A Tragic Age

Everybody's flying and no one leaves the ground
Everybody's crying and no one makes a sound
There's a place for us in the movies you just gotta lay around
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed - most peculiar, mama
John Lennon (Nobody Told Me)

IN THE LAST FORTNIGHT I have had three separate interactions with three long-time friends that, some days later, on reflection, have a connection and, taken as a whole, allow me to address a curious period in my life that I have touched on only briefly, and hardly openly to all. I dare say that anyone interested in therapy, incoming or outgoing, would make a note on this page I am writing, perhaps even two notes. (1) He faces his past. (2) Will he come to terms with it?

A friend of mine, a little older than I am in the record books, but who has reinvented himself to such an extent that when we were colleagues at AIG in Bermuda, when I was certainly in my early twenties, he would have been quite unborn (truly a trick of the light!) offered this opinion on my life. “Ross, you’ve had a pretty unhappy life. It’s no wonder you suffer from depression.” Pretty unhappy is another way of saying miserable, disastrous, awful, crushing, unsatisfying (and unsatisfactory), and failed. But the good news is that one can blame it all on having a father who buggered off when one was still in short trousers. That (sort of) makes it all right. And, as some wit noted, the consultant psychiatrist will tell you: “If it ain’t one thing, it’s your mother.”

Days later, I had a message from the wife of a friend who wasn't really writing on his behalf, who was not so much baring her teeth as her own suffering soul. The friend’s wife remarked on the good life I lived, with the inference that this was not something new. Inferred because she said that (while I was living my good life) her husband had had to struggle to support and bring up his family. He’d had to work hard. And I know he did, for a fact. Blessings on him. My friend came from a more privileged background than I did, but our lives followed the same route for a time. So far as I know he remained on that particular path and I did not, and my divergence is, I suppose, the sin that his wife sees: my unexpected and unearned good life.

Less than a week ago I sat down to talk into the night with an old friend I have known longer than my AIG colleague, as well as the other friend and his wife I’ve mentioned. This friend, who attended the same grammar school that I did, knows my story, as much by direct observation as by hearing it related on the telephone or on paper; he has seen the ups and downs, the lines growing deeper and longer on my face, the greying and whitening of my hair, and, I think, my delight at living where and when and how I do. We have walked along Horseshoe Bay Beach in Bermuda at night, the waves booming on the soft sand and the rip tide pulling silently in the dark. We have walked in a cold, howling gale on the Northumberland coast, and we’ve sat in the chapel in Durham Cathedral dedicated to the Venerable Bede amongst soft and warm whispers. That friend always sees the good in things if at all possible. He remembers funny moments with both of my parents. I'm fine with my parents. Parents, and their children, should just do what they can. This is not to say one should do the very least one can get away with when the boxes are being ticked. One should reach out, up, down. One should gather, and set free, with enthusiasm. That third chapter in Ecclesiastes must be one of the few in the Old Testament that should not be fed to the fires, for it is poetry and poignant and pointed.

Listen, I did not have an unhappy life. It’s still wobbling along and it’s still not an unhappy life. However, I have had unhappy moments. I have had times that were a real struggle, but I’ve never thought to top myself. Indeed, I have survived days and nights and weeks and months that some people might not manage.

When I was awfully young, perhaps six-years-old, my mother was taken ill and had to go (from Bermuda) to Montreal, Canada, for treatment related to her grand mal epilepsy. For reasons I’ve never quite understood, and probably never shall, my younger sisters and I were farmed out individually for a spell. I was taken to the home of strangers, who talked loudly to me, as adults without children tend to address youngsters, and had to live there, go to and from school by bus and on foot as their very small, very young lodger. I can still recall (I have an astonishing memory) the walk from the bus stop, up a winding road to the strange house. My hosts would not be there, they both worked, their maid would let me in. I remember lying on my bed in their very nearly empty, small box room, and closing my eyes against the brightness. I wasn't even sure what I was supposed to call these people, best to try to avoid them.

John Lennon pressed buttons for me in 1967 when he sang: “Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.” John was farmed out to his Aunt Mimi, his father had buggered off, his mother had buggered off. His suffering was revealed in his music. I managed somewhat better than John Lennon, but had to make do without the genius that can come with the pain. I did share some traits with Lennon: a very bad temper, the use of and growing dependence on drugs, difficulties with relationships. However (and this essay might be called “However”) no end of teenage lads in the 1960s were shirty and shitty and shit-faced. Truthfully, George Harrison was my favourite Beatle. George went singing “Om” and I went singing “Come, Come, Ye Saints”.

I went to parties, I went to dances, I went to clubs and discotheques, and I went to pubs and restaurants with live music. I made lots of really super friends. I skipped school and took the train to London and walked for days in museums and galleries, usually by myself. I did not study very much, but passed my courses, usually with good marks. I went to the movies when I could, and to cathedrals and castles. I read so many books and was blessed with the longing to read more. I chain-smoked (didn’t we all?) and drank fruity cocktails till religion had to be investigated, tried, lived and then discarded. Curiously, but I'm grateful for it, I emerged from religion fairly sober and not smoking.

I had a go at painting pictures and writing poetry, and was not terribly good at either. I believe I could write a pretty good letter in the days before email and text-messaging.

