Settled

We were spending the weekend in a very nice house, a very naice house, know what I mean, nudge nudge. White is the predominant colour, pale carpets, nothing out of place. Hugo had been invited and was keenly anticipated. But there was the small issue of the something unpleasant he had rolled in which left a slightly odoriferous area of neck, and the puzzling fact that he is moulting a little, in the autumn for goodness sake. I decided to give him a bath before we left, his second since I've had him. I don't really know the protocol for dog washing frequency, but Hugo is a particularly glossy dog with very short hair and a decidedly non-doggy smell. He doesn't get dirty apart from his feet after a good gallop across the fields, and a bowl of warm water soon sorts that out. The first time I bathed him not long after he came to live with me he was plastered in mud after a misguided yomp, and I remember him trembling all over as I washed him, and then shaking himself furiously as soon as I stopped. This time he stood calmly in the water, gently lifting each leg as I soaped him and then rinsed him off. He might have been in a trance, lulled by the gently murmured words I kept repeating. I rubbed him lightly with a towel in the bath, then lifted him out and dried him all over as well as I could. Finally he shook himself though there was nothing left to shake, and he was off, charging from room to room, rolling wildly on the floor then racing around again. He was crazy with joy for some reason, and I laughed at his antics which made him perform them ever more madly. He reeked of Johnson's baby shampoo all day but it's worn off now.

The boy was still damp when we set off so I wrapped him in my fleece. The journey took three hours thanks to an accident outside Royston, and we had to go through the town to avoid the blocked road. It was the first time I'd been there in 55 years since my best friend Jenny moved away. I used to stay at her home, an old four-storey townhouse with a huge kitchen/dining room in the basement where I first encountered spag bol and had to be taught to wind it around my fork with the aid of a spoon. When I got home and told my sister about this amazing dish we set about recreating it with mince and tomato ketchup, but we couldn't understand how they had cooked the long strands of dark blue paper-wrapped spaghetti as it wouldn't fit in our largest saucepan and we ending up breaking it into smaller pieces. Her father was head of a boys' borstal, and there were always a few sullen youths around as well as Jenny's three glorious siblings. It was an exotic set-up compared to my conventional home life, and I loved staying there in the holidays. On one occasion, aged 12, we rushed back to excitedly report seeing a vision of Jesus as we walked on the golf course, and Jenny took me to visit the prehistoric cave hidden under the shoe shop. It's still there, but now entry is through a designated cave shop. If Hugo hadn't been with me, stoically enduring the long journey, I'd have stopped off for old time's sake. The memory of it is still vivid.

We arrived at last for a late lunch. Hugo was at the end of his tether, beginning to pant with distress after behaving immaculately for so long. We were warmly welcomed and went indoors to recover. "I'm not doing that journey again," he declared. "I'm staying put. You go if you want to, but you go without me." I agreed with him, it had been a feat of endurance. So that's it, we're staying in Gerrards Cross now, no more to go home. It's lovely here. Ciao.