A Dog’s Life

Image: iStock

It had been put off a while but I allowed myself a bit of a lie in on Saturday morning. With no daughter about (she was at a friend’s house) the morning started slow and easy, which is a pleasant situation that doesn’t present itself very much at all these days to my wife and I.

We spent the morning and early part of the afternoon cleaning and tidying the house. It badly needed it. Gail left for a photo-shoot mid-afternoon leaving me to finish what was left, then I brewed some fresh coffee and watched a marvellous documentary on Ivor Cutler: Looking For Truth With a Pin, filmed the year before his death in 2006. It doesn’t run the full length of the film unfortunately, but nevertheless it’s an interesting and hilarious piece of television about a remarkable man.

I worked on GREENER the rest of the day before my wife’s pal came over for dinner; good food, good wine and some chit chat—all very pleasant and grown-up. She’s still grieving for her father so we persuaded her to stay the night rather than go back to an empty flat. Being the good chap I am I gave up my bed so she could kip with Gail, though I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about the fact that it meant I would have to sleep with Sam’s dog in the living room. And with my daughter having a sleepover in her own room—the stench of makeovers and the sound of white rappers and X-Factor losers oozed from her bedroom all night—the house was a tad full.

The first half of the night was a bit rubbish. I couldn’t sleep because the floor was too hard; I thought it might have been good for my back. Gracie was fine. She curled up next to me on the middle of the floor and even though I tried to use the sound of her breathing to coax me to sleep, it never really came. The teenage noise upstairs was too distracting so I moved onto the couch.

Gracie isn’t allowed on the couch and I had to tell her to get down a couple of times. I could hardly sleep for her sitting puppy-eyed with her chin resting on the couch, breathing onto my face as I lay in the dark. Eventually she lay down on the floor next to me and I fell asleep. When I woke up yesterday morning, the cheeky wee scamp had slid onto the couch and tucked herself in behind my knees! I took a picture before she woke up:

Despite the broken sleep, I got up early’ish and headed into town for the morning. I only had a few of things to remember to do: browse through Fopp (they’ve now got TWO copies of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman in stock—typical!), buy a newspaper and order a cappuccino to sip while reading it. I spent 90 minutes in that coffee shop enjoying the light jazz, the peace and the words.

In the afternoon we had family friends over. Saran and Rob brought their young kids with them and we caught up over lunch. My daughter and her pal finally arose from their sleepover at 2:45pm, all grumpy, messed up and probably wishing they hadn’t stayed up so late now the day was half gone.

Once everyone else had left—Sarah and Rob back home, daughter out with friends and wife to her photographic studio—I got back to the page and back to work. GREENER is coming to a conclusion.

Until tomorrow, peace out!