Navel Gazing Q&A (aka my first tag)

Lovely Mama at Manana Mama has just tagged me.  So now I've got to bare all.  I hope my happiest moment is yet to come.  I have gone straight to The Guardian piece that inspired MM's tag, and have not come up with my own version (as the ever-creative MM has).  We have Wyoming in common when it comes to happiness!

When were you happiest?
Oh God - can I have three moments?  No, make that four:

1.When I realised I was pregnant with my twin girls

2. & 3. in South Africa and Wyoming, both times up a mountain on a horse (not the same one, and not when pregnant).

My POV astride the stupendous horse Ace, descending a mountain into a lush valley

4. Walking my dogs down a valley in Gloucestershire where we rented the gatehouse of a famous writer.

Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Bryn Parry (Help for Heroes charity founder) for showing us that compassion and drive can take us a long way

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Insecurity

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Unreliability

What was your most embarrassing moment?
At Prep school when, as usual, I wasn't concentrating in a history lesson and thought shell-shock happened on a beach

What is your most treasured possession?
My under-used office at the end of our garden

My office in the London snow

What makes you unhappy?
Selfishness

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Frown lines

Who would play you in the film of your life?
Meryl-bloody-Streep - sometimes my life is that serious

The most flattering photo of Meryl Streep of all time?

Which living person do you most despise, and why?
Nicole Kidman - overrated and over-botoxed

What is your favourite book?
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate

What do you owe your parents?
I owe my father everything, and I owe my mother a care for personal grooming

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
My father, for not being able to introduce him to his grandchildren

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My children

What does love feel like?
Unconditional, except when I'm tired and somebody is tantrumming

What was the best kiss of your life?
Wiith an ex-flatmate in Antibes in about 1998

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Bradley Cooper for sex appeal, Michael Macintyre for humour, Daphne du Maurier for creativity, and closest friends for friendship.

Bradley Cooper: the photo speaks for itself

If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?
My Greek rescue dog, Klefti

Klefti, our charismatic Greek stray and a very pregnant me (not sure why K is wearing a harness and a lead)

What is the worst job you've done?
At the BBC working for a woman who hated.....women

What has been your biggest disappointment?
The conviction that I needed to settle down in my early thirties

If you could go back in time, where would you go?
The Wild West

When did you last cry, and why?
Can't remember, but it won't have been long

How do you relax?
Yoga

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
A bigger home

What song would you like played at your funeral?
Imagination by Belouis Some

How would you like to be remembered?
Did her best (kind of)

19. Memories Part I: Four-Legged Bodyguards

Klefti (left) and Purdey (right) proved to be capable sentinels

For those of you that have been following my blog for a while, you will know that Klefti, our Greek stray died last summer.  The madness of trying to control his energy, while bringing up baby twins, was one of the reasons I started this blog only a couple of months earlier.  He was, after all, a wily survivor, a beach dog, with whom we fell so madly in love we had no choice but to bring him back to the UK.  We even bought our flat for him, as it has an 80' garden in a desirable part of town.

A surrogate child?  No, never.  We have always adored dogs.  He, Tatty and Purdey came first, and if children followed, they would be a blessing.  Dogs are not a dress rehearsal.  I always feel sad when dogs are rehomed when people have children.  To make a multi-species household work, you have to love your dogs as much as your children (a different love, but a love nevertheless).  You need patience.  They need love.  Sounds familiar?   Well, we didn't have dogs to test out what commitment felt like.  They just happened.  Big Daddy bought Tatty (the Westie) before I met him, but Klefti and Purdey were strays that we rescued; the first in Greece, the second in Ireland.

I stumbled across this picture of our bemused canines 'guarding' our newborns and thought I should share it.  When the picture was taken, the babies were about a week old.  Magpie is on the left, The Tank on the right - not that you can see very much of them, they are so tiny, cocooned in their swaddle blankets.

Klefti never got to do rough and tumble with the girls, as they were still 'drunken totterers' when he died.  We always loved watching him humour kids in the park, play-bowing and showing his teeth in a submissive smile.  He was a clown in dog's clothing. The girls would have their very own clown - or so we hoped.

Now that job is left to Purdey, who patiently allows the girls to ride him, stroke him, take his toys and, of course, feed him.  I'm not sure Klefti would have been so amenable, ('look, girls, I'm not a bloody horse,' he might have said) but his willfulness and surety of his own mind is what made him so unique, so strangely human.

