AUGUST

I have never been a great fan of August, once past the Lughnasadh festival, I could stay in bed snoozing till September comes around.

The dictionary definition for august describes it as 'imposing and majestic'.

Yes, imposing it is, I can agree with that one. As for majestic absolutely most definitely not !

It is the month of the dogs and the dog bites. I remember, as a youth delivering newspapers up and down the hills of a small market town and of leaving loads of leather gloves between the jaws of ferocious snappy small pets; better that than fingers.

I'll give you another example of August: This morning I rang a friend around 10 o'clock and listened at first to empty silence as the call was picked up. I heard a hoarse rasping and growling sound, which I identified as a Jack Russell with laryngitis. My immediate thought was that I had misdialled through to the Animal Dispensary for Sick Creatures !

I was just about to apologise, when there came the muffled faintly recognisable voice of Ms Q, to whom I now offer my abject apologies for having imposed upon her Sunday morning slumbers.

This then is an example of the first definition of August.