DEFINITION OF A PERSONALITY DISORDER

It was at least 10 years ago, and probably quite a few more because my mother died 10 years ago, that she was woken up in the middle of the night by the shrill ringing of the phone on her bedside table. She groped around in the dark searching for the cord to switch on her bedside lamp and managed to knock her ancient little illuminated travel clock to the floor in the process. She struggled but found the cord, clicked on the light and picked up the clock. It was 3am and still the phone kept ringing. Downstairs her two little dogs had woken up and they were yapping and clattering around on the tiled kitchen floor.

My mother had more reason than most to ignore that call, especially as she was well into her late sixties, had heart complaints, asthma and had recently come through breast cancer and a mastectomy. Her once feisty and energetic persona and body had been battered to the core. At that point in her life she really was the last person who needed to deal with a middle of the night phone call.

The phone continued to ring as she swung her legs resolutely out of bed and mentally prepared herself. She knew who it was likely to be.

Finally, tentatively, she picked it up.

'Hello?'

There was a frighted voice at the other end. It was a woman who sounded vulnerable, panicked, desperate.

'Oh Mama, Mama, I'm scared...there's a man in the loft...he's trying to get in through the ceiling space, I don't know what to do. Mama, Mama, please help me Mama, please please!'

It was the terrified panic of someone in trauma, my sister, a grown woman with severe mental-heath problems, calling from her flat in a town about 10 miles away.

My mother tried to reason with her, it was unlikely that there was anyone in the roof-space. She also knew she had to be firm yet reassuring or the situation could rapidly escalate.

'Put all the lights on dear and turn up your radio, I'll come over in the morning and we'll get a ladder out and go and have a look. It's the middle of the night and I can't do anything about it now. Try not to worry, it'll be alright'

But it was too late for comforting words - my sister's thought process was already galloping wildly out of control. Who knew how many hours this may have been brewing? She was beside herself with fear. And she started to plead with my mother to come and help her.

'But its a man and I can hear him! and he can hear me! I'm scared Mama, I'm scared, I think he's going to kill me and I don't know what to do, you have to help me Mama! Mama? Mama! please help me PLEASE!!

Wearily, as my mother knew there was no-one else for my sister to turn to, she agreed to go over. She climbed out of bed and pulled on old trousers and a sweater over her pyjamas and gingerly made her way down the steep stairs of her tiny cottage. The dogs stretched their legs and wagged their tails as they saw her when the kitchen lights went on but she soon settled them down again with some biscuits and a pat. She wrapped herself inside her thick winter anorak and her tweed deerstalker and grabbing a torch she opened the back door and went out into the darkness.

The roads to the bleak housing estate where my sister lived were silent and deserted and my mother pulled up outside the 3-storey block and got out, carefully closing her car door behind her so she wouldn't disturb any of the slumbering residents, or their dogs. She flicked on her torch and walked slowly and with caution up the empty concrete stairwell to the top floor. No lift and only short flights to deal with but after months of grueling chemo - on top of an already asthmatic chest - it was a test of endurance. When she made it to the top floor landing and my sisters front door she leaned against the wall for a moment to catch her breath. It was cold and her lungs hurt as the freezing air caught in them.

She knocked on my sisters door.

'Open up dear, it's me'

Nothing. So she knocked a little louder and called through the letter box.

'I'm here dear..let me in'

She then heard some shuffling on the other side, bolts being drawn back and the handle being turned.

The door opened a couple of inches just enough for my mother to see my sister peering out at her.

'Hello dear' said my mother.

'FUCK. OFF.' spat my sister slamming the door shut and bolting it again.

JANUARY

I'm out having a walk in the freezing wind, in the country lanes, with my friend Donatella and her little black Poodle, Lola. The wind is whipping our hair around our faces. Neither of us are wearing hats and its cold.  Donatella has had her hair cut recently and now it is short and funky and suits her dynamic energy. Mine is still a little long and straggly and I wonder if its time to do the same. But my energy is quieter than Donatella's and I don't think I would carry it off as well.

My partner is in America and hers is in Russia. We talk about work, I am back at college for a few hours a week upgrading my computer skills and I am finding it hard, also my work as a PA which is hardly high-pressured but definitely challenging at the moment. I am really enjoying working with my newest boss, I like him and there is a good vibe between us but everything else is fading away, things that I feel passionate about are sliding, in earning a living I feel I no longer have time for anything else.