I travelled a fair bit, despite health problems. I confess I self-medicated and sometimes took wing and even with my astonishing memory I lost time, and have no recollection of the journeying. Arriving usually meant sleeping for a few days to burn off near-lethal doses of drugs. But I felt driven. I have seen some remarkable places on my travels. I’ve met some terrific people.

So, my critic, the one who thinks I’ve had it too easy compared to some (her husband), could almost take these words above as my own confession that I’ve had a pretty good time of it. Surviving is good once one has survived, but getting there can be bumpy.

About six years ago I was wakened in the night by strange sounds and smells. I opened my eyes. I was in a room, in near dark, which was just eight foot square. There were three cots in the room, each six feet long, two feet wide, a thin mattress and a mix of raggedy blankets. I was waking up on one cot, my head was almost on the feet of someone in a cot at right angles to mine, and the third cot was empty. In the small square of space in the middle of the cots, below a dim ceiling light, the elderly black man with an Islamic name who usually occupied the third cot was standing naked and having violent, noisy and thrusting sex with a very large black woman. Really, the most obvious thing in the room was this woman’s heaving backside as my skinny roommate battered her.

I’ve forgotten the man’s Islamic name, though I’m tempted to say it was Abdul, but he had been Michael somebody, and he had twelve children by as many women (at least, he said), but no matter his faith, he was a dealer and user of drugs. I’d often be interrupted by his drug parties, which seemed to be held fearlessly, despite the rules of the Salvation Army which ran the Homeless Shelter stating that no drugs or alcohol (or women) were permitted on the premises. Michael Somebody (or Abdul) took a moment from his sex to announce to me that the girl he was with was willing to fuck any and all the men living in the hut that night. That would have been well over a dozen, in a wooden building with smashed windows, and broken plumbing that generally resulted in toilets overflowing so that faeces might be running down the central passageway between the tiny box rooms.

The night I was taken to the Homeless Shelter a bed, a cot, had become available only because the previous occupant had just died in it. Another resident was found dead in an open ditch behind the shelter not long after. Because I was white, I was threatened regularly. I understand that: the residents, all black, thought I was a spy for the Police Force. The Police did do searches from time to time, but the residents had advance warning and drugs and stolen goods seemed to disappear for a convenient period. We were all told to ride the buses till midnight (to keep warm and dry) and then to sleep in any park with an open gate. That meant only the park outside the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. I’d been to parties at the RBYC in my time, and now I was hidden under its shrubbery trying to sleep while noisy partygoers left the Club.

The day after Abdul’s friend serviced all those wanting it in the Homeless Shelter, I moved out. I slept in the cemetery where my mother is buried for a few nights, and went and raised a ruckus with a social worker, who suggested I move into an abandoned building (he suggested a former hotel dormitory awaiting demolition). Somehow, things fell into place and I was offered an efficiency apartment in a brand new Government project. It was very basic, but clean (I know, I cleaned my room and often others) and dry, though in a neighbourhood one could not be outside in after early evening, particularly if one was white. I started doing house- and pet-sits, and I got an evening job coaching a creative writing class at night school. It happened that I had the opportunity to leave Bermuda, and I’ve rebuilt my life. Well, it’s still under construction, as any life should be.

So, why was I suddenly homeless six years ago? It happened rapidly. I had moved from a cottage to an apartment, with my little dog, Aleks, and two days later I went out for an hour. When I got back, Aleks was gone. As he was micro chipped the story came out: Aleks had been taken and used as live bait for fighting dogs. A tiny dachshund to give pit-bulls the taste of fresh blood. I have been able to survive, to get through, many things, many trials and upsets, in my lifetime, and my life has been a good one, but I could not believe, accept, understand, and cope with the murder of my beloved little dog. (I still have dark hours when I miss Aleks terribly). I broke down. I went walking. I walked away from everything. I fell down when I could walk no more. This went on for about a week. Then I walked into the Police Station and said: “I’m homeless. What do I do?” I was put in the back of a police car and, siren blaring and lights flashing, we roared through Hamilton to the Shelter.

It was a horrible experience living in that shelter. Over the months I was there I lost about four stone, my only food was at the Salvation Army soup kitchen five evenings, or the Seventh-Day Adventists’ kitchen two nights a week. I'd guess we ate spaghetti five times a week. If you are homeless in Bermuda, you must keep moving. The authorities keep anyone they suspect of being of no fixed abode on the trot. My God, but I walked a good deal! One thing I hated: At the SDA kitchen the preacher referred to me as “Pops” because, I suppose, I looked old and tired.

There’s probably a good quotation that would explain that I would do well to give back on account of the good fortune I’ve had for five years now. From Savage Garden: “I believe in Karma, what you give is what you get returned...” I’d like to be putting something into the system. Perhaps writing this down is a start. (1) He tells a rather strange story, and it's true, and it might be entertaining. (2) He might just shame the Bermuda Government over its handling of homeless people, and make a difference.

NOTE: I looked online for a photograph of the Homeless Shelter owned by the Bermuda Government, and operated by the Salvation Army. There was nothing to be seen. The Shelter was built many decades ago and has been in a state of disrepair for many, many years, and the Bermuda Government is yet to replace it, though funds have been found, easily, for golf courses and for captive dolphins, for world travel, and for cars for the Party faithful. Shame! Shame! Shame!

