Dog Day Afternoons

I've been thinking of memories and how they lie dormant until something resurrects them, sometimes like a butterfly emerging from the pupa stage, other times like Dracula rising from the grave.

A snatch of music can transports me back to people, places, experiences. 

A glimpse of a movie on tv recalls which cinema I first saw it. And who I was with.

A photograph I've taken drops me instantly back to that day. 

That has been happening a lot lately, because I've been digitising old 35 mm negatives, mostly shots of dogs and cats that have long crossed that rainbow bridge. It's good to see these old pets again, especially as they are generally young and active in the shots. Age has not withered them. These images are moments of time frozen in ink on photographic paper, now immortalised in pixels and bytes of data.

Why am I telling you this?

It's really just an excuse to run some dog pics!

 These are all of Charlie, a bearded collie. I've had a number of dogs over the years, even more cats, and they were all special. My regular reader (she's a lovely person, enjoys a boiled sweet) knows that currently I have Mickey as a companion and he is very much my world, along with Tom the cat.

But Charlie...ah, Charlie.

He was the kind of dog that people smiled at in the street. There was just something about him that made them respond.

My wife found him one day tied to a park bench in a helluva state. His coat was matted, his claws were so long he was walking on the heels of his pads. She took him home and he was named Charlie because he was a bit of a tramp.

Charlie knew a good thing when he saw it and soon made himself at home. And he was a great dog. He loved the car, loved to go on trips. When it was time for me to pick my wife up from her office, he would do a little dance in the hallway because he knew he was coming too. He would sit in the back seat, looking through the windscreen, swaying with the corners.

He even went camping with us and I remember one day in Ullapool in the Scottish highlands when we wondered why people were walking past the back of our tent and giggling. It turned out he was lying inside, his nose and eyes poking out from under it and watching the world going by. 

It's never easy when a pet leaves you and Charlie was a particular wrench. He grew gradually weaker, less active, not nearly as perky. He faded away. And then, one day, he simply breathed once more and was gone. 

He was buried in the corner of a garden I no longer own and I often wonder if the new owners ever see a cheeky, lovable face peering at them through the grass. 

My wife died three years ago and I like to think that somewhere Charlie was waiting for her, along with all the other dogs and cats that have gone before. Young again. Smiling as he is the picture. Perhaps doing a little dance as he anticipates a trip somewhere. 

Waking Early and Writing More?

 I am normally not a fan of summer mornings. They come too soon and they are too bright. For years, I have been closing the blinds and the curtains and trying to sleep in. But this year, I have been sleeping in a bedroom that receives early morning light because that is the larger of the two bedrooms in my house and that was where I set up his portable enclosure with his bed inside when my new puppy, then not yet three months old, arrived from Maryland. He is now seven months old and a good sleeper. But he likes to know where I am before he goes to bed. So does Penelope, the cat from "down South," who joined us a couple of months ago.

Penelope now strolls in and claims the foot of my bed as soon as she sees where Fergus and I are headed. 

Fergus is an early riser. He wakes up at around 6:30 am most mornings. This means I wake up, too. Having a puppy has forced me to change my sleep patterns. I believe I am still a "night owl" but now I am up and outside when the air is still so fresh that Fergus sits there sniffing. We hear the doves cooing. And despite myself I have found myself enjoying being awake -- even feeling smug and virtuous because I have started the day when some people are hitting their snooze button. Last night, I even anticipated being up early by heading to bed at a little after eleven. 

Being up early has also changed my writing habits. Instead of staggering to my desk to write, I am sitting down wide-awake after rising early and taking Fergus to doggie daycare. Since I need to pick him up by 6 pm, I am much more focused. I know that I need to get as much done as possible because when he gets home, he may still be full of energy and zooming through the house. I am falling into the habit of taking him for a walk after daycare. This makes for a calmer evening.  

Having no children, I am experiencing that discipline that writers with children talk about needing if they are to get anything done. This is a new experience for me because I have always been haphazard. I don't set word quotas. I have never written every day. I have thought through my plots and set down to write in long chunks of time. With Harry, my lovely Maine Coon, no animal-related adjustments were necessary. Harry was my night-owl pal, who enjoyed sleeping in as much as I did. 

But dear Harry is gone, and I am now in another animal universe. Not to say that I don't love Fergus and Penelope, but I didn't anticipate how much their sleeping habits would affect mine. Nor did I give a lot of thought to how much my writing habits would change of necessity. 

It is possible that having to structure my summer days in this new way will make me more productive. I'll let you know this September. 

Moving on

If there's one thing in life that is a constant, it is that it changes. Put simply, stuff happens.

It might be little things - trying a new toothpaste, a different diet, rearranging the furniture.

It might be larger events - new job, new relationship, new house.

Or loss of the above.

In the past five or six years I have experienced huge change. 

I was made redundant from my job as editor of a weekly newspaper here in Scotland. It didn't hit me too hard, although I did notice the lack of a regular wage. I had been doing the job for about 18 years and, frankly, I was a burn-out. I was done and I knew it so the offer of leaving it behind was accepted without bitterness or rancour.

Frankly, I think my employers were glad to get rid of me because I was a dinosaur and very much a nay-sayer. No matter what cunning plan they came up with, I would sit at meetings and shake my head. I did not fit in, if I ever did.

Two years ago my wife died. I found her one morning in the dining room. She had been unwell for some time, her personality had changed until she was not the person I used to know. Things had not been easy for a number of years for a variety of reasons and I had struggled to cope.

This is the first time I believe I have written about it and I don't even know why I'm doing it now, so forgive me if I don't go into too much detail.

The day after Margaret died my dog also passed away. Katy, too, had been ailing and I think the events of the previous day had proved too much for her.

