There has been one reason, above all others, for taking my eye off the blog for a month or so, and it is this: the arrival of a new housemate. You will not, I think, be surprised to learn that the new housemate has four rather than two legs and barks (but only occasionally).
Miss P (for the purposes of this blog, we will call her that and to differentiate her from regular guest, Little Miss P, the Shih Tzu) arrived at the beginning of the year and, since then, has nudged her way into my heart as well as my home.
An indication of this came a couple of weeks ago, when I found myself writing quite spontaneously about Miss P. Here, with just a few minimal tweaks, is what emerged:
I had not been thinking about another dog. I already had the Edinburgh Boy; he was getting on, ten this year - almost elderly for a dog. We would be able to have off-days together, when we didn't go for long walks, especially when rain poured down incessantly as it had done for months, from the beginning of autumn and on and on through winter.
And then the sad, achingly sad, email about Miss P, a dog I had looked after frequently over the past year. A young bouncy crossbreed, with boundless stamina, who ran like the wind. A few kilos of pure energy. A bit of Border collie? A bit of lurcher? A bit of spaniel? Definitely a lot of Saluki. Not my sort of dog, really. Not a Labrador.
Life, however, has its distinct way of shaking you to your core and slamming the unexpected in your face like a splapstick custard pie - but without the laughs.
Miss P's devoted and loving owners had seen their world transmute into something they barely recognised and that they could not have predicted, which meant - and this was the very hardest thing - that they could no longer keep their dog, any dog, for the foreseeable future. But they could not contemplate the thought of their beautiful canine zephyr ending up with strangers who might not love her or understand her they way they had done.
She had been born on, but thankfully rescued from, what is euphemistically called a puppy farm, then fostered and eventually handed over to a rescue centre. And then the lovely owners found her, fell in love with her kind eyes, her silky coat and just the whole sweet-natured shebang of her.
So, she could not possibly go to strangers. Instead she came to me, despite the fact that I would never have chosen her in a 'pick your favourite dog' line-up. But she chose me because that is what rescue dogs do. Best not to fight it, just concede gratefully and graciously.
As it turns out, she is the dog of my dreams, or my dream dog, what you will: a faithful, affectionate, kindly dog, in love with life, with people, with other dogs. A dog who will run every hour of her waking day, if she can, but who will turn on a sixpence and hurtle back to my side like a rocket at the sound of my Acme dog whistle.
I am in awe, watching the exquisite line of her as she races up hillsides and flies across Exmoor's streams, her feathered tail rippling and flowing out behind her .
In the evening, curled up by the woodburner, draped across her beloved companion, the Edinburgh Boy, she sleeps contented, dreaming her doggy dreams.
And I realise that I cannot, now, imagine my life without her.
If you have been visiting this blog for a while, you may remember, the story of Christmas Holly, the very elderly, unwanted Labrador, who came to live here last December, after being offered for rehoming on Facebook and Twitter. She was already 14 when she arrived, had an open wound to her leg, was wearing one of those large plastic collars and hadn't had the best of care, so I had no idea how much time she had ahead of her.
Christmas Holly, as she appeared on Facebook
I soon learned what a redoubtable, determined old dog she was when, despite her great age, she sailed through surgery, which enabled the wound to heal, and then, against all the odds, made an almost complete recovery from a stroke, going on to enjoy spring and then summer here in Devon, not to mention visits to my family in the Chilterns. Twice a month, we would set out for the 30-mile round trip to South Molton for the acupuncture sessions that made such a difference to her mobility. And, being a Labrador, she could, had I let her, have eaten for England.
And then . . .
And then about three weeks ago, I sensed that she was beginning to struggle more with everyday things; meanwhile other symptoms started to materialise. I know enough about old dogs to accept that, this time, there would be no amazing recovery. Last week, I took Christmas Holly to see Rachel Foster, the vet who had been gving her acupuncture and we both knew that this would be Holly's final visit.
Two days ago, our regular vet, Sherry Waite, who hails from Kentucky and is just the best possible advertisment for American vets, together with one of the practice's vet nurses came to the house. Sherry is kind and compassionate and made sure that Christmas Holly did indeed 'go gentle into that good night'. My much-loved and erstwhile stubborn old dog slipped away, almost imperceptibly, and without a murmur.
'It was the right thing to do,' said Sherry, 'and the right time.'
The Edinburgh Boy had already gone to spend the afternoon with his best chum, Duke, and, after Sherry and the vet nurse had gone, I was acutely aware of the absolute silence in the house.
