Once more my hopes have been cruelly elevated, only to be dashed yet again. A couple of weeks ago a friend of the Mum came to stay together with her teenage son who is almost exactly the same age as the Rory. Apparently the Mum and the Ann met sixteen years ago at Anti-Natal classes (strange – I’d have thought the South African boycotts would have been practically over by then).

Anyway, apart from being remarkably understanding about my need to lean heavily upon other occupants of the sofa (about which the Mum continues to be remarkably dim), the Ann and the David had another, even more valuable asset: a small red motorized CAR!!

Owing to the Mum’s chronic petrophobia, I can’t show you an actual photograph of the car or enumerate its many features and gadgets. Suffice it to say that for a few days I was treated with a modicum of decency and respect and taken on Proper Walks.

A Proper Walk, as any well-brought up terrier knows, does not begin with one’s house-humans walking out of the door and down the road to a nearby park or piece of woodland. Oh dear no. A Proper Walk commences with the placing of a motor vehicle as close as is physically possible to the front door. One is then carried to the back seat upon which one reclines in comfort until the car park of some suitable beauty spot (or out-of-town supermarket; I’m not pernickerty) is reached. The car door is then opened and one is lifted out and invited to sniff the circumference of the car park for five minutes or so before returning to upholstered luxury and the chauffeured ride home.

Now I can’t in all honesty concede that walks with the Ann fulfilled these criteria in their full paradigmic glory. No doubt under the malign influence of the Mum, the walks we went on were a great deal longer than the ideal, and involved terrain that in some cases was almost devoid of all tarmac. Nevertheless, she did her best, and I was most appreciative. (Though I must admit to having not always demonstrated my gratitude to the full, as on this occasion at the Marble Arch Caves, when she wanted to walk along the designated path while I had noticed a most intriguing Jack Russell leaping across the rocky ravine).

Alas! Just as I had settled down happily to the new routine, the Ann and the David callously left, without a single word. (Well, with a few words, actually, ones like Goodbye, but why spoil a nice bit of pathos?) I spent the whole afternoon and most of the next day lying out on the pavement, my tail trailing forlornly in the gutter, but although a few cars passed, none of them were small and red, and none contained anyone prepared to lift me onto the back seat. So it’s back to the Dad (and occasionally the Mum, if the weather’s not too foul) and thrice daily yomps to the wooden bear. C’est la vie, as the poodles put it.

p.s. Thanks to Sabine for her kind words – good to hear that someone is keeping an eye on the Gawain. And yes, Ellie is recovering fast – slightly too fast, in my view. I don’t think she’s fully appreciated the implications of complete recovery – that both of us will be taken off our luxury chunks-in-jelly repasts and returned to the old bags of dried pellets. Vets may well recommend it, but you don’t catch them eating the stuff.