But is that really true? Sometimes life is draining if you allow it to be, at other times sheer positive energy pulls you along and you manage to cram all sorts in and still barely touch the edges.

Lola is wrenching on her lead and a car is coming down the track towards us.

'My ears are starting to hurt!' I shout above the noise of wind and the car and Lola's whimpering. We go back to the warmth of Donatella's house and have coffee.

We talk about asking the universe for what we want and for the need for the appropriate action to be taken in order to achieve this. In other words the work involved. We talk about the 7 deadly sins and in particular sloth and a joint friend of ours who seems to epitomise this - or is it depression? Or maybe his ideals are just different to our own. We talk about stretching time to fit in as much as we want or need to do. And we talk about success and failure and the moving forward from dreams that may not have worked out and have become stale.

Donatella was once a pop-star, she had success and fame but then just as quickly she lost it all, as well as her then partner. She didn't imagine she would ever recover from losing either of those two things, but she did.  She found another route to success and happiness and she also met the love of her life. She now buys and runs her own uniquely styled boutique hotels. She is good at it and she has found an outlet for her intense creativity.

She pulls out a Ferrari magazine from the shelf in her library and shows me an article about a hugely successful Chinese artist and his belief that anything we do, no matter what, is using creativity and as long as you pour your soul into your work, your creativity has a suitable outlet. Its that old thing about 'its not what you do but the way that you do it' and that we may not all get what we want or in the form that we think want it. The article is interesting but secretly I am hanging onto my own dreams.

We have coffee and tiny squares of Stollen that are dusted with icing-sugar, left-overs from Christmas. I start thinking about how I can stretch time.

Donatella's partner phones her from Heathrow, as I am leaving, to say she is on her way home and I feel the energy fizz in the air around us. 

I head off into the afternoon, lots on my mind, thoughts pulling me in different directions. As soon as I get into the house I fire up my laptop. I've got work to do.

I'm going to show the universe all about how to stretch time.

SEWING

For the last few months I have been trapped within a kind of vindictive textile and haberdashery hell while trying to make some loose furnishings. These have been my lost months. And while foreign governments have fallen and re-assembled, royal family members have married and footballers divorced, and luridly shocking phone-hacking newspaper headlines unfolded around the world, my life has been an almost constant flurry of measuring, cutting, stitching, machining...and crying. And then unpicking, re-machining, more unpicking and more stitching. And more crying. I have made so many mistakes and become so certifiably confused that I have been close to being strapped into a white jacket and permanently sedated. I have taken more time over sewing four medium sized box cushions, with zips, plus another small round one, also with a zip, than I ever have, over any other project in my entire life.

It actually all started over a year ago when a friend, who has helped me countless times, asked me to make some covers for some old sofa cushions of hers. She'd had them since the 1960's and now wanted an update. They were a couple of pretty basic big square box cushions with some matching rather odd curved sort of semi-moon shaped upper pouches which were kind of like head rests. And she wanted two of everything so she could chuck them into the washing machine when needed and never be cover-less.

The fact that I am not a professional seamstress seemed to slip both our minds. She believed in me and I...well...I wouldn't say I was ever untruthful, only more that I thought I could rise to the challenge because it was for her. It was a massive mistake for me to think that. Massive.

Those first original cushions took way longer to make than I told her. Instead of the 3 hours per cushion I charged it was more like 12. And the strange saggy upper bit was a complete nightmare to try to assemble. I didn't have the inner sponge pieces to work from, only the old covers, which I unpicked and then used as a pattern. This was fine for the box cushions, only they took so long that by the time I came to make the upper ones, I could no-longer remember which way round they went and had to guess. I'm still not sure why I didn't just ask but I think the further away I got from sanity the deeper entrenched I became in a war between all the constituent parts. It was me and them. And they fucking did my head in.

From the start though, the fabric was difficult. This was casement fabric and it was truly evil. It unravelled with the slightest provocation. Fine I thought, you can't handle provocation? then I'll zig-zag your edges. This turned into a mammoth task even before any proper sewing could begin and I was soon immersed in the first of many afternoons, foot on the peddle and my sewing machine whirling away for all its worth, as I first measured and then cut and zig-zagged the 11 separate parts which made up each cushion.