Ode: To Peace in a Podcast

You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.
Dorothy Parker

I USUALLY TURN TO SHAKESPEARE for an opening quotation. I’m writing about Cailean’s second birthday, and I may have other canine pet stories, so I searched for a line or two featuring the word dog. My first search gave me almost 200, and not one was complimentary to dogs. Nearly all were put-downs of men, comparing them, unfavourably, to dogs.

Perhaps Shakespeare had bad experiences with dogs. Barking during performances at The Globe, fouling the pavement outside his lodging house. Might he have been bitten? Did a puppy chew a favourite quill? And it may be that dogs were mostly street creatures (completely wild or bear-baiters), except for those at Court (and those bred to hunt). One routinely sees lap-dogs in paintings only after Shakespeare’s time, I believe.

If not Shakespeare, then who might give me a good line? William Blake’s “A dog starved at his master’s gate / Predicts the ruin of the state” came to mind. Clearly Blake had a higher opinion as to the worth of a dog. Good man!

And I recalled photographs of Dorothy Parker with her black, standard dachshunds. Ms Parker lived in hotels most of her adult life and her rooms, apparently, were rather filthy thanks to her pets and her reluctance to walk them, and clean up after them promptly. Dorothy Parker is usually a quotation mine, but the only one I could find (above) is about dogma rather than dogs.

A dogma is, briefly, a belief, a principle or an opinion, or all of those. We tend to associate dogmas with religion, and religion with peace and love. Religious dogma, to my mind, has been antithetical to peace and love. I took history courses at my grammar school, and I watch the television news.

A dog is, briefly, what you make him. I suppose one could train a dog to act on one’s dogma, but you could not train a dog to seek out, say, Muslims, by any means except the outward observances of their belief. Clothes, perhaps. I thought of Muslims because many of them find dogs unclean somehow, that's part of their dogma. Give any man a stick and a dog will be nervous, give a man a smile and a dog will likely wag his tail.

Today is 24 February 2010. It is very nearly my Cailean’s second birthday. He’ll be a two-years-old on 8 March. If that seven human years for one dog year holds, he’s a teenager.

This Barking Mad in Amble by the Sea Blog is nearly always written with Cailean next to me. Sometimes he will put a paw on my foot, and I’ll find he’s looking up at me. When the blogging takes a long while, there may be a toilet break required. Cailean always asks to go outside, something all my other dogs did not always do. You are going to meet them.

Happens that I have a fairly good memory and recall that when I was a boy we had an American cocker spaniel, a pretty, pale-gold, spayed female that we called Shammy (being short for Champagne, her colouring). I actually remember that Shammy was born on 24 February 1960. That’s 50 years ago exactly today. I didn’t see the new-born, but chose her from the litter about two months later. My father took me, which is interesting in that he didn’t live with us, and we rarely saw him or heard from him. I suppose he paid for the puppy. He did name it. We celebrated our pets’ birthdays modestly (we didn’t have birthday parties for ourselves) and that may be why I recall Shammy’s.

Shammy came after three short-lived spaniels. Tony, Sheba and Sherry left the safety of the garden and were struck by passing vehicles. They appeared in photographs, and I remember Sheba who brought a pullet to our back door (we lived near a farm) and who dragged her shattered body to that back door and died there. Sherry was with us only a few months, a black spaniel, her body was removed before we got home from school.

In 1971, after Shammy’s loss to cancer, I bought an English spaniel, white and orange, long legs, and as pretty as she was dim. I called her Lexi. I also was given a grey tabby kitten, Pudding, and they lived peaceably, both sleeping on my bed most nights. Lexi died of cancer in 1981, and Pudding lived until 1990, a good innings for a cat.

Aleks, my first miniature dachshund, was born, in England, on 19 October 1996. He was dappled chocolate, cream and silver. Aleks, unlike the spaniels, subscribed to a dogma of forcible intervention whenever anyone approached me. No matter how well Aleks knew someone, if I was in the room he’d get between me and the other person and bark, and even snarl, though he never bit anyone. Eight years later, Aleks was stolen and died horribly. He may have been an irrascible little fellow, but he was devoted to me. His death was heart-breaking for me.

And now Cailean (as my seventh dog, he was nearly called Septimus) is two-years-old. His nature is the opposite of Aleks’s. Cailean has friends everywhere, and knows where they are. A walk down the main street must involve Cailean looking in many doorways. Some shop-keepers (and the postman) have dog biscuits.

Cailean likes visitors, and gives them plenty of attention if they want it. Now that he’s grown up he has bursts of energy, but is content to sleep on the sofa next to me, or in his bed under the desk (at this moment). When he was younger he’d run around like a rat on crack, but not so as to damage anything, and with a look of joy, ears flapping.

Cailean has never mastered the art of jumping onto furniture. He waits to be lifted up. He will jump off the sofa, but not off the bed. Dachshunds, of course, should not be jumping. His favourite game at present is flinging things from the sofa for me to fetch for him. A twist on the game most dogs subscribe to. He has many toys, and the stuffed meercat gets most attention just now, along with a large hard-plastic ball that is weighted so that it rolls off by itself.

Cailean likes his walks, and riding on the bus (he sits on my lap). Excursions are an opportunity to be waggy-tail. He’s wary of mobility scooters (who isn’t?) and, as he’s very small, I have to be careful if he’s on crowded pavements. Children, almost without exception, come running up to Cailean saying: “A sausage dog!” (In Korea he’d be a dog sausage ...)

Will I have a party on 8 March? Neither of us should be eating cake! However, I think I might manage some chicken.

