Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

called Mrs Bromell (who, for some reason, had become my dog-walk pimp) to suggest that it perhaps wasn’t the best idea to take the dogs out that night given the weather, but she insisted that a brief stroll would be OK.
    ‘Dogs don’t mind a bit of rain,’ she said. Maybe so , I thought, but I bloody well do .
    I picked up the dogs – who all lived on the same street – and until Stanley joined the group it was going OK. Susie was incredibly strong and was dragging us along (well, Paddington and me, anyway) a little faster than we might have wanted to go, but I had things under control. Until, on the edge of Clapham Common, completely without warning, Stanley decided to have a nip at Thierry’s ankles and all hell broke lose. Theo came to his brother’s aid, clamping his teeth firmly around Stanley’s left ear. Susie, who is usually such a friendly hound, decided that someone Stanley’s size should not be picked on, and bared her teeth terrifyingly at Theo, hackles raised. Yelling forcalm, I managed to get tangled up in the leads and had to let go of one or risk dislocating a shoulder. As soon as I let go of his lead, Thierry sprinted off into the distance, yelping horribly. Theo and Susie followed at a gallop, dragging yapping Stanley, an increasingly distressed Paddington, and me, along behind them.
    It had been pouring with rain half the day. The Common was a bog. We were tearing along, the five of us, skidding and sliding through the mud, water splashing up in our faces and raining down on our bedraggled heads. All the dogs were barking furiously, I was yelling at them to stop, trying to keep hold of the leads, trying to dig my heels into the grass to stop them.
    In the darkness ahead loomed a park bench. The dogs were headed straight at it.
    ‘Left!’ I yelled helplessly at the leaders. ‘Go left!’
    Susie went left, Theo went right, Stanley charged straight underneath the bench and I ran straight into it, flying right over it and landing face down in a deep, muddy puddle on the other side. I’d released my hold on the leads, letting the dogs scatter in all directions. Paddington, who had been at the rear of the pack and had managed to stop before hitting the bench, ambled around it and licked my face affectionately.
    Forty-five minutes and one nervous breakdown later I had assembled my filthy, soaking, disobedient charges and the six of us limped homewards across the Common. Mrs Bromell was waiting for me outside Susie’s house.
    ‘Goodness,’ she said when she saw us, ‘look at the state of them! Honestly, Cassie, you shouldn’t let them get dirty like that! They’re going to tramp mud all over their owners’ houses.’
    Caught between the urge to scream expletives at her and the temptation to simply sit down on the pavement and cry my eyes out, I apologised.
    ‘I’m very sorry,’ I said. ‘Things got a bit out of control. They’re not all as well trained as Fifi and Trixie,’ I added, glaring at Stanley. He yipped happily, wagging his tail at me.
    I delivered the dogs to their disgruntled owners. Cold, wet, muddy, exhausted and bleeding slightly from a cut above my right eye sustained when falling over the bench, I don’t think I have ever felt so miserable. And my misery only deepened as I stood on the steps of number thirty-two, home to Thierry and Theo, one of the most beautiful houses on the road, a huge, imposing Georgian home with enormous windows revealing a coolly decorated interior (all zebra skin rugs and pristine white sofas). No doubt the home of some investment banker and his perfectly manicured wife. I rang the doorbell. The housekeeper answered.
    ‘For goodness’ sake!’ she said when she saw the state of the dogs. ‘They can’t come through the house like that. Take them round the back to the utility room.’ They had a housekeeper and a utility room. It just wasn’t fair. I escorted my muddy charges around through the garden and back door, admiring thestunning glass and chrome kitchen extension, and delivered the dogs to the housekeeper, who was still muttering crossly about the state of them. She didn’t show the slightest bit of concern for bedraggled, bleeding me. I started off home.
    I was quite convinced that things could not possibly get any worse when, lo and behold, they did. I had just reached the High Street when I saw them: Christa Freeman and Angela Chenowith, PA to Hamilton Churchill’s managing director. They were walking straight at me,