11. Conception or Contraception?

I went to the chemist today to buy toothpaste and tights.  I nearly came out with a conception predictor kit.  I've no idea why.  No, we are not trying for number three. I think Big Daddy would like another critter.  But I've been saying that two is enough and that we should count our blessings, etc, etc.  I've also reminded him that I'm forty, growing a moustache and that anyway, we can't afford it.

Meanwhile, I have been looking at dog rescue websites and getting exactly the same reaction.  No, I am not one of those women who has her hair in a wispy bun, wears dangly earrings, long skirts and sandals.  I just feel our household is somewhat depleted.  I know Klefti cannot be replaced, but a pair if dogs is not a pack. Purdey and Tatty don't let me know when the postman arrives, or more importantly, they don't announce the arrival of my mother (she has a key). 

In any case, another dog would definitely be less work than another baby. 

Pros of getting another dog (aka 'cons' of having another baby)

Cheaper than an Banham alarm
It wouldn't disturb my sleep
It wouldn't need me to personally feed it
It won't need me to change its nappy
It wouldn't need me to wind it
It wouldn't need me to bath it
It wouldn't need me to dress it
It wouldn't need a sterliser
It wouldn't need a baby bouncer
It wouldn't need 250 muslins
It wouldn't need 125 baby grows
It wouldn't need dummies
It wouldn't need school uniform

You get the idea.

There's only three things a dog really needs:

Love
Food
Walks

Pros of having another baby

The girls would have a younger sibling
The younger sibling would have older sisters
I would have one more child than most of my friends (ok not a real reason)

The cons of both another dog and a baby are too many to list, although I passed off the pros of having another dog as the cons of having another baby, which was cheeky.

But haven't I got my hands full enough? You may ask. Yes, I have.  So if I'm idly thinking about getting another dog, what was I doing in the chemist hovering our the pregnancy and coneption testing kits?  Was it primal instinct that led me there?  Who knows.  All I know is that the ability to procreate is a wonderful thing, and I have yet to prove I can do it naturally and that niggles me, a little.

But right now, we won't get another dog, and we won't have another baby.  If anything changes, you will of course be the first to know.

10. A Playground Picnic

The Tank and Magpie are looking after Purdey.  They're watching out for him.  Making sure he's all right.  It's really sweet.  It's as if they know he is missing his 'brother'.  They stroke him, and are learning not to yank his tail or pull his ears.

They don't, however, look after Tatty, our ancient Westie.  They stalk her, poor girl.  Luckily, her self-esteem is high enough for her to shrug her shoulders and disappear.  Pronto.

The girls feed Purdey at any opportunity.  Magpie will look at a runner bean and think:

'Hmm, when Mummy's not looking I'll give the doggy a bit of a snack.' 

With her big navy eyes narrowing, she likes to feed Purdey furtively, but when he licks his chops, it gives the game away.

Or The Tank, who has taken an unusual dislike to breadcrumbs, might wonder if a well-excercised dog needs a fish finger or two.  She throws food at Purdey as if laying down a gauntlet, but imagine a Labrador going:

'I'm rather full, actually, but thanks anyway!'

This week I decided to do what mothers with one toddler and one dog do - take them out together to the playground.  Perfectly civilised.  In theory.  With a civilised dog.

While I have often walked Purdey and Klefti and the girls together - one big dog walking either side of my tandem buggy (I only wish I had a photo to share with you), until this week I have never taken the girls to a playground with a canine companion.

Taking the girls and the dogs to the park, where the former are strapped in to their buggy and the latter are taken off lead and are expected to bark and get excited, is one thing.

But letting the children loose, and tying up the dogs - or at least tying up Klefti - would have been another thing all together.

God bless his Greek white socks.  Had I tethered him up outside a playground, there would have been an immediate bark of indignation, causing all mothers and toddlers heads to turn towards the cachophony.

A post-mortal Klefti, looking down on this situation, might have said something like this:

'What?  You are leaving ME out here?  You must be kidding.  I'm not having this. 
 I'm absolutely NOT having this. 
 You can't adopt a beach dog, fly him 3,000 odd miles, give him the Life of Riley (whoever Riley was), and then take it away from him!'  Even for FIVE minutes!  It would be like asking your maid to come upstairs and sit by the fire, having a stiff scotch and a foot massage!  It just doesn't happen!'

Of course, in my anthropomorphic world, this thought amuses me, although Klefti wasn't a snob.

He didn't care how down on your luck you were, how posh or how common, as long as you received a hug with the same affection with which it was given.

Dogs are not prejudiced.  It's one of their greatest character traits.

