Pets and a crowded bed

Among many other aspects, the history of my marriage has been one of decreasing dog size.

When I first met Danielle, she had a couple of Borzois, Taiga and Sador. These Russian wolfhounds stood to well above our waists and covered territory with extraordinary speed in chase of prey, though they were also, as it happens, unusually gentle, even timid, creatures.

They slept on the other side of the bedroom from where we lay on a low bed – basically a mattress on the floor – but would come and flop onto the bed as soon as either of us showed the slightest sign of waking up. And when I say ‘flop’, I mean flop: they’d just let themselves fall sideways on top of their victim, and when a Borzoi flops on you, you’re left in no doubt it’s happened.

After our marriage, we had a border collie, Bess, we liked so much that we eventually added another, Floss. You think there was a pattern to our naming of them? You wouldn’t be wrong.

Border collies are brilliant and highly trainable, as well as strong-willed and devious enough to get their way when they set their mind to it. They stand about thigh height. Of all our dogs, they were the toughest and they got the toughest treatment: we built them a run outside the house and they slept there, with nothing better than a kennel to retreat to in the cold. But they flourished in that regime: they’re sheepdogs and don’t belong indoors.

Later on, while we were living in Strasbourg, we decided it was the moment to have a Puli. Well, to tell the truth, we decided we wanted a poodle, and travelled to Budapest where many are bred and, at the time at least, the prices were competitive. But when we got there, we found there were no puppies to be had so we settled for a Puli, Janka, instead – frankly, we fell for the dreadlocks and the beautiful disposition (though I have to say, that heavy pelt did occasionally reek just a bit…) She came about nearly to our knees.

Janka was an indoor dog, sleeping on a mat in our bedroom.

Janka was always good at making friends
In this case, with our granddaughter Aya

Now we do indeed have a couple of poodles, Luci and Toffee. That’s poodles of the toy variety: tiny little dogs that barely reach mid-calf (and even lower in Toffee’s case). And the inevitable has happened: they sleep on our bed.

This is, I admit, primarily my fault. I seem to have become remarkably soft-hearted towards our pets. ‘Oh, let them sleep there,’ I say, ‘they don’t take much space’.

That’s true enough. As Danielle points out, however, they chiefly like to feel the presence of both of us at the same time. That means that, even if she kicks them to the bottom of the bed where they really wouldn’t disturb us (yes, she’s the disciplinarian), they sneak back as soon as they think we won’t notice and lie between us or, often, on us. They may not weigh much, but after a while, even a small weight can get irritating if it’s right on top of you. And you’re trying to sleep.

The mornings are fun, too. The moment one of us stirs, they’re on to us like lightning. The right thing to do, they’ve calculated, once one of their humans wake, is to jump on top and start licking a face. Well, there’s only one of us whose face they lick: they know that Danielle would soon mete out terrible punishment if they tried that trick on her, so I’m the only one to get my face slobbered before I’ve even had coffee.

Conditions in bed become still worse if our cat, Misty, decides to join us, too. Then there’s a little competition between the three of them. Competition tends to be (a) noisy and (b) fidgety, making it a source of disturbance on both counts.

It got to the point that I began to feel a little guilty at having given in to the dogs’ obvious desire to sleep on our bed. Danielle was quite mocking, frankly. Especially when they refused even to make the effort to jump onto the bed and one or other of us had to get up to lift them onto it.

‘Perhaps I ought to get a bit tougher,’ I began to think, ‘and see if there’s any way of getting them to sleep somewhere else. Just for Danielle’s sake.’

But all such feelings of guilt evaporated when one day she revealed a new purchase she’d just made.

Staircase to heaven (or at least bed) for them
To something more like purgatory for us

A set of nice wool covered steps – ideal for a small dog to get up onto the bed.

She was encouraging them to join us!

And there was I feeling guilty. Wondering whether I owed it to her to put an end to this abuse of our sleeping arrangements. While all the time she was subverting them herself.

‘Well,’ I thought, ‘screw that for a game of soldiers,’ and rolled over on my side to enjoy my rest undisturbed by any pangs of conscience.

Having kicked the little ones out of my bit of the bed beforehand, of course.

Occupation forces. In full force.

Janka: In Memoriam.

“She slept on my bed. I could barely move my legs,” my son Michael told me. “In fact, she peed on the bed.”

