A date with your ex

That's what it's like when you really want to be getting on with the JA - new book - but the proofs of the last one arrive. It's now nearly three years since you did the first draft of what's just dropped through the letter box. Some bits - some very few bits in my case - your editor didn't object to so they're now completely unfamiliar. Did I write this? Those are the best bits though. Most of the proofs are so like that person you once thought interesting but now...well, you've heard the stories, you know how they end. You know what they want to drink.

Finished the proofs yesterday. Can't just go back to the JA today. That's tacky. Decide to have another day off. Get out of this village. There's an added reason to do this. At home this terrible howling noise is making it hard to write a note to the milkman never mind anything new. The noise is coming from my dog Jem who has just had his second birthday. He's not celebrating -he doesn't know, after all, there wasn't a cake - but what he does know is that in dog terms he's now a man. And there are two female dogs in the village who are definitely up for it. Wild-eyed dogs that are complete strangers are appearing on the green and risking death by tractor just to find these bitches. Bitches is exactly what they are- they're making Jem's life and therefore my life a misery. Not exactly feminist this thought: why must people have female dogs at all? Without them, all the village companion animals could live in this sort canine Cistercian retreat, pleasures of the flesh not on the agenda. Well not that pleasure. There's still long country walks. And bones.