Doc Barbara and the local sheep

Darwin, the newly adopted dog of Doc Barbara, was keen to accompany her of one of her fabulous exploits now that he had settled in at home with his comfortable bed, cushion and fish-themed blanket.  Doc Barbara explained to him that there was one hurdle to be jumped before they could set out together: a field of sheep. Alarmed, Darwin asked if he had to leap over all the sheep (his understanding of metaphor is stunted) but she, an avid fan of The Archers, assured him that she meant that he had to be trusted near them.

When they arrived at the spot, the two leading ovines were waiting, placidly chewing rich grass. This did not prevent them from having a sotto voce discussion which Darwin, with a dog's superior hearing, absorbed without understanding and relayed to Doc Barbara, who rather reluctantly, told him the gist.

Darwin? Don't like the sound of him, personally.

The sheep were complaining that they disliked Darwin because he had  invented evolution. Without him, they would still be moufflons (ovis gmelini), lean and muscular, agile and wearing a pleasing brown coat with arresting black stripes. Instead, because of him, they were unwieldy, meaty and bearing awkwardly massive wool fleeces which had to be sheared annually at least - a very scary process. Doc Barbara offered to intervene diplomatically and Darwin agreed, although he had not noted her as being over-endowed with tact and nuanced utterance. Off she went to accost the sheep.

Meanwhile he sat, feeling very small and anxious because of the tone of what he had overheard: the sky had turned grey, his ears and tail drooped, his fur shrank and even the grass looked sad.

 
Somehow, I feel quite desolate.

Soon, Doc Barbara returned and said that any misunderstanding had been cleared up and that the sheep were now in amicable mode, even apologetic and embarrassed. Darwin dared to raise his eyes and opined that they did look - well - sheepish. (Puns are his natural trope). They introduced themselves as Erasmus and Copernicus (there was a snicker from the rest of the flock at this last name), promised that he would always be welcome in their field and that they would accompany him to the gate. Darwin was cautiously gratified but hung back a little, because they still seemed quite large and worryingly (not that pun, please) likely to fall on top of him because of their spindly and insecure legs.

Everything seems OK but you never know.

A worm now poked its head up from the earth: a rumour was circulating underground that Doc Barbara was transferring her focus away from invertebrates and there was concern that they would be even more overlooked. (Did you twig both puns in that sentence?) 

Is this true and why did the sheep snicker? All may - or may not - be revealed in the next thrilling episode. We may remember Doc Barbara's motto: "Procrastination is the thief of jam tomorrow" and hope for the best. Poor Darwin is now totally confused.

Doc Barbara and canine comfort.

All was going well on Darwin the dog's first evening with Doc Barbara: she was busy on the sofa, translating a scholarly work on Lithuanain Worms into Indo-European (for reasons not well comprehended even by her), whilst Darwin lay in his new bed, occasionally emitting a gentle snore. 

After a while, when she was trying to find a suitable cognate term for Typhlosole, she became aware that he had risen and was sitting in front of her with paw raised towards the armchair. 

Please, please, please.

She did observe that he had purloined her best green cushion as a throne whilst he made his imperious gesture, but the imploring look in his eyes made her forgive him and ask what he wanted. 

His gaze was set firmly on a small but thick blanket that she had knitted and which was draped tastefully (insofar as Doc Barbara does tasteful) over the chair to hide its worn patches.

Darwin shivered slightly - but dramatically - to indicate that he was cold, understandable since Doc Barbara regards an ambient temperature of 15 degrees as positively sultry. She caved in and laid the blanket in his bed ready. Inwardly she resolved to teach him to speak politely and with due reverence when voicing his needs. 

In gratitude, he jumped up beside her (not allowed) and she stroked his now warm back to show that she wasn't angry. As her fingers moved through his curly fur and over the little knobbles of his spine (remember her predilection for invertebrates!) she felt a tightening in her chest around the region of her heart. This she attributed to the fact that her thick tights - which she always pulled up to her armpits - had shrunk in the wash. But we know better, don't we?

It can be hard getting humans to understand but it's worth the struggle.

Doc Barbara and canine necessities

Doc Barbara had assumed that she would go off to a local pet shop and buy what was needed for the arrival of Darwin, the Professor's dog. Bed, 2 bowls and a lead. However, she had not accounted for the dogged (ho! ho!) determination and steely stamina of her new canine friend. He insisted on choosing his own accessories and was adamant that all his friends went to a store nearby that sold the latest trendy gear, without which he would be an outcast and pariah. Doc Barbara replied that she doesn't do trendy and that dogs do not go shopping - and so off he set, in rebellious mood, on his own (though we note his backwards, pleading glance).

I am not sure if I have my credit card with me, though.

Her only desire was that he should be happy, however, and she followed him to the designated emporium, in some trepidation as to what it might cost her - in money and life-long principles, she of the thick tights and frugal habits.

Undaunted although discombobulated, she stepped inside, holding Darwin by the scruff of his very furry neck - as he had, as yet, no lead.  Being a pointer, he seated himself in the middle of the floor and indicated his chosen items with raised paw, trembling with anticipation when he realised he could have his initial embroidered or painted on. 

Since Doc Barbara is fervently green, she could not but agree and did share his opinion that the touch of purple was both aesthetically pleasing and less stridently opinionated. Both returned to her humble abode, deeply satisfied and looking forward to their next outing. But will that be a walk in the park for our heroine?

Doc Barbara, the Professor and Darwin, the dog.