That was the confirmation that Janka had really moved in with us. I say “confirmation” because I’d had the first intimation the night before. I was sitting at the table in the garden of the farmhouse where we were on holiday in Hungary, when I suddenly realised that there was a little bundle of black fur lying on the bench next to me. 

A bundle of fur. With her brother in the hutch where we found her

We’d collected Janka earlier in the day and she’d spent it shy, apprehensive, frightened even. After all, she’d never been away from her parents and her siblings before; this new family seemed strange and unaccommodating. But that impression began to improve when Danielle gave her milk and food. It was after that big step in settling her down that she’d jumped on the bench next to me without my noticing.

Sleeping on Michael’s bed and christening it for him really marked her complete assimilation

Bundle of fur adapting to her new life

Within days we’d imposed on her an experience that would become a hallmark of her life with us: a painfully long journey. Twelve hours or so, across quite a lot of Hungary, a bit of Austria and the width of Germany to get to Strasbourg where we lived at the time. 

One of the most harrowing moments of the trip was when we stopped for a meal at a service station, and left her in the car. From where we were sitting, we could see her with her forepaws up on the dashboard, barking her heart out in desperation at the world. 

The Traveller. On a cross-Channel fery

Later she would get used to that kind of existence, as we took her from Strasbourg to Stafford, from Stafford to Luton, even from Luton to Edinburgh, in cars or trains. She put up with it all, with little pleasure but great stoicism.

And she also had a lot of fun. 

Running for sticks (until she managed to bust her cruciate ligaments doing it)

What was the Black Forest made for but this?

Come on! Come on! You can throw it again!

Enjoying company of different kinds, in different settings

Playing with Aya, when both of them were younger

Conversing on serious matters with our Finnish friend Sami

Helping Natasha with her work, by joining her at her desk

Aha. Sheepdogs can look like that too, can they?

Just enjoying walks

On Cannock Chase, near Stafford

And it was worth going out even if she was made to look silly
just on the pretext that it was raining a bit

Or having a rest

Dignity? It's not about dignity

My little friend Misty, you take a heck of a lot of space

And he was like that even when he was small

Playing in snow

Racing Danielle's sledge downhill

Waiting for the chance to start again

Now, these are the conditions for the good life

Snow really suited her, if only because of her fur. That was her defining characteristic. If left to grow, it formed dreadlocks down to the ground, as befitted her breed, the Puli. Though I always preferred the breed name given her by one of Michael’s contemporaries, and our good friend, Zane Householder: “Jamaican shepherd.” 

Just how well that label fitted her was demonstrated by a young black man, from somewhere in the French Antilles, who had some impressive dreadlocks himself but stopped as though struck by lightning when he met Janka on a Strasbourg street, and exclaimed “why can’t I have hair like that?”

Bob Marley sheepdog

The other name for the breed is “Hungarian water dog” but we never used that for Janka: she loved water as long as she was never out of her depth and could see the bottom. Walking in – fine. Swimming – not on your nellie. She swam, to our knowledge, just twice in her lifetime.

Yes. Looks very exciting. Fun, I'm sure. But I'm not going in

This is how to use water. When it's hot outside. And when I can paddle

Getting wet, as long as she didn’t have to swim, was a delight for her. But later in life she began to find it hard to cope with the sheer weight of the water in her fur, so we had to clip her regularly. 

Danielle's students gather round for the first Janka-clipping

Later clipping became more professional
And more drastic

It changed her look but not her behaviour. She remained, till her death, the bundle of fur I’d spotted next to me on the bench in Eger. She liked to lie with us, so we could stroke her; she let our cat Misty rub himself against her and share her mats with her, though he often took far more than half the space.

Misty misses her and even now prefers to sleep in a basket lined with one of her old blankets impregnated with her smell. 

Misty enjoying essence of Janka
for a little while longer

We miss her too. It’s sad no longer to hear the barrage of barking, irritating when she was alive but leaving a gap now she’s gone: the silence is deafening when we turn the key in the front door. It’s odd throwing out empty yogurt cartons without having her lick them out. It’s strange trying to think up an excuse to walk in the park, the loveliest part of Luton, which I used to visit daily, sometimes three times a day, when Janka needed walking.

The joyous welcome we'll have no more

Still. We had thirteen excellent years with her and they’ve left a lot memories. And I think she had thirteen happy years with us. 

Starting right back there when she was a bundle of fur in Hungary.

When Janka joined us...

Misty's Diary: RIP Janka

Another entry from Misty’s diary. In which he says goodbye to the dog and comes to terms with the fact that, silly as she was, he’s going to miss her.