Life had changed but it had to go on. I still had bills to pay. I still had Mickey, now an only dog, and Tom, who had always been an only cat. When you have pets - or children - you cannot languish under the duvet of grief. You have to keep moving.

So I did. Eventually, I got back to writing. Author friends insisted I go with them on a tour of independent bookshops which included an overnight stay on the wonderful isle of Bute. They said it would be good for me and they were right. 

And Mickey came too!

Fooling around on St Andrew's Beach with Caro Ramsay and Michael J. Malone. 

And Mickey.

And now, and I may have mentioned this once or twice, I have moved house. I had become aware that my time in the old place, in the hills of Ayrshire in south west Scotland, was at an end. I had never been completely happy in that house - I had merely settled, as if on a bench on a long walk, knowing I still had to move on - and when one of those author friends offered to rent me this new house in the greater Glasgow area I decided it was time to move back closer to civilisation. Life is getting back to some kind of normal and the old place was too far away from everywhere. Even popping out for milk was an excursion.

And so, here I am.

Stuff happens.

Life changes.

Walking around the empty rooms of the old house on that final day was a strange experience, however. The removal of the furniture and the pictures from walls had transformed it from a home into simply a space.

And yet, there was something there.

Memories that hung like dust in the sunlight. Echoes of the past that reverberated from bare walls like the notes of a dimly remembered song. I may have only settled there but it had still been where the last few years of my life had played out, good and bad, happy and sad.

It was time to leave them where they lay and move on.

But now the three of us, the three amigos, are beginning our new adventure, in a new, but old, house in a new, but old, part of Scotland. I'm from Glasgow but not this part (which isn't really Glasgow at all but is part of the conurbation) so it's all fresh to me.

And the boys?

As I said before, they have settled in well. (I was asked for proof, so here you go)

As you can see, they have made themselves at home and there are many places within an easy drive to take Mickey for longer walks. Tom is being kept in for now but when I do let him out I think he will be supervised. They are fed and warm and loved. And that last one, I believe - I hope - is reciprocated.

I've also made myself at home. The books are on the shelves, the art is on the walls. The dust is already beginning to settle.

Okay, house.

I'm ready for new memories now.

Never Hurt a Dog

In the last two John Rebus mysteries written by Ian Rankin, a new recurring character was introduced by the name of Brillo.  A homeless bit of scruff, the curmudgeonly retired detective reluctantly brings the dog into his home.  The book where Brillo makes his first appearance is appropriately named Even Dogs in the Wild. 

In all three of my mysteries, Geneva Chase, my lead character, has a dog named Tucker.  “My Yorkshire terrier, was little more than two bright, shiny eyes tucked into a ball of brown and gray fur.”   For Genie, Tucker is family.  In the beginning, it was the only family Genie had.  Tucker is friendly, loving, playful, and his tail is always wagging.

Tucker is based on a real dog we had for about eleven years until he passed away about four years ago.

The real life Tucker didn't cotton to me much.  He was my wife’s dog and he was extremely protective. Thinking back on it, Tucker didn’t like any men at all.  I don’t know why, I’m not a pet psychologist. Don't get me wrong, I loved the little guy. He just didn’t always make it easy.

Dogs and cats can be instrumental in showing what kind of person a character is.  Geneva Chase drinks too much, makes bad life decisions, and is a hot mess, but she loves her dog and it’s obvious that Tucker loves her back. Deep down, Genie is a sweet lady.

In the very first episode of House of Cards, Congressman Frank Underwood leaves his Washington D.C. flat and observes his neighbor’s dog as it’s struck by a car.  He comforts the dog while addressing the audience.  And then he calmly strangles the animal.  From the outset, you know that this is not a nice guy.

A pet can help set a scene.  In Random Road, Genie lives in an apartment close to the waterfront.  “Tucker likes it because we’re a short walk to the docks. We can be on the waterfront in about seven minutes. Pleasure boats are tied alongside oyster trawlers and the ferry.  There’s the sound of the waves gently slapping against their bows and there’s the smell of the sea in the air and saltwater.  When I let him off his leash during the day, Tucker likes running back and forth on the wooden docks, terrorizing the gulls, who rise up reluctantly into the air and scream shrill epithets at the little dog while wheeling in slow circles, a few yards above his head.”

A pet can help describe a person’s state of mind.  Also in Random Road, a sad Genie Chase has just returned home.  “The depressing weather was lifting and pockets of sunshine struggled to find their way around the dark clouds.  I drove home in a fog, numb and exhausted.  When I got to my apartment, I picked up Tucker and held him so tight he must have thought I meant to crush him. He needed to be walked so I took him down to the waterfront where Kevin and I had been the first night we were together.  That was so long ago and it felt so lonely.”

Circling back around to Ian Rankin, at a recent conference, someone asked him if he regretted anything that he’d ever written.  His answer, “In one of my books, I killed a cat.”  He shook his head.  “I’ve never heard the end of it.”

My long suffering wife has read the drafts of my books where I’ve killed off countless numbers of people in the nastiest ways.  She thinks that’s okay.  Her one admonishment to me is, “Never hurt a dog.”

When Tucker passed away, we waited a few months and then reached out to a friend who rescues dogs to help us locate another fur baby.  She brought over a shit-tzu named Lilly.  She’s a little bit older and when she came into our house, while she was quietly claiming some of Tucker’s old toys as her own, I couldn’t help but notice she was already a little gray.

My heart melted. I’m a little gray. Ah, hell, I’m a lot gray.

We don’t know how old Lilly is but we’ve had her about four years now and she’s family.  She’s a sweetie who has earned a place in a book I have yet to write.