I could not, for example, tell Cailean to keep the Labour Party candidate from the door, or, unfortunately, the BNP people. Aleks would have seen either off, and the Archbishop of Canterbury too. Aleks wanted me all to himself. Aleks was dogmatic: assertive over matters that might be unproven. Cailean wants a party, all are invited. Peace and Love. I must judge who is acceptable. I have to work the velvet rope and his leash, be dogmatic.

Moon and Moan over Amble

"You've been scaring people … and now I'm going to scare you! Boo!"
Mrs. F. Zuill. Headmistress, Bermuda High School for Girls.

THE HIGH STREET BECOMES THE WYND and straight ahead is the graveyard. Overhead there's a waxing moon. Mists come in off the North Sea. Bare trees claw at the sky. A dog barks somewhere under the moon, and Cailean responds loudly, but pulls on the leash to go back inside our flat.

We are having unusually mild weather; it was actually snowing last year in late October. However, the weatherman on the BBC has been suggesting that Saturday night, Halloween, will be a wash-out, with gale force winds and heavy rain, sweeping across from the west. Whether it will be as bad this side of the Pennines as in Cumbria and the Western Isles remains to be seen.

The Halloween items appeared in the Co-op at the top of Queen Street over a month ago. They've almost vanished two days before the big- or non-event. No telling if they sold or not. Who can afford sweeties at Amble prices? The costumes one might want and get would be better bought at ASDA, down in Ashington. Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse masks. A nice change from Bin Laden beards and Abu Hamza hooks, if somewhat scarier.

I have a little story that I've been meaning to use, and I believe I'll inject it here. A fortnight ago, on a Saturday, I was watching James Martin's cookery programme on the telly and there was suddenly a loud knock at my kitchen door. Cailean knows the various knocks of my neighbours, friends and family members, and Cailean was not happy with this one. Clearly he didn't recognise it. I went to the door and opened it. Grouped in front of me were five females. There was an older lady with inappropriate (I thought, for her age) long, blonde hair, she might have been 70. There were two middle-aged women who looked like each other, and like the older woman, right down to the long, blonde hair. Then, to complete the hand, there was a pair of what must surely have been identical twins, perhaps twelve-years-old, daughters of one of the middle-aged women. Long, blonde hair. All were dressed unfortunately in jeans and sweaters and hoodies, everything pale blue, grey or off-white. The women were pale, wore no make-up that seemed obvious, and were not what I'd call attractive.

The oldest woman responded to my "Hello there…" by saying "Good morning! Isn't the world a terrible place?" and shoving a Watchtower pamphlet at me. "Wait a minute!" I replied, "I don't want this…" I shoved it back, and started to close the door. The woman, I described her as a 'vile cow' to a friend a bit later, stuck her foot in the door. I pushed. "I'm just not interested!" "Don't you want to hear what Jehovah has promised?" "No." I pushed the door harder and the woman's foot slid out. Slam!

I returned to James Martin and his guest, Jo Brand. Jo would have known how to deal with my callers. I got thinking; I should have told the old woman that I was a registered sex-offender, and if she didn't mind that, could she send the little girls in, I could do Jehovah's business with them.

I've not had any Halloween callers in the last three years. There are no children living near me, and I don't put a pumpkin in the window, or leave the lights on. I very much doubt that I could get anything scarier than the Gang of Five that turned up early wandering in my neighbourhood.

A week from now, we'll have Guy Fawkes Day, the Fifth of November, Bonfire Night. We've had rain for that each year that I've been in Amble, and the fireworks and bonfires have been set off whenever there was a break in the bad weather. Last year, Cailean's first Guy Fawkes, the pup was scared by the explosions and flashes in the sky. Aleks was also scared of fireworks. You'll know that we burn images of Guy Fawkes to celebrate his failed attempt to massacre James I and the Government in 1605, though Fawkes was actually hanged, drawn and quartered. That might be too gruesome to re-enact.

And then Christmas is looming. The rather restrained public illuminations are up here in Amble already, but will not be switched on for another month. We have strands of lights very simply strung above Queen Street. Queen Street is our shopping district. A very few shops (butcher, greengrocer, baker, fishmonger, post office, minimart, four take-outs), most of which close early in the winter and roll ugly metal shutters down to protect their windows and doors from the yobs. The Christmas lights sparkle over a couple of pizza take-aways. I'd spend the lighting budget on doing something in the Town Square, which is left in the dark. It doesn't have to be a laser-light show. It doesn't have to be religious or denominational. Perhaps just save those unused sky rockets and damp squibs that we couldn't get off on the Fifth of November for Christmas Eve.

Many years ago, some friends of mine who attended the Bermuda High School for Girls told me that they'd been jumping out and terrifying the youngsters at the school. And why not? Then, one day, a couple of my friends walked past a doorway and the Headmistress, Mrs Frances Zuill, leapt out at them, explained herself, and yelled "Boo!" An Amy Winehouse face mask, tattoos and titties would have been a nice touch, but Amy hadn't been born then. We could but dream.

Shameless

ANOTHER DACHSHUND SPOTTED in Amble by the Sea this morning. Not a spotted dachshund, though they come in that flavour now (Aleks was dappled). This was an older, long-haired, black and tan, miniature dachshund, a bit smaller than Cailean.

I grinned a knowing grin at the older lady walking her dog. They were both wearing well-padded overcoats. Dachshund people don't need secret handshakes. We are known by our silly grins.