July 2014

“So it’s just you and me, then,” domestic number 2 said to me this afternoon.

Don’t know why he said that, or indeed talked to me at all, since he “knows” for sure that I have no English. Poor sap.

In any case, what really concerned me is that he should say it at all. I have no intention of putting up with his blundering ministrations indefinitely. But fortunately I know domestic number 1 will be back in time. Not that I understand why she’s away at all – again. What’s the point in gadding around so often? What’s the point in having a house, if you don’t live in it? What’s the point of taking a position on a cat’s staff if you’re not going to serve him properly?

No, she’ll be back. What he meant was that we wouldn’t be seeing any more of the oaf dog, Janka. She, it seems, is gone. And I don’t mean for a while. Gone for good. 

He thinks it happened this morning, and in a way it did. She kept having ghastly fits. Nasty twitchy violent noisy things. Horrible to watch. He told me she’d been having them all night (you see, he will keep talking to me). He was going to take her to the vet. But then he left the door open, and she was gone – you know, physically gone, out of the door. 

Normally, I’d have celebrated her going out on her own just for once, like I do all the time, instead of taking one of those stupid leads. But then I remembered that she was already gone, in the other sense, and had been for twelve hours.

It wasn’t this morning she went. It was last night. That was when she had the first fit I saw. She was drooling at the mouth with her tongue hanging out and all four legs flailing. Very ugly. But the worst? I saw her go. Something went out and it didn’t come back. I’d have thought the domestic would have understood: I gave him what he calls one of my piteous mews, and when I’m piteous, I’m really piteous. 

But he didn’t get it. He didn’t realise that the Janka who slipped out of the door this morning wasn’t the dog we’d come to sneer at and, well, love just a bit. It was an empty shell without a mind of its own any more.

Because he hadn’t spotted that, the domestic was worried sick when he couldn’t find her. Phoning the police. Rearranging his work day so he could avoid going into the office. Going off in the car and driving around, or going out on foot and walking round, calling out “Janka, Janka,” as though there was any Janka left.

Well, somebody found the old thing and took it to a vet. Who sent it to another vet. By the time the domestic had found that out, the second vet had given up. What was left of Janka was just one continuous seizure. So the vet put her down.

Trying to comfort domestic number 2

He was all sad, poor fellow. He folded up the cloths they’d put on the couch to stop it getting that distinctive Janka reek and said something pathetic like, “won’t be doing that any more.” He had chicken legs at lunchtime and I’d swear he was close to tears when he chucked out the bones instead of setting them aside for her. And when he caught sight of her lead – oh, Lord. You could practically hear the violins.

To be fair, I was pretty low myself too. She was a noisy, clumsy, smelly old thing, but I’d got used to having her around. Now we won’t have the ridiculous cannonade of barking whenever anyone comes to the front door. And the smell will start to fade. It’s shaming to admit, but I’m going to miss it.

But I’m not as broken up about it as the domestics, because I did my grieving last night, when I saw her go. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen departures like hers. Friends of mine who are there one day and not the next. Sometimes they’ve moved away, but sometimes they haven’t moved at all, they’ve just gone somewhere else, somewhere we can’t follow them now though some day we will.

Of course, the domestic doesn’t realise I can even have that kind of thought. He “knows” we animals have no notion of mortality. And I don’t want to shatter his illusions, especially when he’s having to cope with the mortality of his number two owner.

Doesn’t stop me thinking he’s a poor sap, though.

We shall not see her like again...
And, to be fair, we'll miss you, Janka

Misty's diary: the dog, the cursed dog

Another entry from Misty’s diary. In which he considers the reprehensible behaviour of the dog, bad enough when it’s simply messy, unforgivable when it borders on treachery.

June 2014

The domestics were away again this weekend. Well, they need their time off, of course they do, and I don’t begrudge it. And they didn’t take me: at least that’s a lesson they’ve learned. Honestly, they used to coop me up for hours in that ghastly metal cage of a car, but I showed them. Not by peeing everywhere, or even getting the claws out, as some of my pals tell me they’ve done; oh no, I find a constant prowl, interspersed with occasional growls and sustained low-pitched mewing gets the message across quite strongly enough.

“Five hours and he hasn’t stopped that intolerable racket,” the male domestic said. 

Yes, well, I had to spend those five hours in that ghastly contraption.