In the post-Klefti era, being able to walk to a playground with Purdey, tie him up, and play with the children while he looks on dotingly (if a little nervously - 'are you abandoning me?') is a new experience all together.  Purdey can do submissive.  Klefti couldn't.  If you are wondering what I do with Tatty, our ancient but intermittently energetic Westie, she stays at home (a small dog getting tangled in the wheels of a buggy is not a relaxing thought).

We brought a picnic to the playground.  Toddlers are great multi-skillers.  The girls walked around with their fodder, playing on the roundabout and somehow never wanting to sit down, nor getting indigestion.

The Tank climbed unsuitable piece of apparatus after unsuitable piece of apparatus (there should have been a sign saying 'play equipment unsuitable for under threes, even with fierce supervision'), while Magpie collected autumn leaves of every shape, size and texture.  She passed a curled and veiny specimen through the railings to Purdey, who was rather hoping for a bit of sandwhich.

He had to wait for The Tank to do that, who forced it through as if the four-pawed recipient hadn't seen food for days.

So have I finally mastered the art of multi-skilling with a multi-species family which has been sadly diminished?

Probably not.  But it's a good start.

9. Barking with Angels

Klefti left us this week. 

On the last day he couldn't eat.  His bark sounded gargled, his breathing heavy.

People said I'd just know.  When it was time.  They were right.

What is hard, is the speed of the decline - only a month - and now, the silence.  Klefti was a noisy dog and a huge presence.  He could never be ignored.  Now I walk Purdey and Tatty, and expect to hear our Greek stray barking as he plays with a new friend; I hope to see his nose snuffling and his plumy tail wagging. Instead, he is invisible, alive only in my mind.

His ghost is everywhere.  They say that time is the Great Healer, and that ghosts will turn into memories.

Meanwhile I feel hollow, and sad, sad, sad.  I cannot forget that the moment he left us, his large, amber eyes darkened.  So it is true that in death a light is extinguished.

7. Twins and a Glass Half Full

Just before the bank holiday, I went to a playgroup in my local park.

It was a warm day and The Tank and Magpie were in good if over-energetic form.  Phoebe was with me, my ad hoc extra pair of hands who I am soon to lose - at least in term-time - as she is going to university.  She appears to be something of a baby whisperer.  My girls, and the other babies she looks after (some twins, some singletons) all adore her.  She never panics, and always has fun in her voice.

There is an outside play area and an indoor pavillion (well, that sounds a bit posher than it is) with two exits, so two pairs of eyes are pretty useful for keeping tag on the girls, as there is an element of a Vaudeville farce involved (one toddler in one door and the other out the other).

Despite having Phoebe's company, I was in a low mood.  Earlier that morning I'd taken Klefti for a check-up at the vet's.  Apparently there was stalemate between the cancer and the steroids.  We popped him on the scales and he was still putting on weight (hurrah, so the fatty food was working), but the tumours had stopped shrinking (so boo! to the steroids).

I imagined that having children would put pet ownership into perspective (oh come on, it's only a dog), but not a bit of it.  I just can't visualise a life without Klefti (nicknames include Roons, a diminuitive of Klefterooney, from our Irish phase, later morphing into Wooney).  For those non-dog owners amongst you, dogs are given very silly nicknames.

In fact, dogs are like children.  If you don't have children, they are your children (look at any pet-owning gay couple for proof).  They certainly were ours until the girls took precedence.  But does having children make losing a dog any easier?  No, it doesn't.  In a way, Klefti was our firstborn, taken in as a stray pup and given a home that he was lucky to find.  Normally, poison is put down in Greek resorts at the end of the holiday season.  So Klefti has already had over eight times the life he would have had in Agios Iannis.  That helps to put things into perspective.  But not just that.

At the playgroup, it was now 'singing time' when toys are put away and a sense of order is restored. We all gathered in a group to sit on small child-friendly chairs.  The Tank got up on her chair backwards,  à la Christine Keeler.  Magpie tried to give a three year-old boy her dropped and half-eaten sandwich.  I noticed that the boy's mother was sitting with her younger son, who was older than my girls.  Or was he?  He was much taller, but had less hair and was uneasy on his feet.  There was something wrong with him.  I've no idea what.

I have a sick dog, but I have healthy children, children I never thought I'd have.  We almost always outlive our dogs, however long we have them.  But to have a damaged child who cannot be mended?  That takes a strength I hope I never need.

6. A Dog in Toddler's Clothing?

We were late for the Christening, but thank God, nobody minded.  Trying to hold squirming toddlers who are eating the service sheet is not my idea of fun, so we let the girls have a crack around.  But it was like letting wolf cubs loose at a picnic.  The girls released bibles from the safety of shelves; threw sandwiches on the floor, and The Tank ran down the aisle in the hope of pulling the alter cloth down, candles and all. 

