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The idea to get a second dog was inspired chiefly by Jack’s fervent enthusiasm for dog company. He’d act deflated after returning from a spell in dog hotel , and sometimes after meeting any dog pals on a walk. Rather than another pedigree, an RSPCA rescue dog this time. And something in a smaller size. Charlie immediately caught my eye on touring the Bristol dogs home.

A blend of terrier, he came with a warning. Twice rejected by adopters for aggressive or defensive behaviour. A couple of trial visits worked out well enough, so he’s now a permanent resident. He does suffer from anxiety, and has demonstrated a tendency to snap and snarl defensively when feeling threatened. Most of the time he’s fairly affectionate, although still a little stand-offish around people. He’s improving all the time, I think, as he becomes more familiar to his new home.

The pair of them have adjusted to each other’s company well, and keep each other busy throughout the day. It’s quite remarkable how much exercise they seem to offer each other. Prior to Charlie’s arrival Jack really required two or even three longish walks per day; anything less and he’d be an awkward bundle of nervous over-activity. Now the pair of them are content staging day-long Greek Wrestling contests, a single walk in the early evening suffices. It may be counter-intuitive, but in some ways it seems two dogs are more easily managed than one.

At the time we decided to buy the house, the facade was discolouring dirty-brown pebble dash. “We’ll have to paint that.” I told myself, without any real understanding of whether this was practical, or even possible. So we moved in, and the front of the house remained much as it was, bar a spot of weeding. A year passed.

A couple of weeks ago, we noticed a man up a ladder painting the exterior of a house a few doors down from us. A man with a van, and a sign suggesting painter for hire ¹ . Enquiries were made, a quote offered that sounded like the going rate, for all I know about it, and a date fixed for early next week. The only thing left to determine was the colour.

I felt very strongly that if one was going to the expense of paying someone to paint your front wall, then it probably ought to be something exuberant. A colour statement. Modern paint technology being what it is, exterior paints are now an array of colours quite startling in scope; you can choose from the majority of shades on the Dulux colour chart. Which we did. I favoured an extreme sunshine yellow or a bold orange, something earthy and ostentatious. The other party favoured light blue. A compromise was reached.

That’s Dulux “Royal Regatta:3″ on the base, and “Royal Regatta:6″ on the highlights. I’d link to their colour chart, but the website is a stupid java gigantic line-noise URL and dynamic effects nightmare. It works well enough to browse though, so go look if you care; not that colours over the web can be remotely accurate. I don’t think any of the paint shops expect to sell gallons of the deep base colours, after trying a couple of different branches of B&Q we had to get them to order some in, it arrived with only a day to spare.

It was mildly exciting getting it done. The weather forecast suddenly turned to week-long downpours in the middle of July right for when we had it pencilled in. Somehow we got away with it. The dogs extracted plenty of entertainment out of having a strange man on a ladder attached to the house front.

The work in progress seemed to become something of a local talking point, with people often stopping to converse with Howard the painter as they passed. A genial fellow, he explained to me that he relied on these passing conversations, along with the sign propped against his van, to bring in most of his commissions. He thought our colour choice made for a good advertisment. Even a week after he’d finished you might sometimes see passers by, suddenly suprised by the hue, stop what they were doing for a couple of beats and gawp before moving on.

¹ H. Crawford Painting Service - (0795 0089878) - painting, plastering and rendering