Alas! I did not have Cailean with me as I was going to get some food at the minimart and dogs must be tied to the rail outside (where water is provided). I couldn't bring myself to tie Cailean out on the street, he's too darn cute. And he'd go off with anyone quite happily, I believe.

Cailean has met young Marcus and Humphrey, both black and tans, smooth-haired, like Cailean, though both a wee bit smaller so far. Cailean is eleven months old, Marcus is not quite six months, Humphrey is just a month or so younger than my boy. Fortunately, no secret paw-shakes are required when Cailean meets another dachshund. A not-so-secret tail-shake suffices, and all the sniffing.

The only other dogs that have it in for Cailean seem to be really small and fluffy, though one pit-bull-like creature lunged at him once, scaring poor Cailean and me, and amusing the young hoodlum holding the pit-bull's lead so carelessly. Cailean does insist on barking a greeting when a dog is approached. Just a simple: "Hail, fellow! Well met!" Most of the recipients of this short message do not reply, perhaps finding the whole business of a lowly sausage dog making any sound at all a bit too improbable.

There's one fellow, crippled with something that requires two mismatched crutches, who walks two dogs that he had adopted, both of whom are as crippled and raggedy as he is. Because this fellow takes such a long while to do the River Coquet walk each day, we tend to pass him at some stage. His dogs are lovely, old characters; Cailean ignores them and frets at their person's sticks. The fellow has tried holding both crutches in one hand and leaning over to pat Cailean's head, and Cailean moves in cautiously, but it is such a risky balancing act I think we could all end up in a heap on the frozen ground.

Amble might be renamed Scooterville. You've never seen so many mobility scooters and electric wheelchairs. Of course, part of this is the nature of the town: it's a retirement community in large part, and any younger people avoid the few shops and go off to ASDA (that's what Wal-Mart trades as in the UK) a dozen or so miles away.

One of my favourite episodes of Seinfeld had George on a mobility scooter being pursued by someone else on one, at slow speed, made more ridiculous because the plot involved George pretending to be crippled in some way and being found out. He could easily have jumped off his scooter and made a run for it. Here in Amble the scooters seem to be a newer model than George's clunker, these purr along at real speed.

One or two people will take their scooters onto the street, and can make fair time there. However, most use the pavement. This would be fine, except the need for speed has not been diminished. One lady with a bad wig flies about, the wig usually coming somewhat detached and hanging off one ear. Anyone on the pavement must leap for safety. [If you are counting, I may have offended the crippled, ladies, the old and the bald, and that clique that insists on believing a bad wig is not so bad, in other words, I've rubbed Elton John the wrong way. Now, ça va sans dire, I've insulted gays too.]

I have never ridden a mobility scooter, and I've not even sat in a wheelchair. I have piloted a dodgem at the funfair a half-dozen times (hardly good practice) and once drove a go-cart as a boy, other than that I've been on foot or on roller skates. I'm a designated passenger.

Okay, I have Cailean on the street, greeter of man and dog, and I have a morning in Scooterville. Can I bring them together?

Happened just yesterday, it was bitterly cold, but the snow was to the south of us and inland, so Cailean and I dressed up in our winter clothes (the boy in his tartan wrap) and walked to the Town Square. There we sat, huddled together for warmth while I caught my breath. I've not had a cigarette in 28 years and I still gasp and wheeze, let that be a lesson to you smart-arses who think you'll live for ever. (Another subject, but I will mention that I am far more sensitive to cigarette smoke now than I was when I smoked two packs a day. I'm a canary in a coalmine, it seems.)

After our huddle, we headed up Queen Street towards home. And along comes one of the smaller-model electric scooters, with a very petite, elderly lady on it. In front of her handlebars was a basket with a few groceries in it, and a little teddy-bear wired to the outside.

I stepped aside and said: "Good morning!" and the lady said: "Hello there! And is that a dash-hound?" In his tartan overcoat, Cailean could pass as a piece of Scottish furniture. "Yes, this is Cailean," I replied. "Boy or girl?" "Neutered boy, eleven months." "He's lovely…"

Now, Cailean is as wary of mobility scooters as I am, but he put his front legs on the platform at the lady's feet, then lifted, very awkwardly in his coat, one paw, and cocked his head on the side.

"I could take you home! I really could!" This is why I don't lash him up to the hitching post outside the minimart. "He'd go with you, apparently," I offered, though not offering.

So we talked dogs. The lady had had one when she lived in her own home. Now she was crippled, had a small flat. I'd adopted my posh accent persona, which can be hard work, but I managed to keep from sounding Canadian and spoiling the mood. I was the English gentleman of an age walking his little German dog with the old Gaelic name. I'm white-bearded at the moment and might even look distinguished in a King George V sort of way.

Cailean did the waggy-tail, adorable and butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth act, and I chatted till we were all feeling rather chilled. Then I said: "Awfully sorry I can't let Cailean go home with you, but he has work to do at mine." And we smiled and the lady whirred away at some speed.

At home, Cailean curled up on a blanket on the sofa and almost closed his eyes. I told you he had work to do.

Something You Mustn't Do

When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;
When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.
William Shakespeare (Richard III. Act II, Scene III)

OH! FOR FUCK'S SAKE! My first thought—in fact, I said the words out loud—yesterday morning when I opened the kitchen door in the now-dark morning after the alarm went off to allow Cailean to relieve his bladder in the courtyard.

