It is Georgie’s
birthday this Friday. She is the eldest daughter of my younger brother Richard
and she is my favorite niece. Georgie will be turning seventeen. She sent me a
text on Saturday telling that me she had made the first team for soccer at her
school.
She messages
me quite a lot. Georgie told me that she gets to wear a special blazer at
school for being in the First team and it is a big honor. She added in her SMS:
"Now
that is worth writing about Uncle Peter"
I agreed that
it is and I told her so. So here I am, writing about it. Goodonya Georgina and
congratulations. I am very proud of you and I really wish I was there to watch
you play. Please kick a goal for me. Kick a couple in fact.
For your uncle
Peter.
Georgie is a
very good soccer player. She always has been. My daughter Charlotte is too. My
baby Totty. She is seventeen as well. Three months of time separated the
cousins from birth and they are inseparable. They are family and are the very
best of friends. George and Charlotte once played on the same soccer team when
they were very little and people thought they were sisters. They used to
pretend to be sisters all the time and they were a good soccer combination as
well. They always sought each other out to pass to in games and they had excellent
foot skills. They were fast as well.
They could run
like the wind.
My brother's
family and mine used to go and watch the girls play soccer every Saturday
morning. They played all over Sydney. Bob our golden retriever always came with
us. Before the game and at half time Bob would charge up and down the oval
chasing soccer balls and he would chase birds and butterflies and other dogs as
well.
He loved to
run and play.
During the
games Bob would always be itching to get onto the field and join in but I told
him quite firmly that he had to sit and watch. He knew this and he grinned at
me and he wagged his tail. Bob always understood everything we said to him. He
was very clever and he mostly obeyed. Occasionally he would get very excited
though.
Too excited.
When George or
Charlotte scored a goal Bob sometimes couldn't contain himself and he ran onto
the ground. He ran up to the team huddle and joined in on the team celebrations.
The referee wouldn't restart the game until Bob left the field. He blew his
whistle until Bob ran off the ground.
Bob loved
going to watch the girls play soccer. We all did.
We loved it
together.
When Bob was
only about three years old we used to take him to Glebe park in Sydney. We took
him every day. I often went with my brother Richard and his kids and their
Border Collie who was named Chloe. Chloe was Bob’s girlfriend. The park was
very close to where we both lived and we would take tennis rackets and rubber
balls and the dogs would run and chase until they dropped. Bob never brought
the ball right back to us. He would drop it near us but somewhere that we had
to walk to collect it. It was his game with us and that was his rule.
We didn't mind
a bit.
We used to
throw the ball out into Glebe harbor and Bob would swim and collect it. We
stopped doing that though when a lady told me that her boxer dog got taken in
the same waters by a shark. Her dog got eaten. Golden Retrievers are water dogs
and they were bred to collect dead ducks that were shot by duck hunters. Bob
loved to swim and he loved the beach too.
Bob when
through a very strange period when he was growing up in Sydney. When we took
him to Glebe park he started peeing on people. He cocked his leg on them. Quite
understandably people got very annoyed and when I apologized for his behaviour some
of them were still very angry. Some yelled abuse at me and they behaved as if
it was me that had peed on them. We had to implement a strategy where the kids
would run ahead with Bob in the park and when they saw him stop and start
sniffing at people they would yell warnings.
One child
would yell "NO BOB" and the other would shout "LOOK OUT HE MIGHT
PISS ON YOU". Georgie used to mostly do the pissing warning. She liked it.
She giggled when she said it but she screamed it out loud. Georgie was always
very dramatic and loud when she was little and she still is.
I suspect that
she always will be.
We consulted a
friend who was a dog therapist about Bob's pissing-on-people conduct and he
told us that he thought it was just a juvenile phase that Bob was going through
and he had encountered such behavior before in juvenile dogs before. The
majority of people that Bob had urinated on were actually patting him at the
time. They patted him because he was a very friendly dog and he always had a
big grin on his face.
The
friend-who-was-a-dog-therapist thought that peeing was perhaps Bob's way of
patting them back. She suggested that we yell at him to stop in a stern voice
when we were at the park and that we try and warn people of the possibility of
the event occurring. Which is what we did and he stopped after a while.
The phase
passed.
Georgie told
me that Rory is taking her out for dinner on Friday but she didn't say where. I
don't think that my brother would be overly delighted with this date but he
seems to have begrudgingly accepted that Rory likes Georgie and she likes him
back. Teenage love is unstoppable anyway and resistance is futile.
I have written
about the Rory saga previously so I will not go through it again. It may not be
a saga anymore either but I suspect it could well be again in the future. Rory
is a bit of a rough nut and Georgie is feisty and fiery. She is a gorgeous live
wire who I think would be very high maintenance for Rory. I have no doubt that
the relationship between Georgie and Rory will be volcanic. I think it will
erupt and more drama will inevitably unfold.
I asked
Georgie whether Rory had yet got her name tattooed on his body. She told me
that she didn't think he had but she wasn't really sure. When I suggested that
there wasn't much un-inked skin left on Rory for a tattoo of
"Georgina" she agreed. I told her that I hoped that she wouldn't get
Rory's name tattooed anywhere on her torso and she laughed. It was more of a
scoff really.
She told me
not to worry on that front.
When I asked
Georgie whether Rory had yet joined a Motorcycle Gang she told me not to be
stupid. She told me that Rory didn't have a motor cycle nor indeed even a
drivers license. Georgie told me that Rory’s Mum drove him everywhere.
I hope Rory's
mum takes him to watch Georgie play soccer one Saturday.
He should
definitely be there to watch her and to cheer her on.
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