In conversation with

Before you think white coats and wrap around sleeves, I’m sure I’m not the only person who has in-depth conversations with their dog(s). You can learnt a lot from a dog as a one such exchange shows:

Me: “Arry, you’ve just been out the back”

Arry: “I need to go out”

I open the back door, Arry races through two circuits of the back garden; “Yay! This is the best day ever!!!”

Arry races into the kitchen and I close the back door. I find Arry behind me

Me: “You’ve just come back in”

Arry: “I have? I need to go out”

I open the back door and Arry races up the path full pelt; “this is the best day everrrrr!!”

As I close the back door, he shoots into the kitchen. I love how he sees life. And I wish I could be a ‘balls up in the air’ sort of personality instead of someone who feels the need to organise her Sunday even though it’s her day off. I tell everyone how excited I am about moving and starting over in who-knows-where next year but secretly I’m a little terrified. In my head I see a tortoise sticking her head out of her shell and rapidly retreating back in.

It is a subject that often creeps into conversation with friends, moving out of the big smoke that is. I guess it’s partly because many of us are at a certain age when the kids have grown up and work is no longer as exciting as it was a decade ago. We complain about the noise, the pollution, the traffic, the crime. And yet we stay because we are comfortable in our world. At least until something tips over the cart. One gal pal asked me if I felt I was running away from my problems. Nope I replied, I’m going to find new ones. I half-jokingly told her that I was going to move to Costa Rica to save trees to which she retorted ” they have flesh-eating bugs there”. Actually I wouldn’t go as I’m scared of flying but that’s by the by.

Two encounters this week gave me the inner boost I needed to get the rest of my body out of the shell. When people find out that you are a widow, they often tell you about their own tragedies. One was a lovely lady who was going through a divorce she didn’t want but her husband did. For someone who had the love of her Tony for 28 years, I couldn’t imagine how she felt but she admired my confidence to move on. The other chance meeting broke my heart. The chap delivering some hire equipment mentioned he had passed my house for many years in his job and I threw in a comment about selling it with a brief bit of the widow story with a side of ‘I don’t like London anymore’ kind of chat. Once again he admired my courage to move on as he hadn’t been able to since his son was murdered two years ago, a wrong place wrong time knife victim. Words seemed superfluous until he mentioned how much his dog helped him. Someone to talk to he said. Dogs are funny like that…..

“It is one of his most charming traits that he thinks visibly” (Edward Verrall Lucas. English esaayist)