This actually started in earnest on 6 September, 2008, a Saturday, four weekends ago.

There had even been a hint the weekend before that: Rain that refused to ease up, some flooding in the courtyard, six inches of water outside the kitchen door. The hint was a gift: I went and bought caustic soda, signing the poison register at the hardware store. I then scraped old leaves, clumps of moss, bits of gravel and other detritus from the drains, and poured the lye into them, and replaced the grates. A half-hour later, I poured a good deal of hellishly-hot water down as a chaser. The obnoxious effluvium indicated that something serious was going on. The serial killers one reads about, flushing the dissolving bits of their victims' bodies down their pipes, cannot have a pleasant time of it. But this was just a gift, unexpected, but not unusual, this heavier rain and rising water.

We had a bit of a spring in 2008. There came a day when I noticed a dead rat that had been frozen solid on the pavement just down the hill from me, which had not moved or been moved all winter, had thawed. It was worth celebrating after a cold and most miserable season. The rat's corpse vanished a day later, a meal fresh from the freezer we call Amble for a cat, or perhaps a fox. Soon after, the householder of a delightful bungalow nearby totted his half-dozen plastic sheep out of storage and set them up on his lawn. I wondered if plastic sheep should graze on Astroturf.

That was spring. It turned out to be summer too. The balmy months following the Solstice never really panned out. I did not use my central heating in July and August, but I slept under two blankets every night. We had, perhaps, five sunny days, and I wore my shorts and stretched out for long, long afternoons on my lounge chair and read. I potted plants and had some success with them. However, I only went to the beach twice. In 2006 I had spent an entire month on the beach, baking! I never broke a sweat in the summer of 2008.

And we had record rain in August this year. About twice the monthly average in most places, more in some. More in my garden, I'm thinking. The earth soaked it up where there was earth to do that. I live on a hilltop, my courtyard is concrete, I'm surrounded by paved roads up here, you cannot dig at all, much less expect to plant something in England's fresh soil. Down the hill there are farms between Amble and the next village of Warkworth. The fields dedicated to crops sucked up the moisture, day after day, and the pastures did the same as the sheep and cows squished about.

On 6 September, the Saturday, I was to go to an indoor rock concert in the evening, in Alnwick, with some friends. Trevor and his wife were driving up from Tyneside, which must be forty miles south of Amble, and were to collect me at six-thirty. I was very much looking forward to all of this. The musical group were doing a tribute to The Beatles and were said to be quite excellent at it.

That Saturday began with the usual morning drizzle. The television indicated that bad weather was headed for the northeast of England. We might need our brollies, no mention of wellies, or water-wings, or life-boats and rescue helicopters. I settled down with a book after watching my favourite cookery shows, and, from time to time, ran outside with Cailean, using the umbrella to protect us. I noticed that the drains I had scoured a few days before were working perfectly.

By lunch time, the rain was getting so heavy that Cailean's long walk was out of the question and, umbrella or not, the brief trips past the kitchen door had the poor boy doing the dog-paddle as the water gushed toward the outflows. He was not happy. I was not happy. The concert was to be held at the Alnwick Playhouse, but one must park some distance away in one of the Duke of Northumberland's lots and walk, with no shelter or overhang, to the theatre. That's a bother, especially if about ten people are trying to meet and then keep together as a group.

At four o'clock, the rain was getting serious. I'm on that hilltop, but from inside the flat, thanks to a garden wall, I cannot see down the hill to lower ground. I look across the rooftops to Warkworth Castle. On those occasions when the rain is not so intense that the visibility dwindles to a matter of yards, that is. I could only see the wall at the end of the garden, and that was hardly clear. Torrents of rain were running down the street on the other side of the flat, headed for pastures and chicken coops.

There's a stream, with the unpleasant name The Gut, below the flat that flows into Amble Harbour. It is normally a trickle of water, perhaps a foot deep and six feet wide. This trickle originates somewhere to the west of town, it would be run-off from fields I expect. It is affected by the water in the harbour and rises a foot or so during unusually high tides. I could not see The Gut that day, but I saw it the next. It had become a burn. The bunnies and moles and voles that live in burrows along the waterway must have had quite the experience. And I could not tell what was going on with the River Coquet a few hundred yards north of that, even a day later. I couldn't get near it a day later.

Trevor telephoned at five o'clock. He'd called the highway police to ask the best way to get to Amble bearing in mind that the rain was pretty heavy and wasn't letting up. A two word reply: By boat!

Between the River Tyne and our area the rivers were raging and overflowing, the town of Morpeth had 1,000 homes flooded, bridges were being washed away, trees uprooted, fields flooded, roads eroded and there were landslips. A new lake some six miles long by three miles wide had formed somewhere. All that wet earth from the summer of record rain had been unable to take a drop more.

The concert wasn't going to happen. In fact, the band was trapped somewhere south of us as well, and Alnwick was cut off from the north and west. I watched television reports on the flooding at Morpeth, 15 miles south of Amble: Helicopters, boats, firemen and rescue crews, little old ladies being carried feet first from their flooded homes, rising water, rising water, rain, rain, rain.

