The all-New Novel Life (and barking dogs named Brunhilde)

So I’ve had me an epiphany. A three-week-old epiphany, but when epiphanies come a-knocking I don’t like to refuse them.

Instead of rabbiting on about life and love and everything else (which is, in fact, what I do on my daily blog — www.blog.bridgetmcnulty.com), I’m going to stick to my word (or words, in my blog title) and give you small whimsical observations of the everyday.

I’m doing it anyway, all the time, gathering snippets of what people say and do, fragments of overheard conversation and wry observations of their reactions, basically gathering them all in a little bag to use in future novels.

But now I’ve decided I’ll share them with you, one a day, like a little biscotti or chocolate chip cookie with your morning coffee.

Confused?

Last week, for example, I was sitting on the Sea Point Promenade, staring out at the sea and putting all my thoughts in order. I was eavesdropping, as you do, on all the conversations strolling or speedwalking or jogging past me, and although most of them were centred on children misbehaving, and deals being closed, and How to Get More Success out of Daily Life, there was one in particular that caught my attention. More because it wasn’t a conversation so much as a demand barked at a poor dog.

She was one of those scruffy cute dogs that look like mongrels but are apparently not (clearly, I know no names of dogs) and she was sniffing around, as dogs do, and barking at fish heads and other dogs and the general excitement of being out in the open with a plethora of smells and a veritable army of other hounds to interact with. Her owner, a stern-looking woman in her 60s, impeccably dressed and with stylish label sunglasses on (clearly, I know no names of sunglasses) kept tugging at her lead, and when she didn’t budge, she reprimanded her: “Brunhilde, there’s no necessity!”

Now, there are two questions that spring immediately to mind:
1. What kind of a dog owner gets cross at her dog for barking? Is she unaware of the fact that dogs bark? Naturally?
2. What kind of a dog owner names their dog after one of the Valkyrie warrior maidens from German and Icelandic mythology?

If anyone has any light to shed on either of these conundrums, it would be much appreciated.