It was a brindle coated version of The Simpsons' family dog "Santa's Little Helper" that had buried its nose into the leg of my trousers.
I was a bit taken aback to find the dog attached to one of to my lower limbs.
It had sneaked up on me from behind the lounge doorway under the cover of the combined affect of my work clipboard and eye contact enforced by my greeting by the homeowner, mistress of said hound. She immediately referred to it, as if making an early apology, as a Rescue Dog. This conjured up in my mind a very lovely image of it's fragile, lean frame dangling by a hoist from underneath a bright yellow RAF helicopter gesturing with its tiny paws towards those afflicted by flood or other natural disaster to grab and hold on.
Like most dogs heartlessly discarded, abandoned or just found wandering the city streets it was of mixed and dubious breeding. The head was classic borzoi, perhaps from a pedigree parent having a night out on the tiles, the main torso definitely whippet and the colouring more commonly found on a chunky Staffie terrier.
I dismissed the inevitable imagery of what must have been an horrific mating ritual in a back alley or on the bank of one of the deep drain cuttings which bisected the area. Nevertheless, it was a nice looking mongrel with trusting eyes, a nice but not fussy nature and ,as I found out later when sensing a dampness on my trouser leg on my return to the car, a very wet and sticky nose.
The animal did not bite or shy away when I offered an upturned palm in a gesture of friendship.
From therein on we were pals for the duration of my visit to its home and for the next 30 minutes there was never more than a couple of feet separating us. The dog was a big help to me in finding a clear pathway through the house as in the kindest of phrases it was "a lot lived in".
On entering the front room I was almost immediately legged up by a very small child clad in a grubby onesie and with a Tommee Tippee drinking cup permanently attached to its rosy cheeked little face. It was, I later back counted, the first of five and possibly six other wee mites in the house who either resided there permanently or were just visiting as a member of an extended family or group of playmates.
I could not reach any of the wall surfaces in the living room to carry out my routine inspection for dampness or other defects because of the congregation of children and the vast amount of their accompanying toys and accessories.
The homeowner and another woman whom I presumed to be a parent of one or more of the under 5's population were now sat chatting on the sofa amongst a large pile of clothes either in preparedness for ironing or putting away. Such was the congestion and accumulation in the room that I had to reverse out taking care not to come into contact with or crush any of the children or their belongings.
The rear living room was, I hoped, more accessible but in squeezing through the door against a hidden obstruction behind I was met by the sight of a huge table or rather a collection of smaller tables pushed together on which some sort of large scale E Bay operation was being masterminded. Computer monitors flickered and beeped as new emails arrived apparently updating the status of bids and recording enquiries of interested but not yet convinced bidders and prospective buyers for a wide miscellanea of goods and chattels.
I sidled around the working area with the dog just ahead, casually glancing back to make sure that I was still on the trail. Like a maze we wound around the obstacles in that room for what seemed an eternity. I was a bit panicky about knocking something over or, worst still, causing any of the power cables or connections to be dislodged by my heavy footfall or a trip. It is not unknown for me to have to make a token payment to compensate for a breakage in a house.
In contrast, the kitchen was like a broad and wide prairie stretching into the distance, or at least to the back door. Being a long and narrow room most of the belongings and trappings of modern life were distributed around its margins on every available worktop and surface leaving a clear central aisle. This allowed the dog to pause for a well earned scratch and the sight of that action caused me to do the same, I hoped out of mimickry and not an infestation of fleas.
I dare not go through that far door on the basis of what I had already encountered in the main house.
It led into what I tend to loosely describe as a verandah. This old fashioned term can be used to describe all manner of structures from a lean to shack to almost a conservatory. Space was again well oversubscribed, this time with plastic home brew kegs, rack upon rack of empty brown glass beer bottles and pieces of what looked like a classic Ford Cortina.
The dog sniffed around in an interested way and whilst it was distracted I made my way back through to the staircase to go upstairs.
Two small girls, the eldest of the tribe I had so far seen, were having a role play tea party on the landing. I knew this from stumbling over on and crushing at least two cups and saucers of their moulded plastic service and scattering a section of vacuumn moulded fruits and vegetables before me.
They gave me a dirty look not often achieved by those many years older.
The large, double windowed front bedroom, as with most of the similar properties in the street, had been partitioned into two smaller rooms. These were inaccessible because of yet more stored and stacked items of furniture, personal belongings and toys.
I was yet to come across where any of the occupants of the house actually slept but the collection of single bed and bunks in the next room accounted for this. It was a bit like one of those dormitory rooms in a Dickensian Boarding School.
Down the darkened landing, made more hazardous by unidentified debris crunching under foot I headed towards a thin beam of electric light which shone from under another closed door.
This was the bathroom.
It was staggeringly, surprisingly clean and sanitary and I have nothing more to report on that.
The fourth bedroom showed signs of occupancy but was a return to the chaos and disorder that reigned supreme in the house with the carpet littered with cast off clothing, bundles of lint, dust and neglect.
I had been able to negotiate through the whole of the accommodation without too many mishaps apart from upsetting the two little ladies whilst they did tea.
My constant canine companion looked sad as I bade my farewells to the small crowd in the hallway.
We may never meet again but the place and the animal had made a bit of an impression, for sure.
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