The next day, we were back to mere drizzle. And that's when I found out that the River Coquet had flooded. Rothbury had been badly damaged, Warkworth as well. The water roaring down the Coquet into Amble Harbour had undermined the town's docks by twenty feet, causing parts of the docks to fall into the harbour. Boats had been washed off the riverbanks, and from their moorings, sinking or being carried into the North Sea. The fields between Amble and Warkworth were under water. I believe the sheep that graze below my flat survived, but 800 in the district drowned. And mud. So much mud. Mud had washed up over the river's banks. Sand dunes had been shifted in the Estuary. The Coquet was choked with trees, logs and rubbish. That was the end of a not-so-glorious summer.

The rest of September surprised us. Chilly weather, but some sunny days. I'd discovered a spot near the river where, behind a windbreak of pine trees, I could lie out on the grass with Cailean and enjoy the sun on my face, at least. Not warm enough to bare the arms and legs. But the light from the sun, scooting lower across the sky every day, was very nice. And my patch of grass, with red berries and rosehips on the trees and in the hedgerows, bunnies nosing about (Cailean too content to fuss over them), and interesting birds—an influx of swans, cormorants and gulls after the storm—made for hours of recharging my mental batteries after all the gloom. It was just seven dwarves short of a Disney movie set.

I also made apple crumble with windfalls. I enjoy peeling and cutting things up, and apples are a nice change from carrots and tatties. Then I moved on to banana bread. The leaves started to fall on their long journey to oblivion, just like D.H. Lawrence's apples. No gorgeous colours yet, this year. Last year was stunning, once in a lifetime. I took a train trip to the Lake District, over the Pennines, in 2007, and I can (and must, apparently) revisit that memory through my own latter days. The folks at the house near me with the plastic sheep folded up the flock and put them in the garage for the winter.

The real rams have been covering the ewes. Cailean's grandmother, Holly, had puppies. I have flowering azaleas and cyclamen on my window ledges indoors, and I'm finding large spiders in the house. Cailean is sleeping under three blankets with me, behind my knees, like my Aleks used to. A dachshund thing. Life goes on.

Then, yesterday morning, I opened the back door at about seven-fifteen, and looked out into the darkness. Cailean stood behind me, and refused to step over the stoop. The rain was tipping down, the wind was truly howling, it was bitterly cold, not much above freezing it turned out. I was standing in my shorts and t-shirt and wearing slippers. Because one has to, I picked the dog up and walked a few paces into the storm and set him down. He assumed the position immediately, peed, and ran for the door, and I followed and switched on the central heating.

Hours later, in winter clothes and hat and coat, I took Cailean for a brief walkabout. He pushed through piles of leaves while we dodged around other piles of dog excrement that hurried dog-walkers had not paused to pick up, and we returned with Cailean muddied and soaked. Into the bathtub with him, which he loves. For fuck's sake, as the little children say, winter was upon us.

Until this morning. Today: Not a cloud in the sky. Warkworth Castle was brilliant in the sunrise. The light twinkling in Amble Harbour and on the Coquet. Birds everywhere, pecking about and preening their feathers. And it is not too chilly, jacket weather, but no need for a hat, scarf and coat. Cailean lay on the concrete briefly, rolled on his back and warmed his bits. I did laundry and put it out on the lines and it is drying nicely. People have been walking past the flat on the street side, headed for the outdoor market, some wearing dark glasses. There are young men having beers in the garden of The Wellwood Arms across from me, all in shirt sleeves.

There's a saying here that I hear a good deal, but do not use myself. It is something one offers when all hell is breaking loose: "Still, one mustn't complain!"

Given today, after yesterday, one mustn't complain.

Emptied Nests

GROWING UP ON a very small island some six hundred miles from any mainland, I was not raised with many creatures that were native, or even naturally resident, on our little coral outcrop in the Atlantic.

In fact, I think it would be true to say that no animal or plant developed exclusively in Bermuda over the millennia. At best, a few Rock Skinks and an odd bird called the Cahow (named for the sound it made) have been specially attached to Bermuda. Those two are rare now. I have never seen a cahow, for the few dozen remaining nesting pairs on the Island (and that means in the world!) are in a protected area. Millions had been eaten, you see. Tasted like chicken, I suppose.

I saw a Bermuda skink on a cliff face at the back of a beach once, forty-five years ago. So unusual to see one, even then, I recall it exactly. A dark brown lizard with a paler underbelly, this particular variety, remnant, is now endemic.

Everything else flew in, or arrived on a boat. Sometimes these critters made their own way; a few birds like the Longtail spend the summer in the more northern Atlantic. Most came in boxes, crates and cages, and on the decks of ships. Cats come under airline seats. My Aleks, a miniature dappled dachshund, came in the cargo hold of a British Airways jumbo jet.

Some household pets leave Bermuda when their people do, the lucky ones fly First Class.

The whistling frogs and toads that were a big part of my childhood have simply been decimated by traffic, overpopulation and building, and poisons. You might see toads with more than four legs each now, which is not a good evolutionary development. And where can the birds nest? Where are there bugs for lunch?

THE WILDLIFE IN Great Britain will have changed, of course, but it is still far richer than what I am used to. With this Global Warming going on, the habitats of animals and plants are changing. Spring comes earlier; the north is warmer than it was.

I have been paying particular attention to the birds as they pretty much come to me. I don't have to walk far, or take a bus, to see a dozen different types of bird in an hour; as the months go by, the birds that visit my courtyard, or the meadows below, change regularly.

It does not seem long since I watched skeins of geese heading north for Iceland, Scandinavia and even Canada from a friend's conservatory one Sunday afternoon. They will be returning about now.

