Of dates and dogs

Crazy to think that we are getting very close to the end of the Summer holidays. I've been so locked into 'dealing with each day' mode that I haven't noticed the weeks flying by, and suddenly we're on the cusp of September. Well - I say that - in reality there's still a week left in August, so the children are only two-thirds of the way through their break, so I'm not sure why I'm pining the departure of Summer just yet. But still - there's been a definite cooling-off of the air temperature, and I am certainly noticing the earlier onset of darkness in the evenings, so we're obviously closer to Autumn than Spring now.  Soon our mad busy period onsite will be behind us and we'll be wondering what to do with ourselves between tasks! (I say that now - give it a couple of months and I'll be delighted that it's quieter and wondering how the hell we survived another peak season!).
Anyway - dragging myself away from my online obsession with the weather (which I swear I hardly ever mention in conversation away from this blogsite) let me tell you of a fun incident today, that might have been a very different story if the outcome had been different, but was nevertheless fun to deal with.
We had a stray dog wandering around the site this afternoon. Might not sound that big an event, but it's not something that we ever normally encounter. The site is well enclosed and well protected, we have a strict no-pets policy, and we take great care to keep things like rodents at bay at all times too, so apart from the odd playful robin or annoying seagull, we're pretty much an animal-free zone. So I was quite surprised when I got a radio call to tell me there was a runaway rottweiler running around near the picnic area near the swimming pool. I think the fact that it was a rottweiler was what bothered people. If it was a toy poodle I doubt I'd have heard a murmur, but the fact that it was a recognisably 'possibly dangerous' breed meant middle-aged mums were wailing and crying and tearing their hair out and half the staff were shitting themselves about rabies. Anyway, the point is that there are now probably dozens of video clips trending around the internet of several people (including this writer) trying to corner the beast and attach a lead to it, while the happy bouncy object of our attention saw the whole thing as a jolly jape and a great game and shifted sideways and dramatically dipped and led us all a merry dance for close to an hour.
His name was Gruff, it transpired, and his owner had foolishly opened the back door of the car while trying to retrieve a roll-away bottle of Pepsi, allowing Gruff the necessary half-second to spring himself free and leg it down the nearest footpath to freedom, which happened to run alongside the edge of our site. He found his way to the main gate, where security say they were 'distracted by the duties of letting people on and off, which we weren't really hired to do' and trotted happily under the barrier and made himself at home by the swimming pool.
I mean, a lesser manager would be furious with people, but I found the whole thing amusing to watch back on the CCTV coverage and it broke the day up a treat, so I'm not complaining. And neither is anybody else, thank goodness, so it's just another story to tell and another day to remember, and not the apocalyptic child-massacring devil-dog encounter that a couple of mums were making it out to be at 3.15 this afternoon.

RC 24-8-24