As I left the shower this morning I was shocked to see this on the kitchen floor – the dog had recently seemed pretty lethargic and they do get tummy troubles from time to time. Being completely unable to handle this kind of thing, I remained glued to the spot and yelled for Michele; after all, dealing with animal dejecta is her specialty. “Something really horrible has happened!” She came running in and looked pretty confused. Her immediate reaction was to try to diagnose the problem before even trying to clear it up. She knelt down and to my horror dipped two fingers into the horrific mess. There is a limit to my admiration for her professional interest in animal health and I thought I’d reached it with her sniffing the dog’s diarrhea when she upped the ante by putting both fingers into her mouth and licking them.

There were a good few seconds of stunned silence as my brain tried to come up with every possible explanation for what I’d just seen. It was only when she collapsed laughing that I remember the date…
OK, you really got me.
For the record, chocolate pudding, plasticine and brown leather paint are very, very convincing.