“I think this town ought to be called “Poo-poo Town”” the Small Girl announced last week as we negotiated our way daintily around the mounds of stale dog mess littering the pavements leading down to Big School.
“I agree, Sausage”, I sighed, having only last week called angrily over to one of my more far-flung neighbours to complain about her roaming dogs using my front lawn as a lavatory. (She had looked at me as if I were quite mad, clutching her door in bewilderment and gazing slowly, mouth agape, from the enormously fat Labrador at her feet to my house, three doors away).
I often wonder why people let their dogs roam the streets this way in Ireland, for it is just as unlawful in Newbridge as it is in, say, London, where dog-owners usually fulfil their obligation to clean up after their pets. It’s all down to sheer laziness, I suspect; the job of picking up after your dog rendered unnecessary if you don’t ever bother to go with it when it goes for a walk.
The Small People, however (being at that stage of childhood where toilet humour is considered the highest form of wit), love the excuse to have constant conversations about poo. “Eeeeuuuurrrgggh! Dog poo!” shouts the Small Girl every morning as we head off for school. And “Where’s the poo? Let me see it!” cries the Very Small Boy, ambling over to peer at it then delightedly crying “Eeeeuuuurrrgggh! Poo-poo!”.It all adds to my general sense of unreality at the moment, as I struggle to wean myself off my anti-depressants. Rather pleasantly labelled “discontinuation syndrome” by drug manufacturers and GPs, the dizziness, irritability, sleeplessness, listlessness and nausea brought about by lowering your intake of Venlafaxine is in reality nothing other than a pretty unpleasant dose of good old-fashioned drug withdrawal.
I deal with it by running. Concentrating on breathing, posture, pace, becomes my escape - almost a form of meditation - allowing me to focus on nothing other than this moment, now. I went for a long run on Saturday morning, finding it harder than usual because of the withdrawal. Gasping for breath, sweat-blinded eyes struggling to focus, I forced myself to run for 6k until I could practically feel the drugs leaving my system.The feeling of achievement after a run like that is incomparable and I jogged the last few steps to my front door triumphantly, realising a moment too late that one confident foot was landing square in the middle of a fresh pile of dog poo…
“Oh shit” I sighed, and limped dejectedly the rest of the way to the house to clean my shoes.
