29/05/2026
The Uskiverse Chronicles
**Oslo and the Peacock of Annie’s Garden**
It began, as many significant events in Usk do, with a patient casually mentioning something extraordinary while sitting in the dental chair.
Annie had come in for a check-up, entirely unaware that she was about to set in motion one of the most flamboyant episodes in the history of Usk Dental Practice.
“I’ve got a peacock in the garden at the moment,” she said.
Miles paused, wondering if this something else altogether, but then he remembered it was Usk where anythings happens
Steph looked up from reception.
Krista stopped typing.
Jude, who had heard most things in dentistry and believed herself immune to surprise, slowly lowered the suction hose.
“A peacock?” said Miles.
“Yes,” said Annie. “Full display. Feathers everywhere. Strutting about like he owns the place.”
At this, Oslo, who had been lying under the desk like a loyal black hearthrug with opinions, opened one eye.
A peacock.
Displaying.
Feathers everywhere.
Strutting.
Oslo did not like the sound of this at all.
Oslo was a borador of distinction. Black as a moonless night, with a noble little white flash on his chest, he considered himself already quite magnificent. He had a powerful tail, excellent paws, soulful eyes, and a proven ability to locate unattended sausage rolls at a range of up to thirty-seven feet.
But feathers?
A great spreading fan?
Public admiration?
This was dangerous territory.
By lunchtime, the story had spread through the practice.
“Apparently it’s absolutely enormous,” said Steph. (not for the first time)
“Beautiful colours,” said Krista.
“Very regal,” said Jude.
Oslo sat by the door, pretending not to listen, while clearly listening with every molecule of his ears.
Beautiful colours.
Very regal.
Absolutely enormous.
He looked down at his own tail.
It was a good tail. A practical tail. A tail of character. A tail that had cleared mugs from coffee tables, slapped cupboards shut, and once knocked a full packet of custard creams into the recycling. But it did not, he had to admit, open into a shimmering fan of glory.
Something had to be done.
That afternoon, while Miles was distracted writing yet another letter to yet another organisation that had apparently mistaken “professional duty” for “competitive napping,” Oslo slipped out into Usk with a mission.
His first stop was Neil the butcher.
Neil was behind the counter arranging sausages with the solemnity of a man preparing ceremonial regalia.
“Afternoon, Oslo,” said Neil. “What can I do you for?”
Oslo placed both front paws on the counter and fixed Neil with the look.
It was a look that said: *I require meat, pageantry, and possibly structural engineering.*
Neil, who had lived in Usk long enough to understand that some conversations did not need words, leaned forward.
“Big project, is it?”
Oslo wagged once.
“Competitive?”
Two wags.
“Against poultry?”
Oslo narrowed his eyes.
Neil nodded gravely.
“Say no more.”
Within minutes, Neil had assembled a magnificent selection: sausages, chicken pieces, lamb cubes, tiny meatballs, and several items he described only as “best not to ask, but he’ll like them.”
“These,” said Neil, wrapping them carefully, “are not mere kebabs. These are battle standards.”
Oslo accepted them with appropriate dignity and only ate one sausage on the way out, which he considered self-restraint of the highest order.
Next came Monica at the Co-op.
Monica was restocking peppers when Oslo arrived, dragging Neil’s parcel behind him and wearing the expression of a dog on the brink of artistic breakthrough.
“Good grief,” said Monica. “What now?”
Oslo nudged a red pepper.
Then a yellow one.
Then a green one.
Then he looked meaningfully at a bag of courgettes, considered them, and rejected them as insufficiently heroic.
“You’re making kebabs,” Monica said.
Oslo wagged.
“For a barbecue?”
No wag.
“For a date?”
Oslo looked offended.
“For some sort of public display?”
The tail began to thump.
Monica sighed.
“Right. Peacocking, is it?”
Oslo’s ears shot up.
“You’ve heard about Annie’s peacock then?”
Oslo gave a low, wounded grumble.
Monica put a hand on her hip.
“Oh Oslo, love, you cannot be jealous of a peacock. They’re basically pheasants with delusions of grandeur.”
This helped a little.
“But,” Monica continued, “if you are going to compete, you’ll need colour.”
She supplied peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onion, and a packet of bamboo skewers, though she did warn him not to run with them because “there’s enough drama in this town without you impaling a councillor.”
By late afternoon, Oslo had returned to the practice with the raw materials for greatness.
There followed an engineering meeting in the staff room.
Steph held the skewers.
Krista sorted peppers by colour.
Jude inspected the meat for “clinical suitability,” which appeared to involve eating one cube of chicken and declaring it acceptable.
Miles stood in the doorway.
“Why is my dog wearing what appears to be a carnivorous chandelier?”
Oslo sat proudly while the construction took shape.
A harness was fashioned from an old reflective lead, two lengths of dental floss, and what Jude insisted was “not technically a breach of infection control because nobody is putting it in anyone’s mouth.”