The Aftermath was held in our friends' lovely walled garden.  But a peaceful Sunday it was not.  The Tank plunged her hands into soil, causing Big Daddy - who was trying to save his friend's shrub - to rip his trousers on the corner of a metal planter.  Magpie tried to eat gravel (the whole garden was gravel) so I gave her a dummy in the name of safety (being plugged-in is better than choking).

If this wasn't stressful enough, my little 'darlings' emptied two packets of Organix baby snacks - not our own - onto a pristine (Cath Kidson?) picnic rug, and sat on some cheese extracted from a sandwhich just for good measure.

Do I have a point, beyound sharing my children's misbehaviour?  Yes, I do.  I'll get to it in a minute.

Klefti, our eight year-old Greek stray, has returned to being Top Dog in the household.  You know he has lumps.  We hoped it might be a rogue infection.  Benign growths?  No.  He has lymphoma. 

We are a bit choked.  Hard to understand unless you have grown up with dogs and know that a canine personality can be greater than a human's.  I'm no misanthrope, but some people can be very dull.

But not Klefti.  He illuminates a room (or a park) with his big chimp eyes, wide grin, plumy tail and huge humour (like people, some dogs have a sense of humour, and some do not).  But he hasn't been known for his sense of propriety.  I remember when my father was dying, Klefti would put his huge paws on the side of the bed.  Dad would manage a smile, reaching out  to stroke him, the only thing that would cheer him up.

We are keeping Klefti going witth the same steroids that gave Dad a few years.  The drugs shrink the tumours, and special food fattens him up.  So we have him for a bit longer.  But that's not my point.

My point is, the more I get to know the Tank, the more she reminds me of Klefti.  I know I've touched on this before.

Towards the end of the Christening party, I sat down with a glass of Prosecco.  Magpie was having a sensible nap in the buggy.  The Tank was sitting on the picnic rug eating the Organix snack that she'd scattered across it.  Then she got up, and as if she could smell something on the wind, she scurried down the side return with her blonde elfin hair and new pink shoes, wearing a vest but minus a muddy dress, only to forage in a black plastic bag like a creature of dusk; like an adolescent Klefti.

Hands freshly washed, the Tank looked for trouble at the garden table and found it.  She stood on tiptoe and sank her hands - as if making an impression on Hollywood's Walk of Fame - into a homebacked Victoria sponge, delighting in sweet, sticky fingers.  Klefti was once barred from my aunt's house at Christmas for licking the ham and stealing a mince pie. 

That Sunday the Tank, never afraid of anything,  found her nemesis: a Robot vacumm cleaner.  When she pressed the 'on' switch on our  host's gizmo, it 'chased' her and she was dust. 

This reminds me of lighting a smoky fire on a wet, dark night in Ireland.  Whilst Purdey, our Lab, sat at the hearth like the gundog he thinks he is, suddenly Klefti was nowhere.  If Kryptonite is Superman's weakness, smoke is Klefti's.  It's the only thing he is scared of.

Our friends call The Tank 'spirited,' 'tomboyish' and 'brave.'  My mother says her granddaughter's face is electric and that she will grow up to be an athlete.  Who knows?

I only wish, like the mad Zookeeper that I am, that The Tank could grow up with Klefti.  They would make a formidable pair.

4. For the Love of Dogs

My Goddaughter Minky stayed with us at my mother's this week.

Children seem to find their own amusement. The Tank played endlessly with two upturned flower pots she found on a white metal jardinière while Magpie sat on the lawn with Minky, fat and happy, eating daisies. How can she eat flowers but hate vegetables? I must check if daisies count towards a child's five-a-day.

I hosed off a snorkling mask, and other accoutrements of youth which I found in my mother's gazebo. The water from my cleaning efforts collected in a puddle next to a oval-shaped flowerbed, which Magpie decided was far more interesting than the mask.

She sat, wearing only her nappy and smart purple pants (knickers, as opposed to trousers), in the muddy puddle, patting the wet ground as if she had struck gold.

The Tank, never to be bettered,joined her.

My mother makes a move to rescue the mud-bound girls, and I'm not sure what Minky's mum thinks.

'Leave them,' I say. 'They're happy and they seem to like the mud.'

The fact that the mud gave me five minutes peace was an added bonus. It was far more savoury than eating snails, stones and cigarette butts.

