so quickly. It was almost as if he actually FEARED for his life? When I spoke to my dear friend the next day to ask her how he had reported on our date, she said he looked very pale, rather frightened and all he actually said was “I had to drive home with one hand over my eye”, that was where I had to come in and explain………………………. I blame #frankskinner and that wretched programme about that wretched farm! I only saw Steve once again after that, and that was under rather unfortunate circumstances aswell, but that’s for another day. If you have the appetite for more of my blind dating stories, let me know, there are many…………………..

Nice little walk with the ASBO dog along the railway line. Now because the fecker is so soppy and pathetic, I always feel a tad vulnerable when I am on my own because I know that if someone decided to attack me Spencer would give them a doggy salute and feck off as fast as he could in the opposite direction, so when I spotted, some way in the distance, a man doing something strange on the path I was a bit nervous. As I approach he is a young man, lots of tattoos, looks quite tough and is actually lying down on the path. Most people might have turned around at this point, but all I could think was that Tom Hardy had finally worked out where I spend most of my mornings and had got himself ‘in flagrante’ just for me. Well, I get a bit closer and god bless him he is photographing a tiny little baby rabbit which is either lost or not well. Oh man, what a darling. I kneel down with him and him and I coo and aaaah over this sweet little creature. Then the unthinkable happens. In bounds 40kgs of labrador, actually show jumps over my head, ends up with his rear end wrapped around my neck leaving me in a heap on the floor, and in 3 seconds flat he eats the sweet little baby rabbit and proceeds to crunch through it whilst I am prizing myself off the floor. The silence that followed was ooooh, about 4 and half weeks long? I slowly look up at this sweet young man who, like me, is in shock. I am changing my name to “I’m-so-sorry” – mortified does not even begin to cover it. Well, he just looked at me, glassy eyed and said, “Hmmm, I guess that’s the end of little Thumper then” – oh mother of god and all things holy, he’d bloody named it………….. what can you say to someone who looks like they could knock your block off in 5 seconds but has fallen in love with a sweet little creature and your feckin labrador has just eaten it live right infront you both and is smiling whilst licking his chops. So, I do the worst thing, I actually start stroking him (the man, not the dog)and consoling him. There was way too much touching and apologising and I am now going to have to go and eat my own head. Or perhaps I shall just leave that to Spencer who seems to have eaten Alice’s………………..

HUGE apologies for those of you who have been subjected to this story before, but I was asked by a follower if I would share this again as it was sort of one of the stories of my total ridiculousness that got me started on this journey of writing about Emma Dilemma. So here it, just for you : I was reminded this morning as I stopped off to fill the car up, of one of my most embarrassing moments since I moved back “home”. I had only popped out to get a bottle of milk and since I had cleverly chosen a time when all the supermarkets were shut (I make my life far more complicated than it needs to be) I had to pop into the local petrol station to buy some. This was in my days as a single mother of two small urchins so somehow I lived in a parallel universe where everything centred around Cbeebies and the Gruffalo (in short, I wasn’t really all there) Upon exiting the forecourt shop, I jumped into the car and instantly felt there was something slightly amiss. A timid, lady’s voice said : “Hello there”. This picture wasn’t right. But for some reason my instant reaction was to sit quietly behind the wheel of the car and take stock slowly and breathe. After what felt like hours, which of course had only been seconds, I looked to my left and there sat a very smart, really smiley lady with a distinct look of …………….. hmmm, what was it,…………….. yes, indeed it was, pity in her eyes. I replied very quietly, “Hi. I’m in the wrong car aren’t I?” – this was duly confirmed when I looked to the car to my left which contained my two little girls staring at me from their car seats. Funnily enough, they didn’t look scared, or in any way surprised (they had learned from an extremely young age, that their mother wasn’t quite, how shall I say, normal and that their upbringing would infact involve many more of these awkward situations) “Please tell me it is at least a similar model and colour to my car”, I pleaded with this sweet lady who by now was really struggling not to become hysterical (with laughter I may add, I was wearing my pyjama bottoms, she knew I was no threat to her). “Take a look love, oh and don’t mind the husband, he laughs at everything”. I very gingerly got out of the car and stood back to see that I had infact got into a top of the range, black Mercedes estate, which was neatly parked next to my bashed up bright blue Astra. The husband was infact on his haunches having some kind of ‘episode’. Ok, he was helpless with laughter which made the whole incident even more excrutiating. I thought things couldn’t get any worse until I spotted all the Shell staff had witnessed the whole event and were also enjoying my embarrassment to the full. Never has a drive off a forecourt been so painful. I have done the walk of shame more than once where I have accidently put diesel in a petrol engine and had to wait for the AA etc, that had nothing on this. I had wanted a discreet little half litre of milk, no-one would notice the PJ’s, it was almost dark. The worst part? They were Hello Kitty pyjamas………………… I was 41.

