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"Like a typical man he can't multi-task, one minute he's going to do a TV interview about pies and the next he's off somewhere else for puddings"...OH thought "and for this I got my hair done"

Suddenly Fido...surely not his Police dog name maybe he's pet name...stopped...and just stared out to the distance.....Allan could make out flashing lights in the sky...what was it...a drone...nope....was it an Ailen space ship......

Nope, it was a police helicopter returning back to base.

Allan, his wife, and Fido, hid under a convenient railway tunnel until it had safely passed over.

Fido was really enjoying his new-found freedom. He'd not had so much fun since he ran berserk in the Police Station and chewed the Superintendent's new shoes.

"How convenient that tunnel was there" said OH " here in the middle of nowhere"

"Don't question it woman" Allan wanted to say but wisely didn't instead he said " Fido want a treat?"

Well what dog wouldn't, so Allan told him to find it then......unknown to Allan Fido is a drug dog and he suddenly got a whiff of something from a nearby garden shed and he was off........

whimpering as he went. The dog, not Allan.

The shed had one small window to it, and Allan could see two figures moving around inside.

Various glooping noises were coming from inside, and the windows were steamed up. 'Not the Man In The White Suit?' thought Allan.

The dog was sniffing furiously, whatever it was, it had got right up his nose.

Allan and his OH crept up to the window and peered in....

and what should they see.....someone who looked like Allan twin...rolled up trousers and all...well you could have knocked Allan down with a feather until he noticed who the second person was...none other than Rick himself...Allan would have burst into the shed but Fido beat him to it dragging Allan behind him.

"By 'eck" shouted Allan twin "what a lovely dog and what have you dragged in with you?".....then for a second there was silence then "Oh gawd it's my long lost twin ma said you'd turn up one day"

Allan for once was speechless.......

Allan knew where HE had been all his life ( well apart from the odd times after a good night out with his mates, when things got a bit hazy ) but where had this other chap been lurking?

Where had he been in their formative years?

Then Allan remembered, very vaguely, that there used to be family trips to.....................

that funny holiday camp on the East Coat. All those chalets in neat rows, woken every morning with sounds of a xylophone binging-bonging, and those dulcet tones of that lovely Welsh lady.

Once breakfast was over, all the kids used to congregate in the main square for exercise and games.

Mind, Allan was always curious why they had their height, weight etc taken on the first day of their two week stay.....

To this day he hates the sound of the xylophone and Morning campers...and having his picture taken.

Allan slowly approached the stranger but Rick suddenly said "So Allan met long lost twin Herbert. He's been telling me all about the skeletons in the closet so to speak....how you ate so much they couldn't afford to keep two of you and that lovely couple wanted the good looking one but settled for Herbert instead"

Allan was still speechless.....then OH said......

'Oh do shut up, Rick. Standing there gloating like the old billy gloat you are. Fido led us to this hut on the allotment as he's a trained sniffer dog. We've tried to teach him to use a hankie but he still sniffs all the time.

He brought us here as he thought that he detected the scent of drugs and it appears that he may have been correct and I suspect that you may have consumed some or all of them, otherwise why would you be stood there with a full length mirror talking to Allan's reflection saying that it's Allan's long lost twin brother ?'

'How can that be?' said Rick. 'You are 6ft tall, slim and good looking with athletic form, while he is 5ft, fat and as ugly as sin, man'

Allan, gently suggested he was looking in a distorted mirror, filched from the Hall of Mirrors at the local amusement arcade.

Fido was sniffing furiously, he could smell cake, but could not get to it.

A drug fug hung in the air, didnt smell much like Old Holborn, but yet again, some people smoke tea-leaves. Maybe it was Earl Grey wafting around in the air.

The aroma made Allan search the few remaining brain cells that floated around his cranium as they stirred up distant memories.

