Odd dogs and Englishmen

In my experience a long coat on a man is often a sign of mental instability. Frankie’s brown woollen overcoat was so long he kept stepping on the hem and treading it into the mud. Jim did the introductions. Frankie took no notice of my name, calling me ‘laddie’ instead. Then he said he’d got the kettle on and led us into the house. His hunting dogs had the run of the ground floor and there were little piles of their excrement on the bare floorboards. In the kitchen a tractor tyre was leaning against a wall, and there was a chainsaw leaking oil on the kitchen table. We took our coffees outside and drank them standing up in his backyard.

In the backyard, a tanned, dark-haired man was sitting on a log splitting hazel poles lengthways with a machete. Split four ways, hazel poles make durable thatching battens. Chained to the back of a wrecked lorry was the most powerful looking pit bull terrier I’d ever seen.