Rivals

My sister and I do not look alike. Chalk and cheese we are. So why did no fewer than three people grin at us knowingly over the weekend and point out the relationship? One particularly nice lady in Waitrose couldn't stop smiling broadly as we stood beside her till, as if she had just discovered the secret of perpetual motion or something. I don't know why I'm complaining. I love spotting the similarities that reveal people's family link: a slight plumpness of the lower lip, a faint pull on one eye, hair springing just so away from the forehead. You can't get away from the likeness no matter how completely different you may be in every way. At least we didn't have a repetition of a scene in Dublin over 20 years ago, when a woman noticed the likeness between us. Allegedly she decided that we were mother and daughter, and I was the mother. I didn't hear any of that, but my sister claimed she did, and laughed uproariously for the rest of her stay with me. But given that I was in my late 40s, that would have put her, at best, in her early 30s. And given too that she's nearly three years older than me, that was never going to be the case. Sisterly rivalry. It's subtle nowadays, but it's still there.

I opened my bedroom window to break off some of the longest wisteria tendrils that are threatening to invade the house, and there below me was a baleful eye staring up at me. Startled, I pulled my head back quickly as a large wood pigeon flew away with a flurry of ruffled feathers. I looked down again and saw two big white eggs in a makeshift nest of twigs. Ahh, how delightful! I loathe wood pigeons, all that sexual activity right through the year, the crashing of heavy bodies in the hedges and trees, the continual taking off and landing. But the sight of that huge mother hovering over her eggs was quite touching. I'm keeping a look-out for the babies now. Though they too will infuriate me soon as they sit on the lanes, too stupid and sleepy and slow to move out of the way of the car causing you to brake again and again.

It might have been a mistake to teach Hugo to drink out of a cup. It has solved the problem of how to get him to quench his thirst on long walks as he refuses to take on liquids that I pour out for him. But he will never turn down a plastic cup, especially if he sees me pretending to drink from it first. So I shouldn't have been surprised, as I settled in my recliner in the shade of the very hot sun with a nice cold drink of elderflower cordial and sparkling water, to see him walk over gratefully and take a long cooling drink.

He surpassed himself this morning. As usual I had carefully closed all the doors in the kitchen before I went to bed last night, especially the one to the cupboard containing his dried food, and the larder. But I might have inadvertantly left the door to the bin cupboard open. I don't keep the lid on the bin as there isn't enough space, and I came upon the entire contents scattered across the floor. It's such a shocking sight, presumably like returning to a burgled house, that you can barely take it in. There was Hugo, lounging on the sofa without a care in the world, getting ready for his exuberant morning greeting with a stretch, but I stopped him in his tracks. "Come here" I ordered him coldly, and he snuggled back into the sofa. "Come here" I instructed again. He didn't move. Eventually he came towards me, and I told him he was a very bad boy, very bad indeed. He hung his head. "Go to your bed," I said, and he tried to get back onto the sofa. "No, bed," I repeated sternly. He circled a few times, and tried the sofa again. "Bed!" I said. And then I saw why he couldn't get into his dog basket. It too was full of detritus from the bin. How I would love to have watched his antics last night as he carefully carried things over to his bed, or sorted them out on the floor. There was even a piece of courgette on the sofa itself. He had a field day, what with the remains of the chocolate cake in the tin foil. But what were the two empty packets of Thornton's mixed mint chocolates doing? And the two empty packets of Smarties? Where had they come from, and why had they been secreted in the bin under other rubbish? Sisters, eh? They may look a bit alike but there the resemblance ends. Some of us would never be so sneaky.