I should know better

Is Velvet missing her sister? Well, only for a few hours. Allegra`s attitude was "one down, one to go."

But Velvet is staying. She is now very confident and engaging, and very spoiled indeed. And if I am not around to do the spoiling, there is always her mother and Auntie Solitaire...... who is very long-suffering. She is at present going through the adolescent ugly phase, when most Papillon bitch puppies should just have a paper bag with eyeholes popped over them when in public.

But she will come through that.

And I am very hopeful. As always.

Allegra -

Blanche, despite the efforts of her mother, has found a lovely new home.

I had been contacted by a lady in a remote little hamlet away to the south - the sort of place that was known as a one horse town until the horse died - and a country life is always good for a Papillon. So yesterday off we went.

I had decided to take Blanche and her parents, to give some idea of what she might grow up to be. Blanche has taken strongly after her father, so Merlin went too. I just hoped he would behave. Mother Allegra, I thought, would be friendly and lively (if bald), and would charm everyone.

Blanche`s prospective owners had just built a new house at one end of the village. In we went, and Blanche behaved beautifully. She projected a quiet and charming image.

Merlin was brought out, and played the perfect gentleman, happy and affectionate to everyone, willing to be picked up and cuddled by strangers and without even a twitch of a hind leg as he walked past the new furniture.

Allegra came barrelling out, hyper (she had hoped the bath meant a show) and rattled around,, engaging her daughter in very physical play and generally giving an impression of Daffy Duck on speed. As the prospective owners watched open mouthed, she gradually slowed down, and eventually strolled casually into the new dining room, where she indulged in a Brad Pitt right in the middle of the rug.

I could have died. What can you say? My friend rushed to clear it up, the owner said the rug was washable and then the conversation spiralled into a black hole. As it would.

Somehow we picked things up, changed the subject, and eventually it was agreed that they would have Blanche, despite the efforts of her mother to gum things up. Blanche was perfectly happy to stay....possibly thinking that at last she would be free of her embarrassing mother.

Allegra came home obviously very pleased with herself. Clearly she and she alone had persuaded these good people to take her daughter. Velvet did not look for her sister, but seemed a little lost.....

And ended up sleeping on the bed. Where she will probably stay.

I usually let Truly out last thing at night, after all the others are in bed, and she doesn`t stay out away from her not so little girl too long.

But last night after a few minutes a storm of barking, growling and other horrendous Swedish cursing broke out. Merlin, safe in bed, was insisting that something out there was Very Wrong, Mum, and that I should Do Something.

I couldn`t see why someone would be at the gate so late on. but out I went.....

And there was Truly, facing up to a really enormous fox. Drawn up to her full height of nine and a half inches at the shoulder, she was telling it loudly and clearly that it had no right to live, and when she had killed it, she would be feeding it to her puppy.

The fox was.....well, a bit foxed by it all. You could see him thinking: "It looks like a dog, it smells like a dog, it sounds like a dog - but I do eat things that size....."

I got her in quickly, and got the look I know well that says "I brought it to bay for you - now you kill it!"

I went up to the fox, which showed no inclination to leg it. But after some persuasion it headed off behind the coal into the thicket down by the burn, from which came sounds of crunching. So it already had a meal.....fortunately not Truly.

She was already in bed with her fat daughter, telling her all about how she had vanquished a giant predator, and how when she was older, she would be taught how to do the same. And then they could go hunting together.....

Be afraid, Godzilla. Be very afraid.

The hype about Swine Flu hits new heights every day, and by now everyone locally equates it with bubonic plague and The End Of The World As We Know It.

This weather does not agree with my well-known chest weakness, and the other day I was coughing my way merrily home on the local bus, a gaudily painted affair clearly decorated by someone who needs to read less Harry Potter and definitely get out more. A young woman sitting behind me announced to the general public that it was a scandal to allow me to sit there infecting everyone with Swine Flu.....

Wet winter days do not bring out the best in me, and before the other passengers could have a whip round for the stake, faggots and tar barrels, I heard myself suggesting that my accuser was by the look of her probably herself harbouring quite a few diseases that she would be happy to pass on.

Silence. Which lasted till I got off.

Really, I shouldn`t be allowed.

But circumstances change. Last night I ate beans.

And today I concede that on the bus I was nobody`s friend.