It’s a mercy to be spared that fate these days. Though I have to confess, a little bit of me did feel just slightly put out that they didn’t even ask if I wanted to come. I could have given them a haughty shake of the head, and a sniff, which would have been much more satisfying than just being left behind without a by-your-leave.

They took the bloody dog, Janka, of course. Great lump. She just trots along faithfully behind them, wherever they’re going, and however long it takes. No mind of her own. No pride. No willpower.

That was a lesson the domestics had to re-learn, I understand, while they were away. She has no power of discrimination when it comes to food. “That’s edible,” she exclaims when she sees something that might just be. And she flings herself on it, vacuuming it up in two shakes of a pair of whiskers. Apparently, that’s what she did with the bowls of the two other dogs who were there.

The results were apparently spectacular. What’s it the medical specialists among the domestics call it? Output? Yes, that’s it. Input’s what you eat and drink, output’s from the other end. Seems Janka’s output went through the roof.

Well, not literally. Not really through the roof, or even on the floor, but since like all dogs all she can do is wag her back paws instead of making a proper hole, the output actually went into lots and lots of little bags. Evil-smelling little bags which the domestics had to deal with.

Poor dumb animal
All input and a lot too much output

I suppose dogs just aren’t civilised. Though to be fair, I’ve been tempted to behave that way myself, ever since the female domestic turned the perfectly comfortable garden we had into a terrible desert of gravel paths and vegetable beds protected with mesh I can’t get through. Fortunately, the neighbour’s decided to do something about her own garden, so I have alternative toilet facilities close by. But Janka wouldn’t care anyway. Just makes her mess and leaves it for the domestics.

Honestly, there are times I don’t grasp what they see in her.

Although I’ve perhaps begun to understand why the male domestic likes her. The footman. An event after they got home made an important point.

Back on the chief Domestic's lap
My way of saying "welcome home"

I was generous as always on their return, and came to lie on the Chief Domestic’s lap. No hard feelings, I wanted to say. And to show the footman nothing had changed with him either, I had a good pounce on his arm later on. But, would you believe it, before I could plunge the teeth and the claws in, Janka, who was lying right next to him, snapped at me. 

Snapped at me! 

Snapped! 

At ME!

What can she be thinking of? Does she feel sorry for him? He basically relishes it when I have a go. He feels I’m at least paying attention to him. Yes, of course it hurts. A bit. But nothing he doesn’t recover from pretty soon. And it teaches him such a useful message, about relative importances in the scale of things. By sabotaging all my careful educational work, Janka just does so much damage.

To say nothing of being downright disloyal.

Well, she should have learned by now that crossing me’s not a smart move. She got reminded yesterday when she tried to get back into the house after her evening pee. Brilliant. You should have seen that great lump cowering outside the back door as I – little me – just lay across the doorway. Watching her whimper. I’m not sure she has sufficient brains, but I hope she realised she was being taught a lesson.

As for the footman, when Janka snapped at me, he told her “good for you, you show the vicious little beggar.” Oh dear, oh dear. Doesn’t learn his lessons any quicker than the dumb dog. I don’t forget. And I know how to wait for my chance. He can expect his correction any time.

When he least expects it.

Misty's Diary: I did try to be nice

Another entry from Misty’s diary, following our return from holiday.

April 2014

So the domestic staff’s back. Just as well. These jaunts to strange places are just disruptive and ought to be discouraged.

And what a strange place they went to this time! Tunisia. OK, so it’s practically nothing but coastline and the fish, I understand is good, but the cats are a mangy lot for the most part, leading a claw to jaw existence. You can trust me when I say that’s a lot worse than hand to mouth for both the perpetrator and the victim.

I don’t understand why the domestics don’t just settle down and enjoy life at home. After all, so much is just as it should be here. There’s a box full of food, and however much I eat of it, it keeps filling up again. OK, I have to remind the staff from time to time to move some from box to bowl, but domestic 2’s pretty smart about that if I remind him hard enough.

I did try to persuade them to take me with them. 
Just so they didn't get lonely. Personally, I prefer home

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining about the service when they’re away. They get domestic 3 in when they clear off, and she’s fun. It’s true she tosses around in bed a lot, which is a pain in the backside, sometimes literally, and instead of learning to stop when I bite her feet, she just chucks me out, which feels like insult on top of injury. But mostly she’s fine: she knows who’s boss, and when I drive the bloody dog Janka off the sofa to reclaim my rightful place, she just laughs – a good, sensible reaction.

