Authors Electric

Last month I blogged about facing an ‘empty nest’, with both daughters now at university. But to be honest, it’s not empty at all. Not only is it occupied by myself and my partner, but there are also the pets, so it doesn’t seem particularly empty at any time, even if the elderly cat spends most of her time asleep, curled up near a radiator. Gunner, the dog, more than fills any space that’s left. We rehomed Gunner in February this year, our second adoption. It was a very deliberate decision each time to offer an older dog a new home, rather than opt for a puppy, but I’m not looking for any credit for it. I simply didn’t want to face all the time and effort needed to train a puppy – however cute – in all the basic necessities, like house-training. I am, it has to be said, rather a lazy dog owner. One can, of course, feel good about offering a dog a new home. There can be many reasons why a dog needs rehoming and the word ‘rescue’, while often used, in our cases certainly hasn’...

That was what my partner asked me.  ‘Do you have writer’s block?’ A couple of weeks ago. After I told him I’d not written a word on my work-in-progress since early May. And before that, not since February. My instinct was to say, ‘No, of course not.’ And so I did. But I wondered. Did I? No. Not at all. When I sat down to write in February, the words flowed. Plenty of them. A virtual torrent. The same in May. On the train back from a family and football weekend (the best kind, I find). Having safely finished the talk I’d set out to write on the train down to London two days before. And that’s the problem. I only really write when I have no distractions (no chores, no Internet, no family concerns, nothing to plan), which tends to be when I’m away from home – on train journeys (what a blessing the quiet carriage is!), on holidays. But even then, only when I don’t have a talk to write, an event to prepare for, when I’m prepared… ‘Distractions’. I guess that’s really shor...

This week my heart is heavy. On Saturday, I lost my best friend. Fourteen years of love, loyalty and laughter. I can't yet really talk about it without breaking down but the wordsmith in me craves a written expression of my grief. Please bear with me - or dog with me, if you prefer. We called him Tucker for two reasons.: We had moved to our rural retreat after 12 years in the city centre (Edinburgh) only six months before we got him. As we got to know our fellow villagers, many asked which house we had moved into. When we described it, they said, 'Ah! Tuckers' Place.' It had been built about a hundred years ago by a family called Tucker. Then we went to the local DogsTrust to see if they had a dog for us. They had a great many dogs, all barking , scrabbling at their cages and pleading 'Take me!' In one big cage there were five noisy, in-our-faces dogs and one quiet, sad black dog sitting at the back. Total soft touches that we are, we immediately said ...