 In our last pivotal episode it was decided that Doc Barbara would adopt Professor Ramsbottom-Thrutch's dog, Darwin, while he went on a research tour of the world investigating reactions on patients in dentists' waiting rooms to various hilarious poses and antics. However, when he realised the air miles that this would involve, he asked if that investigation could be carried out in the UK. (After all, Lancashire people with agonising toothache might raise a smile whilst those in Islington would merely grimace. Much data could be extrapolated from that). Our Professor - as can be seen here - has impeccably green credentials.

The Professor emerges from his previous ecological travel machine, now unfortunately defunct. 

 

Such is his global renown as a sociologist that this was granted - but the arrangement about Darwin would hold firm. Doc Barbara would become his owner and the handover would take place as soon as she had chosen the new bed, bowl and lead that the animal would require. At first they thought it better to keep the old, familiar belongings but Doc Barbara wanted Darwin to be aware of reality and accept change. Nominative determinism at work there. There must be no hankering although hunkering down would be encouraged. The next cliff-hanging episode will tell of these accoutrements but, meanwhile, we will wave goodbye to the Professor as he embarks on his mission - all to be accomplished by bike this time..

Doc Barbara is offered company

 Doc Barbara was walking briskly around her local park, constantly on the alert for new fabulous exploits, when she paused by the newly erected table tennis table. Pausing but briefly to wonder why there were so many "tables" in that sentence, she then considered whether or not she could play the game with only herself by pinging from one end, rushing round and ponging back at the other side.

Even she could see that this would be impossible and indulged in a moment of sadness that she had no-one to play with. Doc Barbara does not normally do black bile but is more phlegmatic and sanguine. The best combinations of the four humours. This unique melancholic interlude was interrupted by the arrival of a medium-sized dog, which sat in front of her, looked affectionately into her eyes and raised one paw,  It then wagged it gently from side to side as if to forbid any attempt at this new-fangled game. This motion dejected Doc Barbara even further until a gentleman arrived, claimed the prescient hound as his own and recognised her. It was indeed Professor Ramsbottom-Thrutch, eminent sociologist, he who found her when she once went missing. Here he is investigating the effects of his wearing a plastic crown on 10 people in a dentist's waiting room, waiting to have teeth extracted. 

The Prof wore the crown- not the patients.

After exchanging greetings (along with other phatic conversation), he revealed that he had been given a massive research grant to record (on an international database) the reactions of dentists' patients all over the world to such an apparition. This would be of immense benefit to other sociologists - if no-one else. But, the dog would not be able to go with him and he could find no suitable arrangements for it. He thought it would be uplifting if Doc Barbara could adopt Darwin, a wire-haired pointer mixed with other unknown genes. The animal, he promised, is wise, loyal, quiet and pleasingly old-fashioned in outlook. Was he being economical with the truth? Time will tell on this gripping narrative.

The dog's smile could not be recorded on camera because it was in a dream. 

Doc Barbara agreed to consider this, despite her famed preference for invertebrates. That night she dreamed about Darwin, paw poised in kindly advice, and was sure that he smiled at her. The decision was made and she informed the Professor that his beloved dog would find a perfect canine Eden in her humble abode - for as long as was necessary. 

Doc Barbara and the Bard

 Doc Barbara received a good education with plenty of emphasis on subjects that some consider to be of scant value in modern life. Yet, as she isn't truly a part of modern life, she disregards this snag. Naturally, she studied Shakespeare but has recently started to empathise with the wrong characters. In Macbeth her sympathy reaches out to the witches who hang about either on the blasted heath or in the wings of the stage waiting to come on again clutching the toe of a frog or the leg of a lizard. Do they draw lots, she wonders, for who has to hold the most grisly ingredient? Her grasp of the difference between art and reality is tenuous.

Gadzooks, but I am fed up of this blasted heath. I'm out!

This is her mental image of one witch getting so cheesed off with the blasted heath that she pops into the wings for a cuppa.

Once, during a performance of Cymbeline, (and what a performance that turned out to be!) she had totally lost the plot by Act 3 but kept awake, unlike the rest of the audience who were enjoying a quiet snooze, although less than silent in some cases. Her ancient hearing aids let her down at the line: "Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath played the strumpet in my bed". This is because she had had them expensively adapted to block all rude words which might offend her delicate sensibility, The result was perfect sense, however, much better than the original in her opinion. One letter can make all the difference.

Doc Barbara's new orchestra

 Doc Barbara, as we have heard, has an affinity with lowly creatures. Sceptics have been know to opine that this is because no-one else relates to her but this is not true: she has at least 3 friends: me, Belinda Twaddle from the days when her fabulous exploits were recorded in The Monmouthshire Mouthpiece, Professor Ramsbottom-Thrutch from that same era -and someone else who does not wish their name to be mentioned in connection with our heroine.

Her main love is invertebrates (as can be seen from the picture below when she forgives the worm his erroneous Italian) but she welcomes spurned creatures with spines because she feels at one with them. Recalling the myth of Orpheus (she received an excellent education and is fluent in Latin, with a particular love of the ablative absolute) she decided to reverse the ideology and teach animals to create spell-binding music.

There were, of course, teething problems, even with the toothless worm, but Doc Barbara soon licked them into shape (not literally, of course - even she has some boundaries) but they were soon adept and played for hours in the grandstand of the local park to the delight of all.

I cannot show you an image of the awestruck and rapt individuals, because they were so overcome with joy that they had to go home to lie down in a darkened room for several days, taking their unusually silent children and dogs with them.