It is fascinating, having watched the puppies grow up, to go back as I do here to a step by step account of their development, and how I registered it. All old hat now, but remembering the past of these now grown up characters is enormous fun, as they are in themselves. The third in size, at the time when ...
And so I was back in Oxford, for a couple of nights in the familiar setting of the top floor guest room in the Warden’s Lodgings at New College. The Warden Miles Young had kindly agreed to put me up, but he was hardly there and I saw him only very briefly. His partner Lammy was there to let me ...
It was still light on that Monday evening when we got to Sanjeeva’s house in a little town in Wales. It was a little house, and the children had been moved out of their room for me, but the downstairs had been extended so that there was substantial sitting space in addition to a dining room and a kitchen. And ...
There was only one girl amongst the big four, and she was easily distinguished for she had little white tips to her back paws. Neither Toby nor Lara has any white on them, though the light brown on Toby’s legs does shade towards white as it goes downward. I think she was the second to be born, for she was ...
It was marvellous to get back that afternoon to Bruce’s house, for it felt like home. It was good to lunch off the cheeses Bruce had in abundance, to lie in bed with Penny’s thrillers after that, to sit then in his sunny garden, and to walk for the last time on the beach with his dogs. He had got ...
My accounts of the two youngest members of my family will have indicated that the six additions have now soon enough took on characters of their own. It was fascinating to see them develop, from the identikit little creatures I left to travel to Canada when they were four days old. And they could not really be differentiated when I ...
Seeing the Chapel enthused me to revive more of my 1999 stay, though it proved even more difficult to find Hawthornden Castle. Though it had been only a walk away from the Chapel, the custodians there only had a vague idea of the place. Though we were sent in the right direction, and saw the occasional signpost, we kept taking ...
I wrote last week about the youngest is Lara’s litter, who had a problem, or rather several problems, with his eye and with regard to nourishment. But as I mentioned, under Dr Janaki’s treatment, he got better rapidly. The eye was not to be cured, we had to accept that in the end, but he did open it most of ...
We set off after breakfast from Graham’s, dropping in on Marilyn to say goodbye, and since we were making good time I asked Bruce if he minded taking me to Rosslyn Chapel which is a few miles outside Edinburgh. Way back in 1999 I had visited it when I was on a Writers Residency at Hawthornden Castle, a lovely little ...
From those days in April which saw all six puppies eating companionably and growing, in their different dimensions, I had about three months of tremendous joy in them, broken only by two weeks away in England for my birthday, in the latter part of May – though even then I saw them almost every day by calling and bothering Janaki ...
We got to Pitlochry in time for tea with Marian in the retirement home she had moved into. Her youngest son Graham, who had qualified as a doctor in Edinburgh and then worked there along with his wife, had retired, and Marilyn and her other son Robert who had also retired had moved there so they could all be together. ...
One night with the puppies was enough for Benjy, perhaps because I kept a light on, so after that he went gracefully upstairs. The night after he had been with us, Toby plonked down by my bed and seemed disinclined to move, but when he realized Benjy had gone, he got up and moved. I must admit I was thankful, ...
And then we were off to Ford Castle for the Opera, Martin having come armed with his picnic and a chair to go with us. Bruce was wonderfully efficient, with chairs and umbrellas (useful since it rained this evening) lavish picnic, and we went early, to get a good place, and also enjoy the gin and tonic which they served ...
Interestingly, though initially she did not allow either of the male dogs too close, she was more indulgent towards Toby, almost as though she is aware that he is the father. But he, though he is inquisitive about what is going on, does not push too far, and having checked on things moves away fairly quickly. Benjy however would get ...
The smaller castles in the area around Berwick were also splendid, though we did not go to the best of them, Ford Castle, for we were due there the next evening for a summer opera. We went however first to the Museum nearby, with beautiful murals by Louisa the Countess of Waterford. She lived here after the death of her ...
In looking for the quotation from Scott, I found that in the previous piece in the series I had written about Lara that She is an excessively active character, and rouses Benjy at all hours, particular when he is inclined to sleep. Her teeth are very sharp, and occasionally we hear squeals of anguish from him, which I suppose she ...
After the early morning walk on the beach, on that first morning in Berwick, we went back home to poached ducks’ eggs which Bruce prepared and lots of toast and home made marmalade, which was most satisfying. I lay then on the sofa and read while Penny came down and had her more exiguous breakfast and they did their household ...
Two weeks after I got back from Thailand, in the middle of February this year, I was told that Lara was indeed pregnant, with at least four puppies. And she then delivered on the date forecast, eight weeks after the were conceived, six of them. And, workmanlike and precise, as Lakshmi de Silva once wrote about a book of mine, ...
On June 21st, after lunch in Birmingham with Richard Weatherill, Bruce drove north for many hours, though it was still sunny by the time we left motorways and headed towards Berwick on smaller roads, for it was the longest day of the year. As we neared our destination Bruce decided he should get us some ducks’ eggs, so we went ...
In the nights, to get to his favourite place, if he has left it, and to get out again, Benjy often has to step over Toby who, for the last five years, has slept between my bed and the dressing table. Sometimes he is near the other end, but when he stretches himself beside the nearer end there he fills ...