It also turns out that casement fabric stretches like mad - but only in one direction - so machining became a minefield. I am also well aware that professionals will probably have known loads of short cuts but by this stage I was in way  too deep. I did actually go to my local sewing supply shop and solicit their advice on several occasions. I would buy a reel of cotton, wait my turn in the queue quietly and meekly, and then, once up at the till, rapid-fire a series of cushion and zip-related questions and drain the staff of as much free advice as possible. And each time an unflappable and patient member of staff would slowly explain the various techniques, kindly draw simple diagrams and make all sorts of calculations while I stood there with a wild-eyed and frantic expression on my face pretending to understand what they were trying to explain to me. I would lean over the diagrams and nod in agreement to their suggestions while they calmly showed me exactly what to do but I seemed unable to retain any useful information. It was like trying to teach a particularly vacant chimp the intricacies of the Japanese tea ceremony.

I would arrive back home and step into the eye of the storm and any of the straight forward instruction I had accidently retained would go straight out of the window. After the third visit I felt I had bled them dry. I could also tell from the exchanged looks on their faces that I had become 'that woman is back' as I entered the shop and I didn't feel I could darken their door again - at least not in this lifetime.

And I was also making silly time-consuming mistakes, forgetting to switch the zig-zag button before machining a seam or using the bright turquoise zig-zag cotton on a seam instead of the off-white. And then I found that the old plasticy tape measure that I found at the bottom of step-mothers old sewing box and which I had confidently been using for the first half of the work was in fact inaccurate having been over-stretched over the years and never returned to its original size. More unpicking. More machining. More tears.

Finally though the cushions were made and my friend paid me well though I hide from her the sweat, tears, anxiety and actual input it took making them. I was sleepless for some weeks after wondering if I had actually attached the upper cushion covers upside down but nothing was ever said. I put it all down to experience. I would never put myself, or indeed any other unsuspecting cushion-covers through such tormented scenes again. And for nearly a year all  remained quiet on the cushion front.

And then one afternoon I happened to be visiting the friend again.

'Oh!' she exclaimed 'I've got another little job for you! These cushions', and she picked up a big fat feather filled square, 'I've just ordered more of that fabric...could you make another set of covers for me?'

And for some reason, probably because I really like her and I didn't want to let her down, all of the previous years misery vanished into that place where all bad past experiences get sucked and forgotten when a positive outlook decides to take charge. Why does one never see that that particular black hole is guarded by a fool?  And so I found myself turning to her, smiling and saying 'yes of course I'll do them!'

Back at home, with the new roll of fabric and measurements, (these newer cushions were already out of reach and on their way to London in a van) I started to descend, once more into my own personal pit of hell and damnation.  What ever had possessed me?

If I thought I had measured it correctly the first time it would turn out I hadn't so I would have to measure again.  The fabric was a cream colour so dressmakers chalk was useless and I resorted to pencil. Soon, though, because I never seemed to manage to measure a simple straight line with much precision, as the pencil would slip haphazardly into the grooves of the weave, the inside of the fabric ended up being scored with multiple silver grey pencil strokes, like endless tramlines, all converging at the corners and all at slightly different angles. I would lick the end of the pencil and make a big star shape to signal a corner. Then, because of the endless handling, I'd notice that pencil lines were wearing off and soon I couldn't figure out which were the ones that were the ones to follow so I began to mark them in biro, scoring lightly in dashes across the grain. Then I'd get cocky and score it more heavily. It looked a mess but at least it was on the inside where no-one could see.

The pre zig-zagged edges were also unravelling with the constant handling and had to be re-done and they stretched and curled and buckled with every pin and stitch and movement. And towards the end of each day, if my eyes weren't already crossed with the strain my eye-sight itself seemed to be fading fast as well and as the stitches swooned in front of my watery vision I could only actually work, owl-like, with the strongest of reading glasses and a row of my brightest of table lamps in place. And because I knew that the fabric was liable to shrink in the wash, and not just when washed, this fabric will also change size due to atmospheric conditions, I had to guess by how much and add a couple of inches all over. With so much guess-work they were never going to be perfect.

Perhaps there was a sense of proving to myself that I could do it, that I could turn this whole sorry episode into something wonderful and creative...even when I knew it just wasn't working. I remember one of my grandmothers would regularly scare small children by producing a ghastly line of garish knitted finger puppets with a sinister and starey-eyed Father Christmas and his elves that looked like toy-towns version of a group meeting of psychopaths at Broadmoor. My grandmother knew that they upset children but she still kept making them, ever hopeful that she'd one day get the eyes right.

