Strange Days

Strange Days , these last ones . The day job was dominated by an air of expectation on Wednesday morning . I had convinced myself that A would survive as she had kept going through two nights of surgery . I was unable to grasp that someone of her age , with two children , could not survive .

But on Wednesday morning we got a message through that she died the previous night .
It was like that moment in the middle of Winter when the snow starts falling outside and everyone looks out and there is a hushed silence , a sense of awful wonder and amazement that this has happened . We all know snow , we see it , we either love it or hate it but each time its there , its new and we all look at it with a fascination . And it brings an odd , eerie silence with it .

That's how it was .
Only there is nothing wonderful about death .

We spoke to each other , we decided things that needed to be done , but it was all new . Every one of us there has been bereaved , we all know this place , where it takes us , yet each new journey into loss is different .

Then , the news that one of our other colleagues who has had a chest infection for three weeks and has been home , has been diagnosed as possibly having TB .

At four fifteen I left the office , before time but with a pile of work to do at the weekend .
This was the first day both D and I had been out together and Nat was going in to walk the dog herself after school .

As I drove my phone rang , N on the phone in tears saying the dog was attacking her and she was frightened . I asked what she meant and she said the dog was over excited , would not calm down and was growling and scaring her . I was very close to home so told her to get out of the house straight away , pick up her mobile and her keys and go out into the front away from the dog and I would be home in two minutes .
I was stopped at every red light , rang her while at one and she said she was sitting in the porch .
And when I got there , there she was , looking small and lost , and near her , a spider . N is not a fan of spiders . But I guess the spider was less of a threat than a marauding dog .

I listened whilst she told me what had happened . Alice had been out with her for a walk then on their return she had got very bouncy , jumping from sofa to chair and when N told her to calm down she started pushing N around , paws up on her arms and coming at her from behind . She had growled and frightened her beyond belief , so much so that she couldnt move .
We agreed that Alice is a pack animal and was probably trying to work out her place in the pecking order and that she thought she might come higher up than N .
That it was important she saw that she had made a mistake and that N was boss over her . N agreed that she wanted to go in , so we approached her and I encouraged N to do what I had seen dog trainers ( and our neighbour Sam do with her dog recently ) , make her lie flat down and realise we were boss . We told her in no uncertain terms that we were in charge and she would not behave like this . N was great , very brave after she had been scared and we talked about whether we could keep Alice , though I was clear that I thought we could manage this and N was clear that she loves Alice and if she had known what to do she would have been ok .

Alice responded well , was affectionate to N again , calm and silly . Its hard to imagine that she had been so over bearing but on a couple of occasions she has been like this with me and has responded immediately when Ive spoken to her and told her to calm down .
I rang our neighbour who had agreed to walk her at lunch time and she had had no problems at all . Alice had been calm and friendly with her . I guess ed my theory about the pecking order was probably right and my sister has often talked about how their dog regards her partner Peter as Top Banana , with the boys in the family coming next , then Laura at the bottom of the pile .
Ive seen this in action myself as Grommet( who is a terrier) has a party trick. If you leave a ten
pound note sticking out of your pocket Grommet will slide it out and trot over to Peter and quietly present him with the booty . If Peter isn't present it goes to George , then Harvey comes next . Laura rarely gets a look in , even though she both walks and feeds him .

Since then peace is restored on the home front .
Alice s future is safe with us . She has worked out our routines mostly and the puddles have stopped ( three in total in fifteen days is probably not bad ). She has made an effort to ingratiate herself with N ( going up to her in the kitchen and leaning up against her , staring at her and generally being a loving dog again ) .

As for things elsewhere , they cant be other than dire .