Ah, a lovely little memory of Spencer the bastard dog in his ‘youth’…………….. Another little morning humiliation – decide to walk the dog with a friend’s hound in a different village for a change. We return to the battle bus, my friend’s dog gets straight into the boot of the car (he’s a good boy) Spencer just sits there and stares at me. What happened next haunts me to this day. “Spencer, I am going to count to three, if you don’t get in on three you are, you are, you are going to go to the vet for an injection…………. ! Genius. Hates that. Spencer doesn’t move. Looks away, sits there, still as a statue. “Spencer, I am warning you, Mummy is NOT in the mood for this this morning, get your bastard arse in the feckin car” Still nothing. Spencer, I mean it, this is your last chance, 1……….. 2…………. 3………… oh FFS, you and I both feckin know you can’t count, just get in the fucking car?!” I do believe, at this moment I actually stamped my welly boot. Things were about to get very serious for Spencer. Nothing. Somehow, this git of a dog has sized me up and has worked out that there is no way I am lifting 40kgs of stubborn labrador into the boot, so we have a standoff. For about 5 minutes. I do believe I actually had a full on conversation with myself to prove to Spencer that I was not in the slightest bit bothered by his ridiculous behaviour. It starts to rain. Oh really? Oh fuck this for a game of soldiers, this dog is going to be bloody death of me. “Ok, you little S*** bag, you win but no more bloody treats today and NO, you cannot wear Mummy’s sodding underwear anymore either!!!.” Put towel on the back seat of the car. A mud covered Spencer jumps in, of course NOT on the towel. “Spencer, you stupid bastard dog, get on the bloody towel! Honestly, anyone would think you do this on feckin purpose you shitbag!” It was then that I heard the first snigger. I look up to see two, completely hysterical men up two seperate ladders mending the church wall. Oh dear lord, they heard me threatening that the dog couldn’t wear my underwear anymore. I want to die. Please please help me find my evaporation button. All I got from one of these lovely ol’ boys was, “Oh my god, I’m gonna fall off this bloody ladder in a minute! Does he really wear your pants?!” I’m gonna start charging……………..

Bloody men! I have been on such a good run recently, no fallage for ooooh about 6 days! This is a record! Then the fecker leaves his grots on the floor of the bathroom and Little Miss Wank Puffin here gets her toe stuck in one end and stands on the back end and over I go! Inches, inches I tell you, from faceplanting the wooden knob on the bed (and I am not referring to the twat whose underpants were on the floor) I could have had me feckin teeth out. After much swearing, shouting and gingerly picking myself up off the floor, I discover that said pant throwing knob head is on the carpet himself literally weeping with joy! That man has a death wish. I intend to fulfill it.

This has new meaning for me after yesterday morning’s mother of all fuck ups and yet it started with such promise. Here is how my days can spiral downwards at quite a rate of knots…………… So the beloved worked from home today (something I normally hate as it involves a LOT of criticism and observation of how I use MY working day) but I thought, no, think positive, get the fecker out on a run with me. We aim to go quite a long way which he is thrilled about as he is far fitter than I am. A couple of miles in and we are chatting away about schools, the kids etc when it suddenly bloody dawns on me that I have a meeting with the deputy head at 10am. I know I could have done this differently, but this is me, so that was never going to happen. So after a whole load of expletives, shouting and shit fuck shit fuck shit fuck (can you even imagine the other ‘expletives’ if I have to refer to them as such?). So the usual from the ever supportive and understanding husband, “Oh FFS Emma, you are feckin hopeless”. “When are you going to stop being such a clutter fuck and start organising yourself better? I mean, if you’re not racing around because you’ve forgotten where you’re supposed to be, then you are flying around the house trying to find all the shit you’ve lost!” I had to endure the sanctimonious swine the whole way back. By the time we got to the front door, I had seriously had enough and shouted at him : “Will you just remember who you are talking to and go and find your manners!” I know this is not going to get me very far as I am dealing with the MOST organised person on planet earth. All he could say in return was, “Find my manners? Find my bloody manners? Don’t tell me you’ve gone and bloody lost those too?” – this was the point that the Menopause kicked in and so did my running shoe, straight between the fecker’s buttocks and off he went, shoe up his arse, into the downstairs lav where I restrained him by holding the door shut. So so so childish, but suddenly this had become fun. I was a silent as a little mouse so he actually thought I had infact locked him in from the outside and had left. It took every bone in my body to not ruin the joke by giggling. Oh the joy of hearing him shouting ; “Yeah, allright Em, joke over, I’ve got a lot to do, you can let me out now, sorry for saying you are a clutterfuck (as I am right by the door with my foot against it I can still hear him whisper under his breath, “but you fecking are” – so that’s another two minutes in Kazi custody.) But the beauty, oh the divine poetry of this totally unplanned punishment is that I have realised that all I have to do is walk away quietly and as he has been intermittently shoving the door to no avail (I am a strong unit let me tell you) when I have let go, he is going to chuck his shoulder into his cell door and come flying out unrestrained he’s going to definitely definitely fall over. And today, oh beautiful beautiful day, it happens. Mr bloody organised, gives the bog door one last shoulder thrust and there is no resistance at all and he shoots out like a magician from a cannon and lands face first in the hallway. My position of legs crossed like a naughty school girl with tears pouring down my cheeks did nothing to detract from his fury. I have to let the dust settle, walk away. I’ve also slightly taken my eye off the ball that I have this appointment with the Deputy Head which is the reason we had to curtail our run together in the first place and lead to Ed’s incarceration. So shower, brush hair, suit and boot and off I go. Back 20 minutes later. Husband calmed down, has seen the funny side of the situation and was JUST about to apologise for ridiculing my chaos when he uttered those immortal words, “Why are you back so quickly?” Oh bollocks. Can’t lie, can’t because then you have to remember stuff. So here it came. Why is my fun ALWAYS so shortlived? “Got the wrong day, it’s tomorrow…………………”

