Hang Your Hat, Winchester

“Hang your Hat provides the comforts of home with the luxury of a hotel suite.” That’s what it says on the tin. It is also schizophrenic as it says “No Pets” but “PETS UNDER CONSIDERATION FROM OWNER AT £20 PER PET, PER WEEK”. Worth a shot we thought. Lulu is a fine animal, good-looking, refined, holds a good conversation and doesn’t drink or smoke. And for us Lulu is one of the comforts of home.

So we approached the agent, Mulberry Cottages (MC), to see if the princess could be considered. We gave her a good reference. MC is a remarkably honest, some might say naïve, travel agency. They sent me this reply.

Now then. Does this sound like ‘consideration’? Does this sound like the great British love of dogs? Or does it sound like Ebenezer Scrooge in drag. Leave it in a car??????

I sent a witty, pithy response back offering to put Brenda up on the same terms if she ever needed accommodation. I would happily cage her and leave her in a car somewhere.

Then I received a second email from MC. This was clearly a strong ticking off for the person who was naïve enough to send me the full text. It was not intended for me but hey, if you don’t know how to use the reply functions properly I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’m sure MC has an internal training course for “How to use email”. They might also help Brenda with her spelling.

Luckily for us MC has a Facebook page (and indeed a Google Plus page) where we can leave questions such as:

Could you ask Brenda Hulme to clarify her policy on pets. Or; does Brenda Hulme like being caged and left in a car and does she think this is a good way to treat a dog?

Here is the MC FB link:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mulberry-Cottages/103265138613

Indeed we might ask MC whether they condone such suggestions. I am thinking of passing her suggestion to the RSPCA.

Nevertheless, Lulu is feeling quite charitable and has penned a few words in the hope that like her curmudgeonly predecessor she may see the light. I believe I did hear a faint rattling of chains from Lulu’s basket as she wrote this.

Brenda was better than her word. She did it all, and infinitely more; and to Lulu, who did NOT die, she was a second mother. She became as good a friend, as good a mistress, and as good a woman, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in her, but she let them laugh, and little heeded them; for she was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, she thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. Her own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for her.

 She had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of her, that she knew how to keep Christmas well, if any woman alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Lulu observed, God bless Us, Every One!

From A Christmas Brenda and with apologies to Charles Dickens.