Hours bled painful into days and days wept unceasingly into weeks. My friend would phone me from time to time to ask how I was getting on.

'Oh!' I'd say faking surprise, 'I've been so tied up with other stuff I haven't even looked at the cushion covers...I'll see what I can do next week!'

And then I would guiltily put the phone down and hope some dreadful accident would happen which would give me an excuse.

'Oh I'm so so sorry, but you know that bus that went off the bridge and sank in the river just up the road from me last week? You'll never guess what I left on it...'

Every day I would start with re-newed confidence and a strong positive outlook. Today I will finish a cushion I would tell myself. Just one. But for some reason every day would turn into more of a horrendous mess. I measured and marked and pinned and  machined. And something always went wrong and rapidly reduced me to frustrated anger and hair-pulling misery. Having started one morning at 7am, I finally downed tools at 10pm, my worktable a war zone, no cushions in sight, and looked for a way to kill myself.  And the crux of the matter was now clear. I needed to produce a thing of beauty and perfection and nothing else would do. Failing that I'd rather die.

And having finally stepped back from the situation for a moment I realised I was just going to have to accept that I just wasn't capable of this but neither was I about to top myself over existential angst of the needlecraft kind. I just had to make the damn things and move on.

So I got on with it and I made them. And they ended up fitting but only because my fear of them being too small meant they were now vast great cavernous sacks. And the zips, which I'm afraid never went as smoothly as I'd wished, will always face the backs of their framework buckled and too shamefaced to ever be exposed publicly.

And though, when working out the cost, I much reduced the time I spent on them (by weeks rather than hours) they still seemed to be murderously over-priced. And I think they look dreadful. But of course my friend wouldn't ever dream of accepting them for nothing. Or indeed even comment on their very wretchedness.

(And if you ever read this - and you'll know who you are - Mea Culpa, and I'm sorry!)

HEATHROW

I'm going to Heathrow Airport to collect my son. He's been in Canada for a couple of weeks, staying with family. Lavender comes with me and we find a cafe and have bacon and eggs for breakfast while we wait for the flight to land.

I feel a little dislocated.  Mostly I rub along with life and take its wavering path on the chin, but sometimes it throws me that blunt sense of desolation, and a part of me pulls away from the whole and starts drifting towards someplace bleak. Luckily I'm a strong swimmer.

Considering that Heathrow is London's primary airport the arrivals lounge it is a pretty drab experience. After we have eaten we wander around visiting the loos, viewing the handful of outlets and weaving in and out of the rather maudlin rows of bus terminal molded-plastic bucket-seating.  The whole place has about as much charm as a crematorium. Or an inner-city housing estate blessed with the very meagrest parade of shops. The only thing missing is a pound store. Or a mental asylum. But maybe its just my frame of mind.

Lavender is teetering in and out of Boots the Chemist and W.H.Smiths in florescent pink strappy high-heels, a green lurex mini dress and a mink-coloured feather and diamante headpiece. Her clothes are a mix of heirloom and charity shop with an occasional incongruous oddity. Like the small furry childrens hat which perched on top of her head one long winter. Lavender's ways warm the heart and enrich the space around her.

Meanwhile different women and men are rushing about with wheeled suitcases and disconnected faces, everyone is on their own agenda and seem to be going in opposing directions. There is no time for meandering chatter, only stern and non-committal glances for the serious traveller and then they must quickly move on.

We go and stand next to a selection of taxi drivers holding up cardboard signs with the names of their expected and prospective customers. There is a tangled energy in the air, of people going somewhere and being busy but I'm also aware of an overwhelming sense of foreboding. I can almost taste it, it is nearly there on the tip of my tongue before it rushes off and into the undergrowth of my mind, like a snake slithering away at speed, before I can see the markings on its skin.

We stand and watch the arrivals. For a while I am lost in the joyousness of fragile elderly Greek ladies being tenderly swept into the strong arms of younger family members or of lovers hurriedly embracing as the sudden rush of familiarity quickly dilutes any previous shyness or distance. All is under the watchful eye of an impassive audience of strangers.

Lavender and I couldn't be happier and agree that its better than any trip to the cinema. Its real.

And then I see him, my handsome, grumpy-looking teenage son. He is trudging down the concourse towards me, dark eyes covered by thick dark fringe, shoulders slouched and half-moon smile fighting and losing against a more insouciant teenage detachment.

