A dog-shit on a stick.

As the dawn breaks, and so long as I am at home, Dolly and I set off for our 90 minute walk around the lakes opposite our house.

Come rain, cold or shine, we are there.

If it is shine then I have my Musto shooting waistcoat, if it is cold then I have my Barbour shooting fleece and it is it rain I have my Ocean Rainwear long green coat.

Modern etiquette of dog-walking has it, and quite rightly so, that one does not leave a dog turd laying about, one collects it and either takes it home or deposits it in the box provided (looks like a letter box to be honest). So the decent dog-walker has pockets full of dog-poo bags. Personally I use Tesco blue stripe nappy bags. All three dog walking coats normally have the left pocket stuffed full of such bags.

So what is a chap to do when, ten minutes into the walk and thus Dolly is roaming free at the lake, she does her first shit of the walk (the record is six even though she gets walked twice a day at least and is in the garden for the balance as often as she wants), he discovers only two bags available.

I'll tell you what he does, at the third poo he considers using leaves as a makeshift bag, but it being autumn they are a bit stiff and he does not want to get dog-shit on his gloves.

So, this chap being a logical problem solver thinks, I'll stab the offending poo with a stick and take it to the bin.

My first choice stick was too thick and just broke the turd in half, so I found a thinner one (all of this at 7:15 this morning in the pissing rain and with Dolly (I like sticks, can I play this game please) assisting).

So I now have two halves of the same dog turd on a stick and march off in triumph toward the dog poo bin.

A couple of minutes later, a lady I always see walking her rather lovely Springer called Ruby, rounded the corner and offered her usual cheery Hello Dolly aimed at me and the dog.

She did a sort of comedy skid to a halt combined with an H.E. Bateman appalled stare at me and my dog-turd kebab and wished me a lovely if somewhat wet morning and sped away before I could explain.

The dog walking fraternity of Leybourne Country Park already think I am a little bit more than mad and I don't think I helped today at all!

I may have to move to Estonia.