In Memoriam

Now the grief has subsided and time has started to heal the pain I have permission to tell the sad story of the demise of Badger, a quiet and dignified dog.

 On getting off the boat on a Sunday morning after a heavy night in the pub…………..

‘AM, why are you carrying a spade?’

‘The dog died last night’

'Oh’

‘I’m waiting for J to bury her.  I don't want to go back on the boat with my dead dog on it’

‘But you spent all night lying next to a dead dog’ says J

 ‘Yes, but I didn’t know she was dead then’

 ‘Wasn’t the fact that she’d stopped wheezing and gone stiff and cold a bit of a give-away’

 ‘Look can’t you just take this spade and bury the dog’

 ‘Shall I put it over by those trees, that’s a nice place for her to be buried’

‘No, it’s on a flood plain if the river floods again she might get washed away and I don’t want to look out of my window in six months time and see the dog sailing passed’

J does a very good impression of a dead dog zooming downstream: stiff legs: head at an awkward angle: inane grin on its face.

 ‘OK, AM we’ll set off and find a suitable place to bury her on the way back.’  So they take the spade back on board, start up the boat and go.

The rest of us stand around drinking coffee and swapping dead animal stories:  the dog which was wrapped tightly in a black bin bag and when the garden was dug over five years later it was preserved in its original state seriously disturbing the children who thought it had been re-incarnated:  the goat that wasn’t buried deep enough and the first heavy rain rearranged its burial site making four legs stick heavenwards like tent poles. The man Who Knows Everything tells of a neighbour who had their pet cat stuffed, he can do a good impression of a dead cat, it’s looking upwards with its tongue lolling out, gazing lovingly at it’s owner. R tells of sweating away burying a dead dog deeply, sticking  a cross over it and then going in and being told he had to move it because it was in direct view of the kitchen window and it would be upsetting to look out on it every day. He went out, dug it up and re-buried it.  ‘Why didn’t you just rough the new ground up a bit and move the cross?’  asks B

‘Oh, I never thought of that.’

‘We shouldn’t be making jokes’ says B ‘AM was really upset, you know she’s had that dog for years and to make matters worse it died on her birthday' 

We mumble and nod in sympathy and drink more coffee.

 'Maybe we should send her a ‘With Sympathy’ card.’

 'She’d think we were taking the piss’

‘How about we make up a poem about the dog and add that to the card, sort of personalise it. What was the dogs name?’

 ‘Badger’

 ‘Ok what rhymes with Badger?’

 ‘Tadger’ says The Man Who Knows Everything

 ‘I think the dog was female, she wouldn’t have a tadger’

 ‘Right, there’s the start of the rhyme

Poor little Badger

Never had a tadger………………………….’

We heard later that further downriver the dog burying saga continued.  They stopped at Lilford Lock, one of the prettiest and most peaceful locks on The Nene and found the ideal spot for Badger to be laid to rest but the spade was too weak to cope with the tree roots.  They moved on down to Oundle and found a quiet place on the riverbank but the poxy spade wouldn’t go through the hard ground so they put her in the back of the car to take her home.  Then they arranged a family meal so didn’t have time to bury the dog so she stayed in the garden until the birthday celebrations were over. 

Poor old Badger, more trouble in death than she ever had been in life.