A litlle later, a friend and I took Holly on her last journey, across the Devon countryside to the place where we take all our companion animals when the time comes.
Although Christmas Holly was with me for less than a year, she came into my life at such a significant time and the bond we formed was unbreakable. She saw me through that first, post- cancer year and I realised that it was almost a year to the day since my surgery, that my dear old canine companion started to fail. She began to become anxious if she could not see me; she would wake into the darkness of night and bark at who knows what; her breathing had changed, and her old legs had become much weaker.
The Edinburgh Boy sensed the changes too and, having spent every night of the six years since he arrived here curled up in his bed, at the foot of mine, he spent the night before Christmas Holly died stretched out beside her. The night after she died I woke from a dream, thinking - in that half-awake, half-asleep state - that I had heard her bark. I ran downstairs only to find the Edinburgh Boy fast asleep in the same spot, just a foot away from where her bed had been.
So now, it's just the Boy and me and Mr C, the tabby cat, again and I can't quite believe how swiftly the 10 months that Christmas Holly shared with us have gone. Do I have any regrets about taking her in? Absolutely not. Would I do it again? Almost certainly, although I could not say where or when. I firmly believe that rescue animals have a way of finding us when we can help them most and when they have something unique to give us. It isn't always apparent what that might be but I know exactly what Christmas Holly gave me and it was, is, something beyond measure.
I was 19 when the Beatles released this track on the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, (1 June 1967). I was at the start of all sorts of things in my life, not least of which was motherhood. And the answer to the question you might be asking is that, for a whole host of reasons, I have never had the slightest regret about being - by today's standards - such a young mother.
As for my mothering skills, you'd have to ask my daughter, except that behind the outgoing, sunny exterior is a very private person, so I doubt that we'd be able to persuade her to make a public appearance. You'll just have to take my word for it that she lit up my life when the midwife placed her in my arms and, all these years later, she continues to do so. She is an amazing woman of whom I am immensely proud.
But back to the song. At 19, I was incapable of imagining what it would be like to be 64, let alone whether my then Other Half would still be needing me or feeding me. (To which the answers were, as I soon discovered, 'no' and 'no', so my small daughter and I steered a different course.)
I tend not to do 'hello, it's my birthday' posts; as I said to Twitter chum @maribeeb, yesterday, 'a bit cheesy, no?' However, today I have a proper excuse because, as of today, I am fully cognisant of what it is to be 64 and I can tell you this. It's just like 19 but with the addition of, hopefully, a soupçon of the wisdom of years and, very probably, a couple of extra inches round the middle. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. And for me, there have been many more valued friendships forged, more books read, more music listened to, more parts of the world travelled to and explored, many hundreds of thousands of words written, many thousands of photographs taken . . .
Lest you think my life has been a bit of a doddle, there have been profound shocks and great sadnesses and betrayals too and, in my late thirties and for a few years thereafter, a string of losses and bereavements that came hurtling out of the blue and so close together that it was like watching powerlessly as a line of dominoes toppled before my eyes. I had no doubt at all, at that time, what it was to be acquainted with grief.
But I prefer, on this blog at least, to stand four-square with Jane Austen and 'let other pens dwell on guilt and misery'. ( I didn't think much of this sentiment when I was studying Mansfield Park for A-level; I was a teenager for goodness sake, I wallowed in guilt and misery. Tsk, tsk.) Besides which, there has always been the joy of animals . .
Although I didn't read his novels, I remember an interview that the author, Dick Francis, gave towards the end of his life in which he said that the saddest thing about getting older was the number of beloved dogs that he had outlived.
(I do a mental tally: the dogs of my earlier years, Bruno, Rusty, Albert and Rennie, and, latterly, the Squadron Leader, the Rough Diamond, and my daughter's dog, the Divine Miss M. The cats deserve a mention too: Snooky, Fluffy, Tibby, Timothy, Victoria, Sunshine, Tara, Merlin, Tabitha and Muffin and, more recently Mr C's twin brother. Then there was Susan, the tortoise, and the hamster, Deborah . . . and the horses on which I learned to ride in my middle years. Do not worry, my current companions, Mr C, the cat, and the Edinburgh Boy and Christmas Holly have no literacy skills whatsoever, so cannot read this. Besides, today - as on most days - the dogs have plenty of canine distractions and are happily bounding around with this week's guests: Little Miss P, the Mad Merle and the Seal. Mr C, sensibly, has retired to his dog-free quarters upstairs. )
Anyway, that's enough 'ageing woman looks back at her life and becomes perilously anthropomorphic' waffle. Here's the music:
I'm not quite sure how or why I lost the blogging habit. Perhaps the clue lies in the word 'habit'; five and and a half years into blogging and I had become too used to the sound of my own words. It did not explain, however, the fact that I seemed to have lost track of other people's blogs, blogs that I enjoyed, blogs that opened windows onto different lives, different worlds, blogs that connected like-minded people across time and space.