That's it, he thought. Very many, well too many actually, years ago he used to smoke a pipe but the pipe tobacco was too strong for him, so he used to buy ordinary cigarette tobacco and mix it with 'herbal' tobacco freely available (well at a retail price) at all good herbal stores.

This gave him an aura of sophistication and the aroma of a compost heap.

Happy days, thought Allan through the mists of time.

He remembered too that his pipe smoking resulted in an aerated front to his Bri-nylon shirts, when tiny bits of smouldering tobacco dropped on him. No wonder he'd had to wear those loud-patterned wide kipper ties to hide the holes.....

Ah yes............

Allan was brought back into the present day abruptly, when Fido suddenly launched himself into the far corner of the shed and barked furiously at a heap of hessian sacks.

What had he found?

Allan raised his head and sniffed like a Bisto kid!

'Ugh, wet sacking, reminds me of wet sports days at prep school'

Nevertheless, old Fido was having a field day, sniffing and wagging his tail like billyo.

'Lets get this over with' though Allan, let Fido have a dekko, then I will chuck it a ball I just happen to have on my person, and we can kip down here for an hour or two'

Allan carefully undid the rope around the top of one of the sacks, pulled the top apart, and peered inside......

...there were Christmas presents galore.....it looked like Santa had lost a bag of presents but how could that be??

What to do.....Fido was trying to get into one of the presents, Allan opened it and found a tin of biscuits good he thought we're all starving.

After munching until they could munch no more they started opening some more and what should they find but......

A lovely bunch of coconuts together with the girl's letter requesting the said bunch asking for them to be delivered to her Aunt Sally.

Allan's eyes filled with tears as he read the pathetically childish note until he saw the signature which appeared to be by one W. Gummidge

Allan decided to take Fido for a walk so that he could clear his head.

Quite why Fido needed his dead clearing was, like so many happenings in this saga, never properly explained.

If anything, it was Allan who needed his head clearing and then he could look for a new set of tenants prepared to occupy it, but this time he would charge them rent

Many families of Numbskulls were busily filling in their application forms. Surely one of them would be suitable to occupy Allan's noggin.

The clear night air did wonders for Allan, both he and Fido could smell the petrol fumes of the cars passing by. Suddenly Allan realised he had walked to a busy main road. If only he knew where he was, if only he knew what day it was, if only, if only....

If only this story could get back on track it would be easier to everyone to think of something more silly than the last, at least Allan had the excuse of being dazed and confused...

Allan knew what day it was; it was the day after yesterday and the day before tomorrow.

As for knowing where he was, Allan thought sadly to himself, why bother when every time he thinks he's heading in the right direction the voices in his head are insisting that he's going to Melton Mowbray.

All he really knew was that he came from a land down under where women glow and men chunder, and he was really missing the XXXX beer and kangaroo snags.

He looked at Fido and wondered what a dog sausage would taste like. He'd read somewhere that there was an actual breed of dog reared for such a purpose.

Those poor sausage dogs he thought

Okay so the lure of TV cameras and fresh pies wasn't as strong as black puddings and now possibly sausage rolls......so Allan had to decide.....where was the best place locally to go to for either of these items......and would OH object to yet another twist in her travels.....and now you mention it where was OH and Rik....

Rick and OH were waiting patiently in the shed. The fug had lifted, it seemed someone had left the door open from New Year, and it was firework smoke.

Allan briskly went back to the shed with said Fido.

'Listen dearest, and you,' said Allan 'no more shilly-shallying, we have to get on our travels again. That full english has disappeared, and I am a little peckish now. I say we head towards Melton Mowbray, get some pies and then decide on our next rollicking adventure. What say you?'

Allan was felled with a left hook from......

Fido !! He wanted his black pudding, after all he'd tracked it so far. Before you could say "who knew dogs understood so much" he'd cuffed Allan; well he is a police dog and OH had a pair in her copious bag...don't ask; and glared at OH and Rick who seemed to understand exactly what to do...wish they'd share those thoughts with us though.......