Bobby and Bubba's Small Adventures

Bobby and Bubba’s small adventures – a warm welcome from the two boys.

Hello! Our names are Bobby and Bubba Coombs and we are brothers. Our parents, Alexander and Michela, say that we are British bulldogs; they stress the ‘British’ because there are now so many more French bulldogs in London than there are of us. But they hope that something called ‘Brexit’ will change that.

Most of the time, we all live together in Chelsea right in the middle of the city. Although the houses are beautiful and the streets pretty clean, there aren’t many green and grassy places you can go to run around and sniff. (Sniffing is our favourite hobby.) Still, we are allowed out every day so long as we wear a harness to keep us safe from the traffic. The traffic is noisy, gets up your nose and will hurt you if you run into it. As well as our harnesses, when it’s cold we wear ‘shooting jackets’. Smart or what? The rest of the time we live in a big rambling house in Warwickshire. Then we don’t need harnesses but just spend our days running about the fields, sniffing and licking the grass and, of course, sleeping. Bliss!

Of the two of us, Bubba has a bigger body but is really the goodie, goodie. On the other hand, Bobby, or Bob, is the mischievous one, who loves any adventure without ever thinking where it might lead. Bubba, meanwhile, likes his bed, his bone and, most of all, cuddling up to his parents on the sofa or their bed…but he does have a temper.

We are very lucky dogs. We have masses to eat, comfort galore and the cuddliest family in the world. We fight all the time but never hurt each other. Everyone says we have a dog’s life and are spoiled rotten, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t got our eight paws on the ground and our noses just as close.

The countryside is great but London is home. It’s beautiful but can be a very cruel place. For dogs, that can mean being abandoned on the cold hard and wet streets of London before the lucky ones get rescued by the Battersea Dog’s Home which is just across the park. For humankind it can mean sharp elbows, honking cars and rushing about without really seeing anybody else. Often humankind it’s not. But London is still home. Every day we go out to stroll, sniff and savour it. Nearly everyone likes to stop, to chat and pat. It’s amazing what you see from a foot above the ground. That’s where the sights, sounds and smells of London really are, and why they lead us to so many adventures.

However mischievous, sometimes disobedient and often naughty we might be, that’s what makes the world so wonderful.

So, come and join us on our walks of discovery!

Chapter 1 - Bubba, Bobby and the Tramp

Just like the trees in Marguerite Terrace, which Bobby and Bubba usually ‘watered’ on leaving home, Alfie was a regular stop on their walks around Chelsea. Styling himself a ‘gentleman of the highway’, Alfie seemed to live on a bench on Dovehouse Green, although, since it was only feet from the King’s Road and reeked of petrol, no one really knew why.

One morning at the beginning of summer, Bobby and Bubba were chasing their ball on the green – or at least as much as their harnesses, on the other end of which was Michela, would allow them. It didn’t take long before Michela was so entangled in knotting leads and swirling dogs that with one big heave…over she went on her bottom. A cackle of laughter cut through the Italian expletives. “You alright, darling?” Freed from his bench, Alfie shuffled over with a big smirk on his wrinkly face. Bobby ran up to him and to the fascinating smells issuing forth. Michela wasn’t so impressed and leapt upright. Armani Prive and Street Aroma don’t go well together. “I’m fine. Thanks.” Bobby and Bubba crowded around the old man, panting and wagging. “They’re so strong,” sighed Michela.

“Let me hold one while you get yourself together, doll,” Alfie offered,taking hold of Bobby’s lead.

“That’s so kind,” Michela replied dubiously. But Alfie beamed like he’d been offered a big pork chop. Bob and Bubba stood there gazing at his bedraggled face. He gazed back. “Beautiful, ain’t they? Smashed up faces look a bit like mine…” Another cackle was drowned out by the King’s Road. “Come on then, boys,” declared Michela as she grabbed Bobby and then hurried away without a backward glance.