Even so, it’s nice to get 1 and 2 back. So nice in fact that the morning after they came home, I was my winsome best with domestic 2. Not so much cat as puss, if you get my meaning. Pretty damn adorable, if I say so myself.

Me being winsome to Domestic 2, in bed

Hamfisted stroking. 
I only let him get away with it because I was feeling winsome

But he’s hopeless. Clumsy oaf. Left my bowl empty all afternoon. Domestic 1 wouldn’t let me on her knees while we were watching TV so I had to use his lap and, honestly, the guy is hopeless. Fidgeting. Moving his right foot over his left foot, then his left foot over his right. Practically throwing me off by moving his knees apart, then nearly squishing my fine food-filled stomach when he remembered and moved them together again.

Putting up with the lap of Domestic 2
Only if the Head Domestic's not available

I had to go and lie next to him on the couch instead. And even then he came up with some silly comment about “don’t be so bad-tempered” when I drove the bloody dog off it. 

Bad-tempered? Does the dog honestly think she has the right to lie on the couch when I need it? What kind of entitled thinking is that?

Why, domestic 2’s lucky I let even him share the couch with me.

Then he tried to make good by stroking me. It was no use though. It was that cackhanded, hamfisted style of his, far too fast, far too clumsy. I’d let him get away with it in bed in the morning, but by the evening I’d had enough. And he’d made the mistake of wearing a short-sleeved shirt. A joy when you’ve got claws and jaws. Did I get him!

Don't get casual with me, mate. Or cast aspersions

Winsomeness? Forget it. A puss? That’s for the birds. I’m a cat. The birds are for me.

Normal service resumed, in other words.

Clean-cut. By a barber

I’m not of a fan of the modern institution of hairdressers. I mean, they do what they do well enough, but all the awful pretentiousness around it – the cups of coffee, the canned music, the camp discussion of the fine details of hairstyles – all leave me cold. Particularly as they seem exclusively designed to justify, if justification were possible, the scandalous prices these places charge.

Why, my dog’s hairdresser charges a lot less than they do, and Janka – that’s the dog, not the hairdresser – has a lot more to cut than I do.

Janka before and after. A lot more to cut. 

So wherever I go I look for that old-fashioned, much more basic and, in my view, more honest establishment, the barber’s. I had one in Stafford. I’m glad to say that I’ve found one in Luton too.

Clean-Cut Hairdressers in Luton
Don't be fooled – it's a barber's shop

It claims to be a hairdressers, but even the name gives the lie to that: Clean-Cut. No self-respecting hairdresser would call itself that. They always have names like A Cut Above or Hair Today – something allusively punning or otherwise aspiring to charm. 

And missing.

Clean-Cut’s a straight barber. No appointments. You turn up and take a close look at the guys (all guys) ahead of you, so you remember when it’s your turn. And you wait. That’s the downside of course: I waited the best part of half an hour today, but hey, it meant I could read the paper (is it still a paper, if it’s on a Kindle? Well, I think it is.)

When you get called over, there’s no attempt by the other guys to muscle in ahead of you. In fact, today I thought there were two in front of me, but they graciously waved me through.

“No, no, please,” they said, “go ahead.” 

It may have been because they wanted to watch the football results on the telly – that’s right, there’s no soppy canned music in Clean-Cut.

What about the cut itself?

“You want 3, 4 or 5?” he asked, forgetting that I don’t have my hair clipped any more.

“Scissors,” I informed him curtly.

“Scissors, of course,” he said, reaching for one of the two pairs carefully laid out before him.

The cut took 12 minutes. And it took place in silence, apart from absolutely necessary communication.

“Eyebrows, sir?”

“Is that high enough over the ears?”

There was no discussion of where he went on holiday last year or was planning to go this year. I didn’t find out about what had happened in the night club on Friday, and indeed I think it highly unlikely he frequents night clubs. I didn’t even discover what his elder daughter was doing in Canada, or even whether he had a daughter, in Canada of anywhere else.

A barber who gets on with it and does prattle
A gem in his profession

A blessed mercy. 

At the end of the process, my hair had been cut. Perfectly adequately in my far from humble opinion. And the charge? Rather under a quarter of what Janka’s cut cost. And, even though I have a lot less hair than she does, that’s still impressive.

