I woke up as usual and opened the curtains and looked down on to the lawn to see how the cephalumpus was doing.

‘Oh God. He’s gone’! I yelped.

‘Who’s gone’? Keith sleepily murmured.

‘The Cephalumpus. Oh God, He’s gone. His dog house (Cephalumpus house) has gone too’.

‘What’?

By this time my anger at his daft questions was almost volcanic.

‘For God’s sake, get out of bed, get dressed. We have to go find him’.

I furiously threw on some clothes, no sock, only shoes, grabbed my house keys and ran out and around to the lawn at the back of the flats. Increduously I was staring at the empty space where the rather large dog house should have been. I was jolted out of my apoplexy by the hollow howl of a Cephalumpus. I tore back around to the front of the flats to see Cephy running and bounding around Windmill Hill with the Dog House rapidly falling apart in to sticks, leaving only the chain attached to his collar.

‘Cephy’! ‘oo oo’! I called out.

‘Good boy Cephy’.

He stopped dead in his tracks, turned to look at me and suddenly realised it was one of his ‘Daddies’ calling him. He was now running full pelt excitedly and directly towards me.

SLAM! He had run straight in to me, knocking me over and winding me in the process. He was so over joyed to see me. He was licking me and doing his hollow howl sound.

‘Good boy’. I rather quietly and breathlessly. said. ‘Good boy’. Giving him one or two pats on his shoulder.

I grabbed firmly hold of his chain and said ‘Let’s go home and see Daddy’

He seemed to understand and walked ahead. (With what looked like happiness if you can tell that in a dinosaur)

I was suddenly aware that people were standing and staring at us (some had fainted too) As they had never seen a real live dinosaur before.

I got him back around to the back of the flats and put him in the garage.

‘Be a good boy Cephy, and I’ll go get Daddy’

‘Oooo’ he howled.

Keith was now awake and was standing on the back stairs looking at us.

‘You’re going to have to build a big fence between the flats and garages to keep him in’. I shouted up to him.

‘Ok, I’m off to B&Q now darling. I’ll get the stuff needed’. (Keith can always be relied on in a crisis as he’s so calm)

It was rather a mad start to a market day, but that’s how things are in Hitchin.

He was bounding over everything, tearing about like a labrador (in a dinosaur kind of a way) all over Windmill Hill and up and down Hollow Lane and around Garrison Court and back again. He was so excited by everything and everyone; It was all so new to him.

And then it came. The Poo. Dear God, there was so much of it. It was all over the place. It covered  Windmill Hill, the lawn, the bath and loo were full, I put it in all of the communal bins and bin bags, but it wasn’t enough. More seemed to come out of him that went in.

I decided by the end of the first week of having him that he was more a Poopasuarus than a Cephalumpus and that he needed to be house trained.

‘Dear God, when will it stop’? asked Keith, holding his nose.

‘I don’t know’? I replied tersely, ‘But I think I’ll have to get him some dinosaur nappies until he grows out of it’

‘I hope it’s a quick phase he’s going through’? said Keith hopefully.

How was I to know?  I had never house trained a Cephalumpus (A.K.A. The Poopasaurus) let alone had to take one out for ‘Walkies’ before. But I knew that he would be out of that phase soon. (As an owner of a Cephalumpus you get to know these things) I put it down to over excitedness, the change of water or we hadn’t got his feed right yet.

I don’t think anyone knows just how hard it is to feed a dinosaur. It takes a lot of feeding and that costs money; and then there are the giant nappies, the winding, the long leash that you need to keep them safe (and the public safe) At least you can sell the poo for good fertlizer and let it dry and use as brickettes for barbeques.

It was another 2 -3 months before we got him house trained.

I had been asleep for a while and awoke with a ‘I’ve been naughty’ to a bemused Keith.  ‘Yes’?  he replied, eliciting a response of sorts.

‘Remember when you said that it would be nice to have a pet’?

‘Yes’? a quizical response came.

‘Well, I bought it’!

‘Bought what’?

‘A Cephalumpus’

‘A what’?

‘A Cephalumpus from the pet shop’. came the respone in a terse manner as if he didn’t know what a Cephalumpus was. (Well of course he didn’t as it was the first time he had ever heard of one of them)

‘It’s a dinosaur –  and its cute’

‘Oh’. came the answer I wasn’t expecting.

‘Where are we going to keep it a dinsoaur’?

‘You can build it a dog house (or rather a cephalumpus house) outside on the lawn’

‘Can I now’? he replied in voice full of a resigned to the fact tone

‘Yes and it’ll be no trouble at all and I’ll look after it and it will give me something to do and it’s going to be lovely and just look at him, isn’t he the most lovely pet you’ve ever had’? I hurriedly replied.

‘How big is he going to grow to’?  Keith asked – definitely in a resigned to the fact tone of voice.

‘Oo, not very very big, but sort of big, but not BIG’ I answered (I didn’t know myself and couldn’t or wouldn’t tell Keith that)

‘And he’ll be no trouble at all and just look at him, he’s so cute isn’t he’? I hastily replied, desperate to confuse Keith so he couldn’t say no to me.

Keith gave up trying to argue with me at this point and went back to sleep and I was so happy that we now had a Cephalumpus as a pet.

(Many more animals were to follow such as the Baby Seal, a Donkey, Starfish, a Dolphin – OH and some fishcakes, A large cave, T-Rexs, The Alluring Goats, Anchevois, a Large hadrosaur Collider,  a Meatly Beast, The Great Equivialent, Lampies, a monk called The Feral Bede,  a Velocipatra, a Parasolalumpus , Eeps, The Glorious Traculator, Equities,The End Of The World Garage, Llandidlio, and things known as Traffic Bites)