Perhaps, to paraphrase Salieri, there have just been too many words (except that it wasn't Salieri, was it? My niggling inner editor reminds me that it was Emperor 'too many notes' Joseph II.) For those of us in the UK, there has been a plethora of words in the past couple of months. We have been almost smothered by layer upon layer of news coverage, scaremongering features and opinion columns as the country has been engulfed by first one scandal, then another, until - inevitably, perhaps - the lid blew off the whole thing and urban pockets of the country erupted. We had still not recovered from the actions of profligate and greedy bankers, nor from the shock that many of our democratically-elected politicians had been lining their pockets with expenses fiddled from the public purse, before we were confronted by the grisly spectacle of phone-hacking journalists and all-powerful editors so devoid of sensitivity and decency that they were prepared to sanction anything that might boost circulation figures.
And then the rioting and the looting.
From the wealthiest and most influential to those who barely clung to the margins, there were individuals and groups who seemed to have slipped through or cast off the net of what we like to believe are our shared morality and values. The threads that held us together seemed to be unravelling.
In my head, Yeats's words on things falling apart and the centre not holding were surfacing yet again, as they tend to in times of strife and uncertainty. Except that they weren't falling apart and compassionate people made good things happen; as George Malone said in the final episode of Boys from the Blackstuff - in the wake of all the conspicuous consumption triggered by the greedy 'there is no such thing as society' 1980s: 'I can't believe that there's no hope.' George was speaking specifically of his own class, the urban working class, but his words (or, more correctly, writer Alan Bleasdale's words) have a resonance that now crosses class and social boundaries. There is hope and it could be seen on the streets of our cities after the looting.
Against this backdrop, it seemed almost futile to be writing about small, everyday things, although it is the small, everyday things that root us, that keep us sane. My canine-care life continued, with four-legged guests coming and going. Loved ones, family and friends came to stay, places were explored, books read, music and films enjoyed. My professional writing and editing life continued; it was the more personal, reflective writing that languished.
Reflecting, however, is precisely what I was doing. It is exactly a year since I was diagnosed with breast cancer and just under a year since the Massive Inconvenience was vanquished. Only a small scar remains and that is fading. To be truthful, I don't think about it too often. The Massive Inconvenience has become, like the past, another country. I have, however, learned more than I could have imagined possible and one of my more surprising discoveries is that I am - or at least, I have become - a far more positive person than I realised I was or could be. I say surprising as I had more than a few dark nights of the soul when I was a young woman and not just dark nights but dark days too, days that could spill into weeks and months. And sometimes did.
Maybe it's because, although I cannot afford to retire, I now earn my living doing two things I love: caring for animals and writing. Or maybe it's an age thing. In today's Observer Magazine, Miranda Sawyer, 45, discusses her own experience of, and thoughts on, the mid-life crisis and reaches an encouraging conclusion (of which, more later). She mentions her friend Sam, 'who is in his early 60s, and . . . is happier now than he has ever been, but that people who don't know him think he can't be, and treat him accordingly.' When it comes to the 60-something happiness factor, I'm with Sam. It is hard to imagine, when one is in one's 20s, 30s or 40s and, especially for me, the tedious 50s, which I experienced as a strange, no-woman's limbo between the end of being young and the beginning of being old (I think it's called menopause . . . ) that the 60s can bring such joy and delight and that one can actually wake up happy, for whole days at a stretch. There are, inevitably, the flatter, greyer days (which I attribute in part to the English weather) and the occasional down day but these are, thankfully, the exception.
So, emerging out of what I will probably come to see as my Quiet Period, I have resurrected everything I had planned to do last autumn, before the Massive Inconvenience got in the way.
After seven years of being a member of a writing group, I realised that it was time for a change, and I now work individually with my writing mentor, Briony Goffin. We get together for a couple of sessions each term and It has proved to be exactly the right decision, at the right time, and I am enjoying every minute of it. (Thank you, Briony.)
In September, I am starting a photography course, something I have wanted to do for years, learning about what goes on inside a camera because I love photography with a passion and I know that it is about so much more than looking through a viewfinder or looking at an LCD screen and framing a passable shot.
