One of the reasons I’ve been stupidly busy just lately, and a tad secretive (hate to jinx anything), is because last week we became the proud humans of not 1 but 2 4-legged friends. Friends on social media will have already seen this.
As regular readers know, Hawley finally moved in with us on Thursday after a few weeks of staying with us at the weekends. On Sunday, we dropped Hawley off with one of his other humans and we headed off on a 5-hour round road-trip to collect Alfie. Hawley is a spaniel, Alfie is a dachshund. Hawley is 4, Alfie is 10 weeks old.
I never got around to doing a tribute post to Rufus, because we were both so upset when he died. I’m still not ready, it was so unfair what happened to him with his health. But we decided that we wouldn’t get any more dogs until the poet retires, in just over 2 years time. Rufus was so poorly at the end, and I had shingles at the same time, I really couldn’t bear doing it all over again while the poet was still gallivanting around the country for work and while we were still committed to long, late evenings with Monkey Dust.
Well, the poet’s travelling *has* eased off a little, he’d already decided to leave the band at the end of this year, and if we stand on tiptoe, we can see his retirement from here. So when we were asked if we could take Hawley, which of course we said yes to, we thought perhaps it was time to get another puppy as well. We prefer to have 2 pets at home anyway, to keep each other company. And if we did wait for another 2 years…well, we’re not getting any younger and having dogs is a long-term commitment.
As it happened our next-door neighbour’s daughter breeds wire-haired dachshunds, and her dog Dora recently had a litter of 9 puppies…NINE. And they all survived. But there was only one boy. So we bagsied him and, fortunately, the stars all aligned and we were able to collect him only 3 days after Hawley moved in with us.
Hawley was named after Richard Hawley, and Alfie’s full name is Alphonsus Liguori van den Berg, which is a name my dad used to jokingly call himself if ever anyone asked his name and he didn’t think they had any business knowing it. Also, both the poet and I had a granddad called Alf. Previously mentioned next-door neighbour had a dog called Alfie when we moved here too.
On the work front, well, there hasn’t been a lot. Especially yesterday, which was the first time I had them to myself for the day. Today, the poet is working from home and we’re both hoping it will be easier. As I write, we’re all in the office, the poet and I at our computers, both dogs fast asleep.
Ah, respite! As both animals do have their own needs at the moment.
So that’s our big news for this week. Back to normal tomorrow…perhaps…
That’s such delightful news! I’m so happy for all of you.
Thank you! It’s a lot of fun having dogs in the house again.