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dignity. My fence antics had drawn a crowd - my three sons Samuel, now nine years old,
Maurice, five, and Thérence, two, followed me around finding the whole thing highly amus-
ing.
In my defence, it had been a tough week.
For the second time in a fortnight Natalie had found yet another abandoned kitten, and it
took an awful lot of persuading to stop her adopting it. For hours afterwards I caught her star-
ing wistfully at the point in the hedge where it had been miaowing mournfully. The one she
had rescued the week before had to be bottle-fed every few hours and therefore took up far
too much time. Plus, and I have this on very good authority, cute little kittens grow up to be
cats, and I've never got on with cats.
Toby, our collie-spaniel cross, had fallen mysteriously ill and I woke earlier in the week to
find the EU dogdiarrhoea mountain in the hall. I'd got up extra early, about half six, so that I
could do a bit of work, but instead spent the hour before the older boys had to be up for school
on my hands and knees mopping up dog poo and retching uncontrollably, while Natalie and
Thérence slept on. It was deeply, deeply unpleasant. And it's unlike Toby. When we first got
him from the rescue centre he was a bit of a tearaway, but this wasn't a naughty gesture, this
was clearly a very nasty stomach upset. He's just not naughty anymore; he occasionally takes
himself off for a walk but that saves us a job. He's a good dog.
His predecessor, Volcan, a Brittany spaniel, was not a good dog; he was constantly trying to
challenge me - nobody else, just me. One day he beckoned me, Lassie-style, to follow him;
I did so and he took me into the workshop whereupon he turned around, looked me straight
in the eye and urinated all over my original fishtail parka which was hanging up. Now that is
more than a gesture; that is a statement of aggression and he was out by the end of the week.
He was, however, gladly taken in by Natalie's uncle, the cow inseminator. I know, the mind
boggles.
Our other dog, Pierrot, I feel a bit sorry for. My beloved Jack Russell, Eddie, had died at
the age of sixteen (four years after we'd moved to France) which left me bereft and needing a
small dog to take her place. We'd had Eddie since she was about a year old, a tiny little waif
abandoned on the streets of London, clearly abused in some way and nursed back to health
at Battersea Dogs Home where we found her. They had named her Edelweiss because of her
white coat, a name which we shortened to Eddie because at the time we lived in South Lon-
don and wandering around the mean streets of Stockwell shouting 'Here, Edelweiss!' could
only ever end badly. So poor Pierrot, I'm afraid, was rescued on the rebound.
As seems befitting for an ageing King Charles spaniel, Pierrot had descended into debauch-
ery and moral decay and had taken to pleasuring himself shamelessly. He'd developed a pas-
sion for frottage. Now, all dogs like a good tickle or a scratch, but he'd started rubbing himself
on furniture and the look in his eyes was, well… there's no easy way to put this… his orgasm
face. He had become like a dissolute great uncle: charmingly drunk but without any shame