One week later, Bobby and Bubba were back on the Green, this time with their number one daddy, Alexander. Alexander was the human they loved most of all, but that didn’t mean they listened to him very much. So, when they saw Alfie lying on his bench, they dragged Alexander over, wagging and shaking with delight.Bobby was just about to launch himself into a bout of licking and affection, when… “Bog off, you two,” Alfie snarled – at least that’s what it soundedlike, muffled as he was in his shabby old blanket. “Can’t you see I’m not very good?” “Sorry, Alf.” Alexander pulled Bubba away from his enthusiasticlicking of the huddled man. Just as he did, he caught sight of Alfie’s face – the bloodied welts on his cheek and the deepening bruise around what used to be his eye.

“Bloody hell, Alfie,” he blurted. “What on earth happened to you?” Bobby and Bubba sat like stones, stiller than they’d ever sat before. Bobby cocked his head. Neither had seen blood before and it made them twitchy. “Bit of sport for the World’s End boot boys and their posh mates,” said Alfie. “Didn’t like me making me bed on their park bench.” “Bullies!” muttered Alexander. Bobby and Bubba weren’t meant to hear and didn’t understand when they did. Alfie’s eyes were sad. Alexander looked angrier than they’d ever seen him before. “Well, you can’t stay here like this, old fella. Got to get you cleaned up and looked at.” Alexander’s huge arms lifted Alfie from his bench as if he was a child. Bobby and Bubba followed on their best behaviour…no sniffing and no pulling.

And then Bubba had a moment of genius, led as usual by his nose. There was something about the smell of Alfie’s clothes which reminded him of a place he used to pass on the King’s Road. He began barking like he’d never barked before. He stood, motionless as a rock, staring at a building up the street. Suddenly he began to pull. When Bubba pulls, it’s like a tug dragging the Queen Elizabeth. The Ivy, Natwest and Chelsea Town Hall seemed to fly past as Bubba dragged the little posse in his wake. Bubba was headed for Boots, two hundred yards up the King’s Road. “Come on, you two,” he barked. Bobby and Bubba were suddenly on a mission of mercy. Obedience personified. They led Alexander along, then sat outside the shop either side of Alfie, like two solid bookends either side of an ancient collection of papers.

Minutes later, Alexander emerged with a bag smelling of carbolic and antiseptic. The little procession continued on its way when, a hundredyards on, it was Bobby now who thought he remembered something…like an old biscuit down the back of the sofa…but he couldn’t think what. He suddenly stopped and stared across the teeming road. Bubba did likewise, bringing Alexander to a screeching and slightly irritated halt. Then the penny dropped – and Bobby started barking. Bubba wasn’t sure why but joined in anyway. Bobby came to a halt at the door of the Methodist Church, and at a sign which rather unimaginatively read, ‘Glass Door’.

Alexander studied it too. “Isn’t that the local homeless shelter, Bob? You are a clever boy.” Bubba and Bobby’s tails went into overdrive – or would have done had Bubba ever grown one. “You OK, mate?” Alexander asked Alfie, rather foolishly in the circumstances. “Can’t clean you up here in the street, but these two seem to have come up with a rather good idea…” So, off the little procession stumbled, one of Alexander’s arms around Alfie’s bony body and one holding his worldly possessions. Bobby and Bubba now didn’t need their harnesses and they carefully led the way straight into Glass Door, whose smells had jogged Bubba’s memory into action. Musty, sweaty but sweet, the winey odours inside would stay with the boys forever. Kindly and capable hands took Alfie into a side room while Alexander explained to the young volunteers what they had seen, how they came to be there and Bubba and Bobby’s part in it. “Good boys” was the signal for a frenzy of patting, cuddling and licking, laced with biscuits and treats for Bubba and Bob, the heroes of the hour…and a glorious brew for Alexander.

Twenty minutes later Alfie emerged shaken but calm, bandaged but unbowed. “He can have a bed here for the next few nights,” the man from Glass Door said, “but after that it’s up to our useless social services or he’s back on the streets.” “Well, he isn’t going there,” declared Alexander to Bobby and Bubba’s delight. “I’m no Good Samaritan but we’re not letting Alfie out of sight until we find him a roof over his head.”