I have to restrain every nerve and muscle in my body, as he comes up to me, knowing that these days I'm not allowed to hug him. I notice the hem of his jeans scuffing the ground and collecting all the international dirt and detritus Heathrow has to offer.

I reach up and rub the side of his arm briefly and smile. And from his slight smile back I know that he is pleased to see me.

We three make our way back to the multi-storey, a heavy suitcase bumping and dragging on its wheels behind us and the sound of Lavender's click-clacking heels ringing along the walkway. We chat easily and each of us, in our own way, is happy enough.

I push the creeping grey abyss as far away from me as possible, and start the car.

Dandelions

I go outside to mow the grass. It's an easier task now that the dog is no-longer around using the garden as an open-sewer. Not that I minded particularly, it goes with the territory, you have a dog - you have to clear up its mess. And then they die and you're surprised by the odd perk that is thrown up.  I've no-one to share this little gem with as I was the only one that ever cleaned it up anyway but I can't help but feel a few small throbs of pleasure at this sudden 'petit cadeau' of serendipity.

I carry the mower out from the garage and lug it up to the grassy area. The grass maybe clear of dog shit but its been replaced by a scattered and disorderly congregation of dandelions.  Affrays of dandelions who lurch, drunken and provocative, across the grass in careless clusters like stumbling C-list WAGS on a Saturday night out. I plan to annihilate them with the Flymo. Who likes dandelions?

Well actually the old man next door used to.

My elderly Norwegian neighbour Frankel, who died a few months ago, used to plead with me, with a pressing delicacy, to leave the dandelions alone, as he could never understand what they had done to deserve such brutish and unified hatred.

'But they're weeds Frankel and if you don't get rid of them they'll just take over!'

'Well, would that be so bad? they are such harmless and happy little things!'

'But they're weeds!'

'But they are beautiful!'

Frankel, with his long straggly white beard, who spoke softly through his Norwegian accent, ate a clove of fresh garlic every morning and daily performed a series of unique and somewhat haphazard 'stick' exercises. The 'stick' exercises were devised to keep himself supple when younger and he continued them until well into his 80's.

These mainly consisted of him twirling and weaving any available stick or large leafless branch in and out of his legs and arms in ever-increasingly dangerous and wildly enthusiastic circles. Sometimes he would suddenly start stick hurling and whirling in the middle of a conversation, his lithe elderly body bobbing and dipping with ease. The stick would swoop within an inch of your nose so you always had to be ready to jerk your head back with speed to avoid a good-natured collision. He always smiled when performing the exercise and he always made me smile too. And if a stick didn't get you in the face then you could be more or less knocked sideways by the air-vaporising pungency of his powerful Allium-infused breath.

Frankel was a Quaker, a gentle man and very sweet. He always spoke up for the misunderstood, the voiceless under-dog. Even the dandelions. His accent caused him at times to be unwittingly amusing as well.

I once spent a very puzzled few minutes, suppressing nervous laughter, and pondering on what on earth he was talking about when he sprang out of his back door with exuberance, a few years ago, to cheerfully greet me one early April morning.

'Oh at last Spring is here and I shall get new frocks!'

'What?'

'Frocks! Soon I shall have lots of new frocks!!' 

'Erm...what?'

He looked at me with the patient tolerance of one who was explaining a simple fact to a simple-ton.

'First comes the frock-spawn...and then come the frocks!'

I plug the mower into the extension cable and then feed it back along the garden to the sun-room and into a socket. As I walk back I become aware of voices and people moving around next door, I can just catch glimpses through the apple blossom but I don't recognise any of them. The gardens are close together and I never feel polite mowing if someone else is sitting outside.

Soon though, my naturally questing characteristics take over and I'm straining to catch any snippets of conversation which might float over the fence while trying to look interested in the mower. Maybe the house has been sold by Frankel's children and I wonder if these are my new neighbours?

I begin to mow, annihilating plenty of dandelions and the springy bright flower heads spew up into the air in a satisfyingly shredded and destructive manner.  I start to move the trampoline which is a cumbersome dead weight to haul but I have a well-developed manoeuvre for that and in a few short twists, drags and tugs it is repositioned into one of its two spaces so that I can now mow the upper part of the garden. Then I see a man looking at me. I give him a friendly neighbourly smile.

'I won't be long! I'm just giving it a quick trim and then I'll leave you in peace!'

It's a youngish man with a flat empty smirk. Humour is written all over his face but I don't find him funny. I heave the trampoline the last few inches into the deeply embedded grooves on the ground.