I wonder if I have spent too much time bringing up dogs? Do I treat my babies too much like them? Is that why I do not panic at the sight of chubby toddler hands wrist-deep in good, honest soil? I am far more used to dogs than I am children.

'It's nearly bath time,' I add, as justification. 'Don't worry the girls will scrub up like new.'

I text a photo of a muddied Magpie to Big Daddy. He approves.

Our daughters appear to be unneurotic and happy. Maybe our life as dog owners has served us well?

It's been a strange week for canine and human comparison.

Klefti, our wonderful hairy, fat-pawed, naughty, willful dog, who looks like a bearded man in a dinner jacket with his black coat and and white chest, has a lump on his throat. Several lumps in fact. I don't know how we missed them.

It seems mad to write about him in this context, when as readers you don't even know him. He is a clown. He was a clown when we first met him in the car park at Ios Iannis in the Greek Pelion region, what, eight years ago? He was our holiday romance. We were waiting for a bus to take us somewhere and there he was. This silly puppy with huge white-tipped paws, a wise man's beard, a plumy tail and glistening chimp eyes, playing with a pack of fellow strays. He oozed charisma. We were transfixed. He tried to get on our bus. He stayed with us in our hotel annexe where we smuggled in bacon butties. On a beach he stole a woman's sandal, and ran off with a man's money belt. That's why we gave him his name, Klefti: the Thief.

He lived with us on the West coast of Ireland, when he was at his naughtiest, running at a sprint down to the gates to bark at passing cars, or chasing gulls on a wide, tideless beach. He has lived with us in Gloucestershire at a famous writer's gatehouse and in South West London, making himself comfortable wherever we let him, rearranging cushions with his teeth to suit his needs.

A world without Klefti would be a strange one. He has been family for nearly a decade. He is a loving animal, with a mischievous sense of humour. The Tank reminds me of him. She has the same sense of mischief. Is that why she loves him so, leaning on him as if he were a giant teddy bear, looking at us for approval?

Klefti is an excellent guard dog, but with sleeping babies his warnings are not always welcome. Today, having picked him up from the vets for more tests, I do welcome them. Tatty, our Westie, likes to join in the chorus, while Purdey the ever-hopeful lab has no ear for intruders, only a nose for food.

Long live Klefti. We love him.

3. Toddler Tasting Panel

How can I be so lucky/unlucky to have one toddler who will eat anything - blackberries, butternut squash, broad beans, you name it - and another who is suspicious of anything bright-coloured? The Tank appears to have her father's hearty appetite, whilst Magpie thinks new foods are part of some cruel maternal conspiracy.

She will eat most meat, fish and types of bread, and will happily munch her way through a medley of fruit as long as I taste each piece first (if the watermelon/pineapple/mango doesn't posion me, it won't poison her). This reminds me of having to taste my own breast milk at an airport (if I drink it, I can't be smuggling it onto a plane to blow people up). This was an awkward scenario. Especially as the security guard asked my hired help to drink it before I told him it was mine.

But I digress. So while Magpie is fine with fruit, vegetables are another matter. Occasionally she will eat a few peas laid out in front of her, but only if they are full-sized and not petit pois which would be my preference. If they are the diminutive version, Magpie will 'ping' them across the room like bogies stuck to fingers. Having one twin who will eat tenderstem broccoli in all its floral glory is pointless if the other one won't. I am not, I repeat, I am not, a short-order cook and will not serve different meals at two minutes’ notice.

If it's a 'cleaner day,' I will allow one of our dogs to come in and hoover up Magpie's vegetable rejects. This is because every time I offer her something suspiciously green, it usually ends up on the floor. I get tired of being on my hands and knees, and anyway the dogs can do the job standing. But while I remind myself that dogs are omnivores, I would rather that my daughter improve her five-a-day intake. The dogs get quite enough greens in the shape of Big Daddy’s ornamental grasses.

I have a finger food book that includes a recipe for lentil croquettes. I would rather pay somebody than make them myself and, shock horror, often do. This delegation of culinary responsibility is unaffordable (my lentil croquette creator, who does a few hours a week, is a brilliant ad hoc nanny who just happens to be a trained chef). Aren't I doing what's best for my girls? After all, the nanny/chef is creating something delicious that would otherwise be inedible.

Why oh why am I so lazy about cooking? My mother is the same.

But

1. She doesn't eat during the day.

And

2. She can afford to eat out every night.

We manage this about once a month.

I probably don’t cook because Big Daddy does, simple as that. And he likes it. Now he just needs to enjoy cooking for toddlers.

Any advice on Extreme Vegetable Aversion welcome.