Holiday journal

Monday December 29th part 1

Isis awakes before seven. Sigh. She needs a pee and is full of nervous energy I need sleep  and am not full of energy, nervous or otherwise. I have a stiff neck and feel grumpy.

“Woof. Woof.”

I take her outside.

It is still dark and, hoping she might settle for another hour, I return to bed with a coffee. Silly me.

For the next hour I am up and down like a yo-yo.

Whine, scritch, scritch.

I make reassuring noises.

Whine scritch, scritch.

More reassuring noises.

Whine, scritch, SCRITCH.

The hall light is peering at her round the edges of the door. I get up and switch it off. Back to bed. But I recall that the landing lights are not working. Polymath might fall downstairs and it’s a long way to A and E in Wales. So upstairs to switch on the bathroom light.

Back to bed.

“Nyaff. Nyaff. NYAFF.”

In the kitchen light is leaking through the frosted glass of the outside door, creating pale fragments on the vinyl floor. In the midst of these fragments, Isis dances her crazy polka,  dipping, twirling, and snapping at her light flies.

I pick her up and close the kitchen door. Then I plonk her back on the bed. She gets off.

Whine, scritch, scritch.

I snarl to myself through a further twenty minutes of scritching and whining. Then I get up.

She is thrilled to be back on the beach. No shadows here. For an hour she races over the sand, leaps in and out of the sea, and explores the sand dunes. Bliss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Isis came from the Aeza cat and dog rescue and adoption centre in Aljezur, Portugal. For information about adopting an animal from the centre, contact kerry@aeza.org or  www.dogwatchuk.com