'You're strong'

'Yes. I am'

'You must be stronger than you look'

'Oh yes. I'm much stronger than I look'

And you, my friend, look like an oaf.

I mentally swallow back my sullen disappointment and try not to make any sweeping assumptions.

I look down at the remaining dandelions and remember Frankel's raw garlicky breath and 'stick' exercises. I decide to leave a few clumps of them where they are around the edges. They stand out in bunched gatherings like gossipy girls in cheap loud dresses. They stretch out their long necks, eager to be noticed. I'm trying to see the beauty in them. Like Frankel would have.

Grub

My brother Jeremy phones me.

'Erm....I just want to say how sorry I am to hear about Midge'

'Thanks Jeremy'

'...and have you thought about getting another pet?'

'No. Last thing on my mind at the moment'

I'm surprised at how many people have asked me this question. I'm surprised as well at how deeply it shocks me. How can I even think of replacing Midge? Surely it's much too soon? I feel alone and in a thick foggy cloud of mourning, like I am wandering around in heavy 'widow's weeds' but nobody else can see them. Jeremy is particularly insensitive to my feelings.

'Well its just...you know...how about a cat next time round?'

It takes me a couple of seconds to realize that he is trying to fob me off with Grub. Grub is Jeremy's needy little cat, a clingy feline version of an energy-draining friend you can never get rid of. Grub, who abides in a lean-to opposite the front door of Jeremy's cottage and who has been banned from the place because she kept peeing on the bathroom floor.

Jeremy in full salesman swing, continues his pitch before I have a chance to cut in.

'A cat is far easier to have than a dog, they almost look after themselves, in fact you'd hardly know you have one. I could put a cat flap in for you, and she could live mostly in the garage'

Since she acquired the trick of peeing indoors Grub has become the cat that no-one wants. Originally she was my sister's cat who was then passed on to my brother and for years she lived happily within his home, intense and love-demanding but fairly bearable. If you stayed the night, you would sometimes wake up, with a fright, to find her sitting on your chest sphinx-like, purring loudly and staring at you like a deranged ex-girlfriend.

But somewhere along the line she started to follow Jeremy into the bathroom and watched him aiming at the lavatory bowl. She soon became convinced, and then obsessed, that this was the thing to do. Clever cat. But not quite clever enough and even hygiene-relaxed Jeremy soon tired of mopping up the urine splashed floor. Grub was unwilling to give up this trick though and eventually found herself locked out of the cottage.

I find her situation heart-breaking and I make a point of giving her lots of attention whenever I am there.

And now every time I visit Jeremy, Grub will appear from under some sheets of tarpaulin and race towards me like a hungry lover. She thuds into the side of my leg, elongates her frame and leans in as heavily as she can. She is small and desperate. She hero-worships Jeremy but clearly anyone would do, anyone who shows her any tenderness could easily be transferred in her affections. It's unlikely that she will ever stop her internal ablutions though and who would ever take on a cat with those sorts of ingrained habits?

But I have quite strong feelings over pets who aren't wanted, particularly ones that appear to be suffering. I think Jeremy should have her put down and I have told him this many times. I think she is lonely, once an indoor cat and now banished to the outside, she looks miserable and depressed whenever I see her. She hangs around the outside of doors and windows yowling into the night. She is Cathy, wanting to come in and haunt Heathcliff (or Jeremy) with her love.  Jeremy disagrees with me, has always said that animals are not like humans and that she enjoys life well enough and all that matters to her, as a cat, is that she is fed.

I tell Jeremy that I'm not interested in having her but over the next few days I start to think about Grub and how easy it would be to move her into our life. I am in the garage clearing a space for the delivery of some of  my partner's things that are being sent over from America.

Over the next few weeks I will unpack and find space for them inside, re-home suits and jackets and somehow find space in cramped wardrobes, integrate socks and t-shirts and jeans into drawers, move stuff around, probably throw out a great deal to make room.  And where on earth am I going to put my boyfriends guitars? How precious are guitars to guitarists? Do they need to be locked into a cupboard like shotguns, should they stand sentry in the corner of a room or can they be slid, amicably, under a bed?  Suddenly there are so many other things to think about and it's hard enough dovetailing another person into ones life, let alone a deprived, lovelorn and cloakroom-obsessed cat.

