We have recently learnt three new things about Duffy.

Thing the First.

As regular readers may recall, our last Duffywatch instalment saw us reflecting that we were all settling into Life At Wrightington Towers.

Ooooh, the hubris…

There we were, thinking that Duffy was feeling at home. That was, however, apparently but a foolish delusion on our part.

All along, it seems, her life with us has been nothing more than the cruellest of incarcerations - a fiendishly de-caninising amalgam of Château d’If, the Bastille, the Piombi, and Alcatraz…

…without the good bits of any of the above.

[Enter, stage left, Storm Eunice.]…

…[Exit, stage right, Duffy, via the back garden gate which has - unbeknown to us - been blown open by Eunice]

[Cue: Panic at Wrightington Towers]

[Robert scurries around the back garden, checks the street at the front, and increasingly frantically calls Duffy’s name. Joanna rushes upstairs and scampers between back bedroom and Robert’s study, to get a bird’s-eye view of the Field Over The Hedge and the street…

…until, eventually, returning from back bedroom to study for the gazillionth time, she sees a fleeting glimpse of a man slowly walking his dog on its lead, just before they disappear from view behind a tree.]

Joanna: [thinks] Didn’t that split-second glimpse of a dog’s rear end disappearing behind a tree look like Duffy?? But…but… surely not. That dog looks perfectly happy with him. It must be his dog.

[Hollers downstairs to Robert] Rob…? I’m not sure, but go out front now…

[Robert goes out front]

Robert: Duffy??

[Mystery Dog being slowly walked by man barely reacts]

Robert: Duffy!!

[Mystery Dog deigns to acknowledge Robert, and ambles happily towards him]

Can you guess, O Denizens of Wright History, where this is leading…?

Yup. That’s right. It’s leading to…

Thing the Second.

And Thing the Second is this: Duffies, it transpires, are very very friendly.*

*[as long as you’re not a cat or another dog].

They are, we have now discovered, more than happy to be put on a lead by a kind gentleman* who has spotted a random lurcher leaping over his and his neighbours’ back garden fences, generally having a whale of a time. They are also more than happy to then go for a slow, gentle stroll with him up and down the street, as he hopes that someone will be looking for them.

*[We were, as I’m sure you can imagine, very very effusive in our thanks to said kind gentleman. But alas we didn’t recognize him or know where he lives, so have not yet been able to give him a thank-you bottle of something, but we remain on the look-out for him, in order to rectify that.]

I’m sure that at this point, Dear Reader, you are thinking “Oh my goodness. Duffy must have been sooo effusive in her eagerness to demonstrate her regret at having caused you both so much anxiety”.

Well, Dear Reader, I shall allow you to draw your own conclusions…

She was, however, more reflective once she began to suspect that the house collar we immediately clamped on her was now going to be a permanent fixture.*

*[I know… We should have known, but we were soft…]

So. Does Duffy-dog now think that Wrightington Towers might not be so vile a prison that she needs to escape it at the earliest opportunity, Casanova-stylee?*

*[That reference, along with another above, is dedicated to The Venetian Empire alumni]

Well. Funny you should ask. This leads us to Thing the Third.

Thing the Third is that duffies are, apparently, complete and utter floozies.*

*[It’s OK. I do know. Were I to be casting any stones on that accusation, my house would be very glass. Nevertheless…]

I present the evidence (left. Captured but a few hours after The Great Escape).

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury… I ask you. Does this look like a suitably penitent pooch, finally appreciating that things aren’t necessarily so bad at Wrightington Towers?

I fear not. Please remember this when the inevitable Free the Bishopthorpe One campaign gains traction, which is surely but a matter of time...