Satisfies my requirements entirely
And don't knock the silver highlights –
absolutely not grey –
they took over sixty years to put in

It could even have been less. He asked me, as I came to pay, and dropping his voice as a request for such a confidence requires, whether I was a pensioner. That was slightly galling, since I like to pride myself on my youthful good looks, and don’t care to be told I don’t have them. I’m glad to say I managed to keep the disdain out of my voice when I told him I was not a pensioner, and therefore intended to pay the full fee. He smiled and accepted it.

A fine institution, the Barber’s. Long may it flourish.

You sure your enemy's enemy's your friend?

Today, for the first time this year, I took the dog for a walk in my shirtsleeves.

For the avoidance of doubt, I was wearing the shirtsleeves. The dog, Janka, just wore her fur. And fur suits her a lot better than it does our species.

'Is that Spring I sniff in the air?'

Just being able to leave my coat at home felt like a liberation. A relief. A sense that at last things are on the way back up again. A true promise of spring. 

Not that we’ve had a tough winter – no snow at all round here, unlike last year – but there comes a time when, however much you try to tell yourself that it’s good for the plants, the constant rain finally begins to pall.

The mood of joy was infectious and Janka seems to have caught it too. She was running all over the place, as though her thirteen years were just thirteen months. She even went for a cat at one point.

I’ve often wondered what would happen if a cat just stopped and stared at her. Would she run past, pretending it wasn’t that cat she was after? Or would she just a somersault and make herself scarce? I’m absolutely sure, at any rate, that she wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do if she ever caught one.

With the only cat Janka doesn't chase (not that he'd let her)

Anyway, the one in the park didn’t hang around to find out. Positively high-tailed it out of there when she saw and heard the barking, black-furred fury bearing down.

It was only afterwards that I realised that the cat had been caught at the point of climbing up a tree. I looked further up and saw, in its topmost branches – the place where branches are actually pretty much just twigs – a squirrel showing at least as much enthusiasm as the cat for being somewhere else entirely. He must have been delighted to have the unexpected, unsolicited but far from unwelcome assistance of Janka, driving away the feline tormentor.

A great illustration of the principle that my enemy’s enemy is my friend.

And, come to think of it, of how false the principle is. Because the reality is that Janka likes nothing better than chasing a squirrel. Not that I think she’d do any more to a squirrel than she’d do to a cat, if she caught one, which certainly isn’t true of the cat: it would have no doubt what to do with a squirrel or any compunction about doing it.

On the other hand, while Janka may well have helped out the squirrel by chasing away the cat, as far as the squirrel was concerned, that only left him facing an even bigger and, for all he knew, more formidable enemy.

Sense enough to know that his enemy's enemy
may not be his friend.
And to get well away from both of them

Which makes me think of UKIP, the party that may take 20% in the British elections for the European Parliament in May,  at the moment, on a xenophobic and homophobic platform. There are people out there who tell me that they’re happy to see UKIP doing well, if it takes votes from the Conservatives. Well, I’d be delighted to see the ghastly Tories gone, but if the price is UKIP getting anywhere near power, then it’s just not worth paying. 

The squirrel in the park had sense. He took advantage of the canine support that drove away its immediate, feline enemy. But he didn’t hang around to find out whether Janka was actually well-disposed towards him, and not merely ill-disposed towards the cat. He just got out to somewhere as far as possible from either of them.

Sounds like the right thing for the British electorate to do, too. The Tories, UKIP? Out of our park please. We’re not going to back the enemy in the wings to get rid of the enemy we know. 

Otherwise, we might be forced to learn the hard way to be a lot more careful what we wish for.

The curious effect of a dog in a night garden

It seemed so empty, so mind-blowingly banal, the older person’s dogged determination to follow a dull routine through to completion, each and every day.

That was how I saw my grandparents’ generation, as a child. Or worse than a child: as that most awful of creatures, an adolescent. 

I’d see those old people, each night, turning off lights, putting things away in the fridge, carefully turning lock after lock on their doors. Painful.

‘God preserve me from ever becoming that dull,’ was my unspoken prayer.

I’m not at all convinced that one of these old people I watched with such a sense of superiority was my maternal grandfather, but for some reason when I remember those times, it’s him I think of. And I have those memories most days.

That’s because each night, any time after 10:00, my dog Janka gets her last trip of the day to the garden. She likes gardens. She likes to be among plants and flowers. So she likes that final visit of the day.

Janka feeling comfortable

It’s a peaceful moment, a sort of cadence to the day. And the ritual has clearly defined rules. The other day I tried to take her out at 9:30, but got an incredulous look.