So that’s how Bobby and Bubba acquired their new best friend, occasional house guest and regular walker and companion. Like most things in life, they couldn’t solve Alfie’s problems, but they could certainly lighten his load. Alfie did eventually find a roof to call his own and even a job to keep himself. And, you know what, it brought them all – Alexander, Alfie, Michela and, of course, Bobby and Bubba – more happiness than any of them could ever dream of.

Chapter 2 - Bobby, Bubba and the Angel

Bobby and Bubba weren’t big into religion. Although their grandpa, Anthony, went to the Old Church in Chelsea every Sunday morning, Bobby and Bubba’s own parents, Alexander and Michela, usually stayed in bed. Sundays, much like every day, were generally devoted to eating, playing, walking and sleeping rather than to God. Which was a pity. For although Bobby and Bubba loved Chelsea and most of the people in it, they noticed things. Their walks smelled of fag ends, were littered with discarded crisp packets, and their paws were often sticky with pavement chewing gum they couldn’t avoid. Even worse, Bubba once stepped in a bag of doggy ‘unmentionable’ which had just been dropped in the street. He wasn’t allowed in the house again until he’d been hosed and disinfected…

But sadly, it went beyond this. More and more, Bob and Bubba noticed little things which seemed to sour the milk of human kindness. The ever longer blasts of car horns; the finger in the air from cyclists running a red light; Bobby once even saw some local lads barging a lady as she stepped into the newspaper shop. Another time, Bubba couldn’t understand how a mother leaving school slapped her little boy in the middle of the street! More and more, people seemed to be living in little ‘bubbles’, too much in a rush to even look at, far less talk to, their fellow humans. Covid-19, masks and social distancing only made that worse.

As Bubba once remarked to Bobby, although it wasn’t exactly Gotham City out there, the rough edges of uncaring seemed to be seeping everywhere and into everyone – sometimes even into their own family. One day, Bobby and Bubba were at their grandparents’ house ready for a walk. Andrea and Anthony, grandpa and grandma, weren’t arguing but the boys noticed that, after fixing their harnesses, they weren’t exactly walking close together. A chill was in the air. Although it was early May, all the budding leaves of kindness and generosity seemed to be absent from the trees. For the umpteenth time, Anthony was moaning about what he unkindly liked to call Andrea’s ‘Little Book of Resentments’. Bobby was being brought up sharp with “Wait!” and Bubba was continually being dragged away from rather interesting smells in the box hedges of Christchurch Street. The milk of human kindness was souring, and you could almost smell it.

The toxic little party had just reached the front doors of Christ Church itself and were turning the corner. Anthony was just about to launch yet another bad-tempered salvo, when Bobby noticed a thin, ragged creature, with straggly hair and a hoodie pulled over an old Chelsea football shirt. As this creature was hurrying past, suddenly its voice rang out. “Be kind to her mate – you’re meant to be a gentleman,” he said in a broad cockney accent. Anthony was just about to tell him to mind his own business when the words died in his mouth. He, Andrea, Bobby and Bubba were frozen in their tracks and they gaped after the retreating little figure. The oracle had spoken. Before anyone could regain the power of speech, the oracle had disappeared. For all of them, time was suspended like an intake of breath.

“Well,” sighed Anthony at last, his head throbbing as though he’d been struck by lightning. He turned to Andrea. “I’m so sorry, beauty. I’m being an absolute pain. Please forgive me.” Thunderstruck, Bobby and Bubba looked from husband to wife and back again.

“He was dead right, though,” Andrea replied.

Just then the church clock struck midday. Although it was a Sunday, during the Covid lockdown all the churches had been closed. Even so, it seemed that God had found a way to send His message of kindness and love to a family and to a world much in danger of forgetting it. It didn’t need a sermon, psalms or a church service. Just Bobby, Bubba and their grandparents out for a walk. The world felt refreshed. Of course, the supernatural aura wore off quickly. The boys were soon off again, pulling and scrapping as usual. But they did notice that the sun had come out and that Andrea and Anthony were suddenly holding hands again.