The River Coquet is presently home to quite a number of swans, herons and smaller gulls. The black-headed gulls that I fed in early summer have gone, I rather liked them. Large seagulls come here for the winter months, to perch on our chimney pots to keep from freezing. We have had a sudden influx of large crows in the last fortnight, timely as the crops are just being harvested and there are things to eat. My friends, the jackdaws, have been gathering on the rooftops above the courtyard, the youngsters out of the nests. They must be making travel plans.

This summer—and I use that word loosely—I had three families of swallows in a collapsed garage behind the flat. The first nesting pair arrived very early in the summer. At that time, Cailean was a small puppy and the birds were anxious as we walked past their garage many times a day in the process of house-training. The swallows would dive-bomb us, coming within a few feet, swinging around us. Cailean ignored them, birds don't much interest him, he's into bunnies. After a week of trying to see us off, the birds realised we were no threat and became remarkably tame.

We'd see the swallows flying at incredible speed, inches from the ground, over the meadow, looking for insects. They seemed to be flying as much for the joy of it, as for getting lunch for their chicks.

Happened, the day the youngsters in that first nest fledged, we were sat outside and watched the very event. A good deal of flapping and chirping, the parents full of encouragement, and, apparently, communicating that the man and his dog were okay. Three new swallows took wing, the five stayed nearby only for a day, and then the garage was silent.

Several weeks later, two more pairs of swallows moved into the garage, not far from each other. Like the earlier tenants, they soon came to ignore Cailean and me. I missed the moment that the chicks left their nests, but both families took wing on the same day, this past Monday. On Monday evening, a small group of swallows was doing aerobatics around the courtyard; yesterday they were far overhead, doing widening circles. Today they have all gone.

The jackdaws are looking down. I can see them from my kitchen window. I have half a loaf of stale bread, and I believe they expect it.

Original of Species

I thought I might record just a little of my Cailean's history. That is Cailean in the picture, with the ginger beard. My whiskers, when I grew them for a few weeks to see how I'd look with my wattles hidden, came in quite white. Looking at the photograph, I suddenly appreciate that our noses are not unalike. I also look a day older than God. Cailean was five-months-old at the time.

I did not get the £50 family pedigree from the Kennel Club, and so I have in front of me only the £12 version, and that shows just Cailean's parents. His Sire is Mistymorns Choc N Cream, better known as Buttons. Mum is Ruby, the friendlier version of Sokel Save the Best for Last at Mistymorns.

As you can see, my little dog is a miniature, smooth-haired, black & tan dachshund. Buttons is also a black & tan, Ruby is a red dapple. If Cailean grows no bigger than his parents, he will weigh about 5 Kg when he is fully mature. He is very nearly there by length and height, but I imagine he'll gain another half a kilo. At 11 pounds, he will weigh the same as my last dachshund, the disagreeable chocolate dapple Aleks.

Cailean was born in Gateshead, some 40 miles south of Amble, on 8 March 2008. I heard about Ruby's pregnancy a month before she had her five puppies, and put my name (and a £50 deposit) down, and then waited (and worried like any expectant father) to see what I'd get. The deal was done online!

Jacqui Carver, the breeder, sent me photographs of the puppies weekly. I had chosen the black & tan male from his picture the day after he was born (and named him, he was called Cailean immediately). Cailean has a brother called Billy, and sisters Lucy, Delilah and Ruby-Roo. They are all different colours. Remember Fr. Gregor Mendel from your biology lessons?

Happens, I chose not to go to see Cailean until the day I was to bring him home: 28 April 2008. It was a rainy Monday. A very rainy Monday. My friend, Marion, had volunteered to drive me down to Gateshead, and a mate of mine, Gavin, came along too. We used the SatNav and were at Jacqui's home in less than an hour.

Jacqui, and husband Rob, made us cups of tea and fetched a freshly-made quiche from the oven, and unleashed the hounds.

It seemed proper to introduce myself to Cailean's mother first, and Ruby was quite charming. If she was aware that the first of her pups to leave home was going that morning, she seemed not to be bothered by it. Looking at her teats, I thought this might be a welcome relief!

I was handed Cailean, such a tiny lad at seven weeks, not much over a kilo. He licked my chin and my nose, and the deal was done.

Jacqui had, at that moment, 13 miniature dachshunds at home. She keeps her dogs inside the house, no kennel in the garden. They are well-socialised. As we sipped our tea, most of the dachshunds re-enacted the chariot race from Ben Hur around the coffee table in the living room, stopping only to widdle on the many Doggie Pads on the floor. I certainly recommend these absorbent training pads; I had Cailean house-broken in a fortnight.

It was time to leave his father and his mother. Bundled into a blanket, Cailean went out into the rain with me, Marion and Gavin, while a dozen dogs barked farewell.

Another hour through the storm, a little whine now and then, and, at my flat, now his, a few laps of water and straight into his new bed, where he slept for two hours. I checked on him several times. Should the child be so very content, so quiet? Had he died of fright? I heard him wake and walk on the kitchen floor, so I gathered him up and brought him into the front room.

Then, as I reclined on the sofa with a book, Cailean stretched out on my chest, his nose to my chin, and slept.

Ruth D~ said...
Such a nice record to share with Cailean when he's old enough to take it all. Loved this, Ross.
18 August 2008 01:09