Salty's Blankie Salty's Waggy Tales

Ah! Hello there!

I'm Old Jack and this is Salty.

Salty loves living here with me

and she often has adventures of her own.

So, are you sitting comfortably?

Good.

Then I'll tell you one of Salty's Waggy Tales!

HOOTER BLOWS

It was washing and cleaning day in Staithes.

Once every month, all of Salty's precious things

got washed and cleaned.

Her basket was brushed,

her special carpet was swept

and her blue blankie was washed.

Now, in all the world, the one thing Salty hated

was having her blue blankie washed.

"It doesn't need washing!" she howled.

"I like its smelly smells. I like it the way it is now!"

Well, this particular day, Salty was so fed up

with having her blankie washed she decided to hide it.

She trotted through Staithes, looking for a place to put it

and, before long, she'd gone as far as the lifeboat station

and there, beside the long wall,

was a large pile of lobster pots.

The perfect place to hide a blankie!

Salty carefully pushed the blankie underneath a lobster pot

and was very pleased with the results.

You could hardly see it.

But then, the fishermen came by

and one by one they picked up the lobster pots

and carried them off to their boats.

Eventually, there were no lobster pots left on the quayside at all.

Just Salty's blue blankie.

Salty decided she needed a better place to hide it.

So she picked it up and carried it over the bridge

and down an alleyway until she found the perfect spot.

On a wall sat a cardboard box -

she could hide blue blankie in the cardboard box

until washing and cleaning day was over.

"He-he! Perfect!"

She dropped it into the cardboard box

and looked very pleased with herself.

But what Salty didn't realise was that today was also bins day,

and all the rubbish in Staithes was being collected and taken away

to be dropped into the big, noisy dustcart.

Before you could say "smelly blankets",

the box was picked up and taken away.

"No!" barked Salty.

She didn't want blue blankie to be squished and squashed

in the back of a dust cart!

The lady collecting the rubbish must have heard Salty's barking

because she stopped what she was doing and looked at Salty.

Then she looked inside the box and smiled.

She rummaged around and pulled blue blankie out,

then she carefully hung it on a wall

for Salty to gather up.

Salty was very, very grateful.

No more cardboard boxes for her,

she needed to find somewhere much safer to hide blue blankie.

And then she saw the perfect place.

It was on the back garden of a house.

A lovely basket that was just right for putting blankies in.

She sneaked into the garden

and carefully put blue blankie in the basket

where it would be safe.

But Salty was wrong.

It wasn't safe at all.

A man came out of his house picked the basket up

and put blue blankie straight in the washing machine

with some other clothes.

It was a laundry basket!

The worst place to hide a blue blankie

that you didn't want to be washed. Oh.

Salty had to wait for an hour

for blue blankie to come out of the washing machine

and then another three hours for it to dry!

But when she finally got her blankie

down from the washing line,

it smelt clean and fresh

and, well, not too bad, really.

"Perhaps I should hide blue blankie in laundry baskets more often,"

thought Salty, as she trotted back down the street.

All the way back to The Rainbow and home.

Lovely old Salty!

She's the best dog in the world.