Into the harness went the kebab sticks, arranged in a broad fan. Each skewer carried a glorious procession of meat and peppers. Sausage, red pepper, chicken, yellow pepper, lamb, green pepper, meatball, onion.
At the end of every skewer, like the sacred jewel atop a royal sceptre, was fixed one of Oslo’s tennis balls.
By the time they had finished, Oslo looked magnificent.
He also looked like something that would be immediately banned from Crufts, three food hygiene courses, and possibly the Abergavenny Food Festival.
“Behold,” whispered Krista.
“The Peacock of Pork,” said Steph.
“The Borador of Barbecue,” said Jude.
Miles folded his arms.
“He looks like a fire risk.”
Oslo lifted his head.
He was ready.
Annie had, very kindly, invited them to see the peacock that evening. She had expected Miles, perhaps Jude, possibly a polite photograph.
She had not expected Oslo.
Nor had she expected Oslo to arrive wearing a radiant fan of kebabs and tennis balls, stepping carefully through her garden like a medieval banquet that had gained sentience.
The peacock was already there.
And to be fair to him, he was spectacular.
He stood in the warm evening light, his tail fully open, each feather shimmering with blue, green, bronze and gold. He turned slowly, aware of his beauty, aware of his audience, aware that he was, in that moment, nature’s own stained-glass window with legs.
Oslo stopped.
The peacock turned.
The garden fell silent.
Annie held her breath.
Miles rubbed his forehead.
Neil, who had come along “purely for support,” whispered, “This is going to be excellent.”
The peacock gave a little shake of his feathers.
A ripple passed through the fan.
The colours flashed.
Oslo responded.
He turned sideways, planted his paws, lifted his head, and gave his kebab-tail a mighty wag.
The sausages swung.
The peppers gleamed.
The tennis balls bobbed majestically.
One meatball flew off and landed in Annie’s birdbath.
The peacock blinked.
Oslo wagged harder.
The kebab fan shuddered with outrageous splendour. Chicken pieces glistened in the heat. Red peppers flashed like rubies. Tennis balls bounced like tiny suns. It was not elegant, exactly. It was not subtle. But it was undeniably confident.
The peacock took one step forward.
Oslo took one step forward.
The peacock rustled.
Oslo jangled.
The peacock shimmered.
Oslo dripped marinade.
For a moment, it seemed that Usk might witness the first recorded interspecies display contest between a peacock and a borador dressed as a mobile mixed grill.
Then the peacock made his fatal mistake.
He pecked a sausage.
Oslo froze.
The garden froze.
Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rang, as if marking the exact moment diplomacy failed.
Oslo did not growl. He did not bark. He simply looked at the peacock with the deep disappointment of a dog who had been prepared to respect another performer’s craft, but now found himself dealing with theft.
The peacock pecked again.
That was it.
Oslo spun round to protect the sausages, forgetting entirely that the sausages were attached to him. The kebab-tail swung in a magnificent arc. Three peppers flew into a lavender bush. A tennis ball shot across the lawn and bounced off Neil’s boot. The peacock squawked, leapt backwards, and retreated at speed behind Annie’s hydrangeas.
Oslo, now half-undressed and missing two skewers, stood victorious.
The peacock peered out from the flowers, somewhat humbled.
Annie began to laugh.
Then Neil began to laugh.
Then Monica, who had appeared at the gate “just passing,” laughed so hard she had to lean on the fence.
Even Miles laughed, though he tried to disguise it as a cough because dentists have professional standards and also because one of the kebab sticks was now hanging from Oslo’s harness like an aerial.
The peacock, after a few minutes, returned to the lawn.
This time he did not display.
Instead, he stood beside Oslo.
Oslo sat down.
The peacock inspected him.
Oslo inspected the peacock.
Then, in a gesture of unexpected generosity, Oslo nudged a fallen sausage towards him.
The peacock considered it.
Pecked it.
Accepted it.
Peace was restored.
By sunset, the peacock had resumed his display, though with rather less arrogance. Oslo sat beside him, wearing the remains of his kebab-tail and looking deeply satisfied. The tennis balls glowed in the warm light. The peppers lay scattered like confetti. Neil was already discussing whether next time they should use black pudding “for contrast.”
Annie took a photograph.
It showed a peacock in full feather, proud and glittering.
Beside him sat Oslo, black and noble, white flash on his chest, kebabs across his back, tennis balls at jaunty angles, his face wearing the unmistakable expression of a dog who had discovered that true beauty is not about feathers.
It is about confidence.
And meat.
Back at the practice the next morning, the photograph went up behind reception.
Patients admired it all day.
“What’s that?” one asked.
Steph smiled.
“That,” she said, “is Oslo entering his flamboyant era.”
Krista nodded.
“Very hot weather,” she added. “Does strange things to everyone.”
Jude looked at the picture.
“Still,” she said, “you have to admit, he carries it well.”
Oslo, lying beneath the desk, gave a modest thump of his tail.
He had learned something important.
A peacock may have feathers.
But a borador has imagination.
And if necessary, access to a very good butcher.