In September, and because I love music with an equal passion, I am starting piano lessons, hoping that the musical gene that runs through the family (professional pianist grandfather, piano-playing and singing mother, piano and violin-playing brother) has not passed me by completely. I can still read music and just about pick out a basic tune on the beautiful Victorian piano I was given last year but I know that I learn best when I'm studying with an inspirational teacher. (And I think I've found one.)
Then, last week, I took out, dusted down and oiled my late grandma's 100-year-old 27K Singer sewing machine for the first time in 35 years. It worked perfectly and has already been put to work - with plenty more to come.
This is just for starters.
As Miranda Sawyer says: 'Midlife or not, in the end, or in the middle, these are the days of my life. These are the days of your life. And the thing to do is live them.'
Which all chimed in, rather, with a song I heard on the car radio as I drove home from a great morning, spent with my Salad Days Friend, at a vintage textile fair in Honiton. There is a high point en route, on the A373 between Honiton and Cullompton, at which all Devon is spread out before you, its hills, its rolling fields, hedgerows, trees and meadows and I had just reached that point when the song started playing. Written by the Bee Gees, sung by Esther and Abi Ofarim (in 1967, for goodness sake). It still makes me moist-eyed but in a good way.
I had the post already written in my head; a post about a small dog who has made me rethink all sorts of things . . . and then in that funny old way that so often happens in life, something cropped up.
The something that cropped up also involved dogs and a pair of clueless neighbours, who are out of the house for between 10 and 12 hours each day and who shouldn't have one dog, let alone two, one of which is an eight-week-old puppy. This morning, the neighbours' house was flooded, with the dogs inside. Another neighbour and I mounted a rescue mission and, as I write this (and nine hours after the rescue), the puppy and her older companion are still curled up by the Aga, waiting for their owners to roll up - because said owners didn't regard what happened as an emergency.
The puppy has to be isolated from my dogs (as in my own and guest dogs) as it has not completed its cycle of vaccinations. Meanwhile, the older dog, who is normally quiet and gentle, has become very protective towards the puppy and is ready to have a stand-up fight with any other dogs who come near her or the pup.
Ay de mi, as Nancy Mitford might have remarked in similar circumstances, although it's hard to imagine Nancy finding herself in a situation quite like this.
In the meantime, my dogs needed their afternoon walk so I left the rescued duo in the kitchen and with the run of the garden, and met a client - and now friend - with her dog. We stomped along the riverbank, had a bit of a rant and then managed to laugh, just a bit, which acted as a kind of balm, as only laughter can.
And it is her dog, a little shih tzu (let us, for the purposes of this blog, call her Little Miss P) whom I originally intended should be subject of this post because she has stolen my heart rather. She recently spent a fortnight with me while her owners were on holiday - a last-minute booking when her regular carer was taken ill. The one thing I didn't expect to do was to fall in love with a tiny dog, let alone a brachycephalic dog. To be honest, and I know they have their fans, dogs with this type of face, Pekingese, for example, never really did it for me (ditto brachycephalic cats). When it comes to canine appearances, I've always gone for large breeds, with fine heads; as a child, my first dog was a German shepherd and in adult life it has been (rescue) Labradors all the way, with only one slight deviation in the form of the late Rough Diamond, whose adventures were chronicled here over the years. And even he was a Labrador-collie cross.
But Little Miss P was an absolute honey; she was bold and brave and tried her very best to out-run the collie and lurcher guests who came and went during her stay. She even stood her ground with a rather fierce-looking German shepherd who was in full owner-defence mode when we met them while walking one day. She just sat down right in front of him, raised her eyes and let out as loud a bark as she could. He looked a bit nonplussed.
Come the evening, walked and fed and in full snooze mode, she like nothing better than to curl up on a lap . . .
And little by little, I fell in love with her and thought that perhaps - at some vague point in the future - when I am a very old woman and not quite up to Labrador handling, a shih tzu (but with a puppy cut, please - just like Little Miss P, no long trailing locks) might be the ideal canine companion.
Here are some of the Little Miss P's holiday snaps:
See what I mean? My daughter - a Labrador woman to the very core - couldn't quite believe her ears when I told her that I was just a tad smitten with a shih tzu. I had the distinct sense that she thought her mother was rapidly losing the plot or, more specifically, the canine plot.
I have not, of course, mentioned this to the Edinburgh Boy; I would not wish to hurt his feelings. He's a sensitive soul and, for the foreseeable future, my heart firmly belongs to him and to his own elderly lady companion, Christmas Holly, who is still with us and still doing remarkably well (which I attribute to the mighty healing power of pilchards).
