Real life

After a rush of blood to the head, I decided it might be a good idea to ask some awkward questions of the RSPCA. Oh no, I hear you cry. What fresh hell is this? Let me explain. I found out that the charity is pretty much closed to any kind of scrutiny. Unlike other

‘Let me get this straight,’ I said, looking my Slovakian friend in the eye. ‘You are going to go back to your own country because the healthcare here is no good?’ ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Is no good. Is terrible. I leave job and go home and sign on. I get treatment in Slovakia.’ I shook

Incredible as it seems to me now, there was a time when a wolf whistle was annoying. A man would shout something approving from a scaffold and I would harrumph about my privacy being invaded, my gender not being respected, my dignity as an intelligent woman being violated. Then I got old and a wolf

‘Hi I did Put it on It needed more’ is the pleasingly obscure haiku I find on my kitchen table. It is from Denise, one of the most wonderful people I know. To give Denise a title — such as cleaner, cleaning lady, home help — would be disingenuous or even downright rude. Because it

Strangely enough, I was in the middle of writing an article about the tactics used by the RSPCA when another animal charity knocked on my door. A young man holding a clipboard was standing on the doorstep, grinning enthusiastically: ‘Hello! I’m from Battersea Dogs Home.’ ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘I’m a bit busy.’ Exposing animal welfare

The problem with not getting married, I am increasingly realising, is that you cannot get divorced. There is no mechanism for separating when you are simply co-romancing with someone. The builder boyfriend and I are not even cohabiting. We simply pop round to each other’s houses as the fancy takes us. Not that I am

A parcel has arrived addressed to ‘Cydney Kite’. The spaniel is ecstatic. She has never received her own mail before, let alone an express delivery package. She wags her entire body frantically as I open it and is driven half demented by the heady smell that arises as I lift out the packing bubbles to

With a heavy heart, I have just conducted my biannual lying session. I hate that I have to do this. I am an honest person driven to the extremes of fib-telling by a situation that I can see no other way out of. Every time I find myself in this situationI search my soul for

As a rule, I tend not to frequent places where there is a sign on the door saying ‘no sharps’. But I thought I would make an exception for the Eden Project. Surely, I thought, as we walked from the ‘Banana’ car park to the ticket office, they must mean sharps as in penknives, or

‘Cydney,’ I have just told the spaniel, ‘you had better enjoy this tin of dog food because it cost me £67.50.’ I hear you ask, ‘How on earth is this possible? Are you feeding foie gras to your cocker?’ I might as well be. It would be cheaper than buying pet food in Streatham after

‘I have a feeling,’ said my father, ‘that this evening is not going to go well.’ We were sitting in the bar of a local fish restaurant near my parents’ home having pre-dinner drinks, and I was throwing a wobbly because my tomato juice wasn’t right. I had arrived at the table after putting my

If we had to fight a war on the home front I’m fairly sure we would be stuffed. I base this claim on what happens if you try to buy a sandwich at ten past three in Surrey. You walk into a small shop in a nice village. You select a sandwich from the chiller

The vet arrived at the stable yard wearing his customary grin. He is the happiest man I know. Of course he is. As he once explained to me, horses may be incredibly badly designed for the purposes of the horse-owner, but they are spectacularly well designed for the purposes of equine veterinary practices. ‘Don’t you

‘And for my next trick,’ said the Volvo, as I parked at the supermarket and pulled the handle of the door to get out, ‘I shall refuse to open while you are inside.’ ‘What the…?’ I said, after pulling the handle a couple of times. I clicked the lock button by the window just in

‘What is this, please?’ I said to the estate agent, as he showed me into the building site he was calling a house. ‘This,’ he said beaming, ‘is the kitchen and breakfast room area.’ I picked my way over the rubble and stood in the dark, pokey room with its walls of hideous grey breezeblock.

In the end, I threw my mobile phone into a sack of Chudley’s dog biscuits. It was the only way I could finish the book. The bag of Chudley’s was in a cupboard so it didn’t even matter that I hadn’t silenced the phone before I threw it in there. At most, all I could

‘Ouch!’ said the ex-builder boyfriend. ‘I think something’s bitten me.’ And a few seconds after that, something bit me too. We had been walking in the woods with the spaniel, when a winged creature of some sort, or possibly an agile snake, decided to take a chunk out of us both. Within a few hours,

Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly fight any more battles, a pink planning notice is pinned to the lamp post in front of my house. The upstairs neighbours are planning a loft conversion. Not just any old loft conversion. All I can see as I scan the notice, my eyes glazing over in a

You know you’ve been irreversibly sucked into the ninth circle of horse-owning hell when you find yourself perusing an equine supplement catalogue. If you ask me, these tomes should have a disclaimer on the front saying, ‘Abandon all hope, ye pony-lovers who enter here.’ The equine supplement industry is a vast money-burning pit into which