I love a nice lamppost

I know it’s hard to believe but I may have made a bit of a fool of myself recently.


It’s not entirely my fault because it’s not easy concentrating on more than one thing at a time and I haven’t quite got the hang of it.

You see, I was taking Renee (my human) for a walk and she was on her lead as she usually is when we’re walking on the pavement.

It was a nice enough day and my attention was taken by a rather nice looking bitch who was almost as good looking as me. Oh, she fluttered her eyes at me, circled round a bit, waggled her rear end and generally made her interest in me pretty clear.

But Renee, apparently, was in a bit of a hurry. Although what could be more important than a romantic liaison with a fine looking Labrador beats the living daylights out of me. That’s by the by... she was in a hurry so I had no choice other than to follow on.

I took a last lingering look back at my latest conquest in the hope of getting a last sight of that lovely tail... and walked smack into a lamppost.

Damn me, but it hurt my beak and I have to admit I was a bit shocked for a few minutes.

As soon as I gathered me wits, though, I sauntered on as thought nothing had happened; that was until I took a sneaky peak at Renee, who, it so happens, saw the whole thing and was killing herself laughing.

What could I do?

I Mustered what little dignity was left to me, put me nose and me tail in the air and walked on, jaunty as anything, just to show her I didn’t care that her sides were splitting.

It turns out, though, that some good came of my ‘walking-into-a-lamppost’ incident.

Apparently it reminded Renee, that it’s really important to keep an overview of the business as well as looking after all the details. If you get so hung up on the day to day detail of the business you’re likely to walk right into a lamppost because you won’t be looking where you’re going.

It’s not an easy trick, mind you, having all these different views, so it’s always best to schedule time out to keep a check on the big picture... and, if you can, do it with someone else; someone who’ll help you avoid a nasty collision by really challenging you on where you are going.

By the way, my snozzle is much better now... thanks for asking.

Taxadoodle

It's a funny time of year for Tax Expert Dog... like me.

Something called the Tax Return Deadline is approaching and it seems to have got a lot of people excited.

For a laid back, chilled out dog like me it's a bit bizarre to see people coming in with great bundles of paperwork, waving their Tax Returns (or even 2 Tax Returns (this year's and last year's)) and frowning in a worried sort of way.

They disappear into the office with my human and emerge sometime later like different people.  The frown is gone, their shoulders are unbowed and there's invariably a bounce in their step... as though some enormous weight has been lifted from their shoulders.

Okay, I may be exaggerating just a little bit, but not by much...

According to Renee, this is stressful time for people who need to complete their Tax Returns by 31st January.  If they haven't done so yet, it means they are cutting things a little fine and it usually means there's something on the form they need help with.  They know they have to do something, they just don't know what.

Personally, I don't know what all the fuss is about, but then I ate the last pen I picked up (and very painful it was a day or so later.  An interesting shade of blue, though).

So, what's to do?

Well you can either fill in your return yourself, which is fine.  Or you could get someone to do it for you, which is also good.  The advantage of having someone do it for you is they will probably know more about what you can claim for and could well reduce the amount of tax you end up paying.

Worth it?  Well, maybe, but worth a conversation at least.