‘What game are you playing?’ she seemed to be saying, as she refused to leave her place of comfort on the sofa. ‘This is much too early. Try again in an hour or so. Half an hour if you’re really too knackered to last any longer.’

But some time after 10:00, right up to 1:00 in the morning (that’s the deadline before the barking starts), she’s fine and ready to head out. Just as long as I come with her. I don’t have to do anything, or even be that close to her. Just stand a way back on the path while she pees, tell her she’s a good girl when she’s finished, and then follow her back into the house.

It’s slightly odd because for the first pee of the day she needs nobody. Open the door and out she goes. But in the evening she needs a more companionable moment, so I provide a little company.

Then we get back indoors. First thing, to ensure I don’t forget, I turn the garden light off (did I fail to mention that Janka feels a little light is an essential ingredient of a comfortable garden visit at night?) Then there’s the back door. For reasons that escape me, it has three locks. I’m sure there’s no need for all of them, but if there are three, I’ll lock three.

That’s when the memories hit me. As I doggedly turn the locks, and carefully check that I’ve done everything, back comes the image of those old guys doing their banal daily duty. And I’m invaded by the chastening feeling that my prayer, like most prayers, went unheeded. I’ve turned into just the kind of person I hoped I’d never become. 

Not a particularly gratifying sensation.

But, hold it, what the heck. I’ve just had a moment of sociable peace with my dog. And funnily enough, when I think of my grandfather, it isn’t obsessive evening rituals that come to mind, but his smile, his strength, the things he cared about passionately and the things he didn't care for at all. Welcome memories. Thirty years ofter his death. 

That's got to be worth a moment of mild self-deprecation.

In any case, got to get the door locked. After all, who wants to offer an easy opportunity to burglars?

A dog's life on a bracing day

‘Bracing’ is a great word, isn’t it? It does for weather just what ‘interesting’ does for a film, the kind you didn’t walk out of, and which you didn’t exactly dislike, but for which you can’t actually point to any redeeming features.

On winter walks, ‘bracing’ means it was wet, cold and muddy, but somehow you didn’t enjoy it any the less for all that, though on the face of it there’s no good reason why you wouldn’t find it frankly miserable. We spent a couple of hours today picking our way round the muddiest bits of rutted paths, hands stuffed in pockets despite the gloves, noses glowing like traffic lights on stop.

That was in Ashridge forest, one of our favourite places. We particularly like it in May when the bluebells are out, or in the autumn when the leaves are turning, but even with bare trees and ice floating on the puddles in the tracks, it was full of charm today. We saw a colossal herd of fallow dear and a monkjack dodging between the trees; we saw my favourite white horse who, as usual, I fed with some handfuls of grass though it hurt to take my glove off to pick it and all I could get was some miserly tufts; and naturally we saw huge numbers of dogs, including our own Janka who’s never so delighted as when she can be in that forest.

She was barking in pleasure from the moment we pulled into the car park.  Once out the car and into the field that leads to the edge of the woods, she was wild with excitement. Belying her twelve years, she reverted to puppyhood, racing in every direction and barking at anything that caught her attention, from an unusually high grass blade to a glimpse of her own shadow.

We met a woman walking two dogs who said she always took them for a long walk before going to Ashridge, so that they wouldn’t be that excited when they got there. Clearly Janka isn’t alone in getting carried away by the sheer joy of the place. On the other hand, why would we walk off her exuberance beforehand? If Janka can’t be a little wild in a forest, where else should she be?

Sharing Janka’s pleasure would have made the walk worthwhile anyway, even if we hadn’t enjoyed it for its own sake: there’s a strange quietness in winter woodlands which is gently soothing, and it was good to share it with Danielle and our middle son Michael, over for the weekend from his home in Madrid. We wrapped the expedition up with a burger which exactly fitted the appetite the walk gave us, especially as what we ate wasn’t any old burger, but one made of veal and topped with bacon: Ashridge is managed by that venerable institution, the National Trust, and not even its burgers are ordinary.

Besides, just before we reached the end of our walk, the sun slipped below the clouds and flooded the landscape with light. No particular warmth, for sure, but golden light that transformed every prospect.

As the sun flooded in, we enjoyed Ashridge as much as Janka

Despite the bracing cold and the mud

It was a useful reminder that a winter walk can be just as rewarding as it can be bracing. A sentiment which Janka entirely endorses.