Page 65 of Daydreaming at the Boathouse Cafe

She laughed. ‘Well, just remember that in this particular sport I beat you fair and square.’

‘Oh, I’ll definitely remember that,’ he told her, grinning. ‘Now, what about standing up?’

‘You’ll be fine now you’ve got your centre of balance,’ she replied, coming over to stand on her board nearby. ‘Just take it nice and slow.’

She watched as he carefully began to move into a standing position. It seemed to take forever and with every wobble of the board, she was convinced that he was going to land in the water again. But finally and with a tremendous look of satisfaction, he was up and standing on the paddleboard.

‘I’ve done it!’ he shouted, delighted with himself.

‘Well done,’ replied Hannah.

Unfortunately his exuberance had attracted the interest of Tiny who, until that point, had been happily bouncing around in the shallow waters. With a bark of delight, the puppy began to wade out towards where the paddleboards were.

Then, to Alex’s and Hannah’s amazement, Tiny then began to paddle in the water towards them.

‘He can swim!’ said Hannah.

Alex nodded. ‘They’re supposed to be good in the water but I had no idea it would come so naturally to him. Good boy, Tiny!’

Tiny ploughed on with his doggy paddle towards them, his front paws propelling him ever forwards until he was next to Alex’s board.

‘What a good boy!’ he told the dog, as he smiled down at him.

Tiny was so pleased with himself that he decided that his next trick would be learning to paddleboard and suddenly placed his front paws onto the board.

‘No,’ said Alex, shaking his head. ‘No. No. No!’

But Hannah realised that it was too late. With the weight of the enormous and somewhat heavy puppy leaning on the side of the board, there was only ever going to be one outcome. The board immediately tipped over and Alex went headfirst into the water once more.

As he surfaced, spluttering, Tiny swam around him in delight that he finally had a playmate to mess around with in the water.

Alex looked up at her as she stared down at them both, still laughing.

‘Maybe Tiny could teach the paddleboarding instead,’ she said, still giggling.

‘Maybe,’ he said, swimming towards her with ease across the water with Tiny in hot pursuit.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, suddenly feeling nervous at his mischievous smile.

‘Just didn’t want you to feel left out,’ he told her, before turning around to look for Tiny. He called the dog over. ‘Tiny! Where’s Hannah? Go and find Hannah!’

Hannah’s face dropped as the dog began to swim towards her.

‘Wait a minute,’ she began.

But Alex had been using a familiar phrase whereby he normally rushed over to find Hannah when he came into the café and just because they were on the water, it didn’t appear to make any difference to his obeying the instructions.

So as the dog reached the paddleboard, he placed his paws on the edge and Hannah crouched down to settle it. ‘Hang on,’ she urged the dog.

But it was too late. He was desperately trying to climb up to see her and with one flip of the board, Hannah was now in the water as well.

She came up to the surface, spluttering, and found Alex laughing at her.

‘You rotten…’ she began, spraying him water as her hand skimmed the surface.

‘Hey, I’m already wet,’ he reminded her.

Eventually, they lay on their stomachs and paddled back to the shore using their hands with Tiny at the front of Alex’s board, looking like a ship’s proud bust at the front of a galleon.