Hmmmm, not had a day like this for quite a while. Unbelievably, after being known as the Grim Reaper for all pet hamsters, I appear to be the chosen one for feeding friends and neighbour’s pets. Turns out people do have quite short memories when it comes to SOME of my misdemeanours. My darling and long suffering neighbour who has had to put up with small garden fires, having her beautifully manicured front garden driven over by the battle bus on more than one occasion and has had to bid farewell to at least 5 precious terracotta pots in the past, has actually asked me to feed her cats! I was truly honoured and decided to take this responsibility very seriously. So seriously in fact, that I concentrated so hard on NOT leaving her keys in her house and therefore locking myself out and the poor cats in that I forget to take my own keys and ended up locked out of our house. No problem! I have a spare. So feckin organised. So NOT feckin organised as it turns out, as I had used that key a few weeks ago when I previously locked myself out and had forgotten to put it back. Shit fuck. Don’t panic Emma, there are worse things that can happen and at the end of the day, someone MUST have a key to my house and after all, I’m not in the middle of cooking anything………………. Wrong again. There were eggs boiling on the stove. Shit fuck again. Rang everyone I could think of who might have a key, but without exception I had borrowed each and every one of my own keys on previous occasions where I had locked myself out and never returned them. Jeeez I am a fucking nightmare. Then it dawns on me. My eldest has a key and she is at her boyfriends and they are finished with school. She appears around the corner, rolling her eyes ; “Honestly Mother, one more brain cell and you would be a plant…………” Can’t argue with that. In I go, sure enough pan boiled dry, black as the ace of spades and was just about to catch fire. Smoke filled kitchen. Brilliant. The only woman in England who can burn a boiled egg. Still, onwards and upwards, I have other pets to save! Off I go to my dear friend who has two gorgeous border collies who just need letting out for a wee as she has been out for the day. Get there, key jammed. Try everything, wiggle it, jiggle it, pull handle up, force it, break lock. Shit fuck. How much worse can this morning get?! Then I spot it. The kitchen window is ajar! AMEN! I am saved! Get round the back, hand through the top part of the windows and hey presto managed to open the main part of the window. Am now pet managing genius! All I have to do now is get through the kitchen window without causing to much damage to myself or their kitchen sink. I’m not even going to go into any particular detail about what happened next. It’s all pretty inevitable and predictable really. I went in backwards, got my enormous arse stuck in their kitchen sink. Managed to do the only push up I have EVER done in my life and manoeuvre myself to the other sink which happened to have a baking tray on it which I suddenly realised would stop be from becoming wedged in that side too. Oh how wrong I was. Apparently it was quite an expensive and extremely strong baking tray…………… (see evidence below) I also wrote off a couple of cacti that were on the window sill. I think this may be the last time I ever get asked to look after their pets. These are the lovely people who having gone away for 10 days a few years ago asked me to feed the hamster. I told them when they got home that Jazzie’s hamster was lovely although it had been a bit quiet. They then asked me how Ollie’s hamster was. My question will haunt us all for quite some time : “Ollie has a hamster……………………..?”