Who shares my bed

It is a very long time since a dog slept on my bed. The last one was Ginny and that was back in the early fifties. I had been to Ireland to stay with The Captain . He was a famous Olympic horseman and a MFH of renown. He had a huntsman of renown called Harry and, in due course, Harry went on to hunt the hounds himself. He had some very varminty terriers and a litter of the same:‘Would ye ever sell me a pup?” says I
‘God love ye , Sorr’ says Yer Man – “ That’ll be a quid and I’ll put her in box for ye for the boat” Thus began a great love affair between myself and Ginny. I called her Ginny because because that was the name of the Captain’s daughter and for her I had a burnibg adoration and did she not marry an English Lord and me never seeing her again. But I had the dog and she was firmly tied up in a cardboard box and together we set off on the Boat train to Rosslare.
The Rosslare / Fishguard Crossing is not a kind one and both Ginny and I were sick. It was when the Fishguard customs demanded to inspect the box, that I realised just how sick the poor little bitch had been; well, I did tell him not to stick his hand in the box. Mum welcomed the poor little mite and a bowl of warm milk was well received, but when I staggered off to bed, I heard little feet pattering after me. Ginny came and sat by my bed with ears pricked – what to do?
‘ Alley up! ‘ I said and she was sharp up on the bed. When I woke up during the night, there was something warm snuggled up to my feet and there it remained for the rest of its life, or until I went to Ulster for a soldier – then Ginny had to stay behind with the family. I did not worry about her until I got a letter from Mum, to say that the Bitch had not been well. The vet had been and thought that she might be pining a bit. I still did not worry, until I got another letter which I read in a blizzard up in the Sperrin Mountains .– a desolate place for desolate news – Ginny had gone – ‘We had to have the poor little thing put down. She was so ill… ” said Mum. There is one good thing about the storm laden Sperrin mountains – it is such a miserable place that you can go outside and have a weep and no one will take a blind bit of notice.
Time has marched on; since that sad day, I have had many terriers, but none have shared my bed since Ginny – until Pippy came.
Pippy is a Lucas Terrierand and that is a pretty rare breed. There was a certain Sir Jocelyn Lucas ,Bart, MC, MP, a man of many parts, he was a ‘mighty hunter before the Lord’ for one thing and to help him on in his work he kept a pack of Sealyham terriers. You may like to think that Sealyhams are pretty hardened little sinners.
‘Not hardened enough’ cried Sir J and stuck in a dash of Norfolk, or even Norwich terrier [I cannot remember which] which produced a hellish mixture known as a ‘Lucas Terrier’. When I lived in Northumberland, I used to have occasional days with the Tynedale hounds. They had a Terrier Man. I used to like his dogs. They were small stocky dogs, rough haired with prick ears – very alert:
“What’s them, then? “I asked Paul one day
“Why, Sir, them’s Lucas Terriers” says he,without even the shade of a blush.
The next month would be my wife’s birthday. It would also find Mark and me down at the Tynedale kennels collecting a puppy. He had a brown head , a crooked stern and enormous charm. This he displayed when I got him home and he licked my wife’s nose. He was and, thank God, is a splendid little dog. He loves going hunting and with me has walked many miles following the Border Hounds. He has two trigger words. Say ‘Car’ and he has gone to sit by the garage door. Say ‘Basil’ and he is off like a flash to the shed door, because he knows that Basil lives in the shed. Basil may need a bit of explanation. When we thought of France, I rushed out and bought a bicycle. This was rather forward of me, as I had not ridden a bike for some 20 years – not since the days of exercising the hounds. They say that the skill of riding a bike is something you never forget – like many truisms this is a lie. I know that for a fact, because on my refresher course, I fell off 4 times and gave the bike away to a deserving boy. Behind my French home you can travel for miles on gentle roads and meet nothing but an occasional tractor. This would be ideal for keeping any surplus off Pip and myself. We could go for ‘Ballades’ -gentle rambles together. But as they say, first catch your tricycle. This was easier said than done. The French who are big on multi-hued bicycle gear refused even to consider such a ridiculous motion, But eventually I did find a supplier. He was a German who made, at a price, tricycles for the handicapped and if I wasn’t then I am now. A tricycle has poor equilibrium and if you are going too fast down a steep track and hit a large stone, the trike will very likely cowp and so will you. I had not broken a collar bone since I was 10 years old. I did not remember it hurting. I was wrong. In fact, I had many more nasty falls from wheels then I had in 20 years of hunting hounds and I broke things too – a thing that I never used to do out hunting – so I bought myself a fourwheeled cycle which is much more stable and which has things like transport boxes, of which Pippy thoroughly approvesand a small ‘aide electronique’ for the handicapped has which much the same effect as a low box on a quad.

My old friend, Claude, tells me that where we live has the second best climate in France after the Cote d’Azur. That may be but what we do get are humungous storms that whistle in from the Bay of Biscay. We had one the other day – thunder, lightning, wind, rain and all coming it seemed from right over head. It woke me up and I could tell that with all that rattling and banging, there was little chance of more sleep. So I went through to the front of the house to sit in my chair. I found Pip sitting in his chair. He was shivering and quaking with fear. No dogs like thunder, but this storm was too loud and too close. The poor little dog was absolutely terrified. There was only one way at it. I picked him up, took him to the bedroom and plonked him in the middle of the bed. He lay between us for the rest of the night and there he lies every night. We may not have thunder every night, but we do have Pip for company.