But I ponder still over the cat flap and where it could go. I start to imagine a sunny summers day a few months down the line and I'm sitting in the garden chatting with my boyfriend, my son is bouncing happily on his trampoline, Grub is sleepily lounging in the warmth, under the shade of the plum tree.

Or peeing on the bathroom floor. Or inside a guitar under the bed.

Midge

The dog had been putting on weight for about a month and I foolishly imagined, because her appetite was unchanged, that she was fine. But she didn't really look fine, she had developed a strange way of standing with her front legs at an odd angle. Her stomach had begun to bloat and bulge, her chest to swell and her back-bone felt sharp to the touch where before it had been smooth and padded. And, usually an avid outdoor dog, it was actually weeks since she'd wanted to go for a walk.

I even went online and found her symptoms and a common cause of death amongst her breed, but as she still kept looking up at me and wagging her tail with continued vigor I sort of ignored everything else.

I just didn't want to see the truth. In the end my son kept badgering me to take her to the vet.

'There is something seriously wrong with her Mum. You've got to take her to the vet. Look at her stomach, its hanging down all puffy and spongy!'

Midge has been by my sons side for more than three-quarters of his life. He has raced through fields, played endless games and either accidentally or deliberately spilled countless plates of food near her which she has always gratefully hoovered up. And while I take the cowards route and keep finding other things that are more pressing to deal with he comes straight out and forces me to take control.

'SHERIDAN!' he snaps.

When my son feels I am not giving him my full attention he will use my first name to startling effect. I feel the gravity in his voice immediately. I stop what I am doing and go and carefully rub the dogs tummy again. It's still that strange bloated heaviness. But she doesn't appear to be in any pain, just grateful, like dogs are, for the attention.

I take Midge to the vet the next morning, just after my son leaves for a 10 day trip to Spain with his school. As we sit in the surgery and wait our turn I think about his last words.

'Don't worry Mum. She'll probably be fine. When I get back we'll all go for a walk, like we used to, up to the common at Nymphsfield. She'll love that, racing around with lots of sniffing and meeting other dogs. Just think of all those walks we've got to look forward to now that Spring is here'

I perch without pleasure on a seat in the reception area. Its still early and it looks like we are the only customers. Midge stands alone, her body swollen dramatically, her legs all spindly under the weight. She looks bleakly around her waiting for the next installment. And then she turns and looks up at me. I wonder how I'm going to tell my son. She starts to wag her tail. I hope she can't read my mind.

An elderly man has appeared and starts to make his way across the room. He moves slowly with a large old Labrador on a lead. It's a black Lab, speckled with grey, and like its owner it is focusing single-mindedly on getting one foot, or paw, in front of the other. Midge suddenly perks up, hurriedly throws me a reassuring glance and totters into the dogs pathway where she starts to wag her tail and bat her beautiful eyes. The dog stops to acknowledge her and for a moment they sniff around with tender care, she small and fidgety, he steady and serious. Then the vet calls us in.

And I plead with time to stretch the short stroll to the consulting room into the longest walk on earth.

Within five minutes of the door shutting behind us the diagnosis is made. She has severe congestive heart disease. It has gained a speedy foot-hold and is in the final stages. I am told that it would be kinder to end it now while her tail is still wagging and she is still able to enjoy her food. I know that already. She looks up at me adoringly and in an effort to remain unemotional I bite my inner cheek until it throbs.

While the vet prepares the lethal dose I feed her dog treats from a large glass jar. They are far too big, more suitable for an Alsatian than a King Charles but she gamely attacks them with what few teeth she has left. It has now become like an animal version of an episode from 'Casualty' and I feel myself caught up in a storyline that I already know the ending of and which I can't escape from.

A veterinary nurse has joined us and we three stand around the table, each in our allotted position, the seconds ticking by unchallenged as a dreadful scene is played out. The vet says Midge may struggle but that it will be over quickly. I feel guilty and hollow.

The vet quietly and calmly talks through the procedure . I cup Midge's dear little face in my hands and begin to stroke her brow with one of my thumbs. She allows her head to drop back into my palm, always so trusting, her gaze focuses on mine and I manage to tell her what a wonderful dog she has been and how very much we have loved her. My mind spins back to when she won 2 rosettes at our local dog show.

She was judged as having 'the most beautiful eyes' and the 'waggiest tail'. She looks deeply into mine and lifts her tail up and then down, just once. It is quick but she doesn't struggle.

The most beautiful eyes and the waggiest tail.

And then she is gone.