Our amazing dog Bonnie, possibly a Bedlington Whippet, or maybe a small Schnauzer Lurcher, born in a rescue centre over 18 years ago, and more recently very frail and forgetful, as well as nearly blind and deaf, disappeared about two weeks ago. She became confused one evening in the garden at Broad Oaks in Burgess Hill and must have wandered out into adjoining woodland through an open gate. A huge mobilisation of searchers, neighbours, advisers, and helpers was organised by Alli, Jessie, Ella and Gwen. They spent many hours over the next few days looking for her in the area surrounding the garden and the lane and woods beside and near it. Given her health, she could not have wandered far or for long; it is heart-breaking that there has been no trace or sign of her. The searches have now ended.
The first week of the month had provided a rich sequence of surprises, coincidences, reunions, cliffhangers, and tumultuous outcomes. Nothing too unusual, however, given that I was in La Hune, our massif stone house in France’s profound south west. I had sprinted down in a hired racy Mercedes Sprinter, a.k.a. a souped-up white commercial van, weighing three and a half tons (four tons when full of books). I made good time via the Bordeaux route, staying overnight in Ruffec in a very old pig farm, which was being done up by an English couple who had attended and taught at the British School of Brussels, where Alli attended for two years.
The trip south west was otherwise surprisingly uneventful, but my primary task was to remove and rehouse over 1300 books that I had decided not to put down after our move in England to a smaller house in Uckfield. With the crucial help of Marlene and her ox-strong friend Jean-Louis, we heft the boxes into the house and I started to find shelf space for them. They invited me to dinner with them the same evening. Alli texted me on the next day to say that our peripatetic friends Andy and Dawn were passing by in their camper van and had phoned her on the off-chance for regional advice. I had almost finished getting the books shelved when they arrived, ready to party. They stayed for two days and nights, and Dawn made miraculous and delicious meals from their camper-van supply centre on both evenings. Our exploits included wine consumption, two slow mornings, a village tour, a shopping trip, and lunch in St Antoine. We looked unsuccessfully for a book case in the Emmaus and the Croix Rouge shops in Valence to house the books that remained. I did buy a CD player for ten euros, justifying the retention of most of my CDs, and ensuring that La Hune will be a place of music again in the very same room where Vangelis’s last albums were mastered by the music production maestro Lionel Habert.
Preparing to leave a day after the departure of Andy and Dawn, I mislaid the Mercedes van key just when all was packed. As my panic rose, I was joined by my friend Wilfredo, who spent over three hours with me in a forensic search of where I had been that morning, comprising three rooms of the house, the area around the van, and the rubbish bins at the end of the road, which we upended and sorted through piece by piece. I had just started to accept the reality of the disaster when Wilfredo found them, placed in full sight on one of the bookshelves. My relief was overwhelming. He was sure they would be found and had simply carried on looking until they were, a valid strategy for inanimate objects. My return journey was a struggle through hammering rain and grey cloud cover as I stayed on the way back in cheap digs in sprawling Limoges and dark Doudeville, Normandy.
I returned in time to welcome our Belgian friends: Sophie, Laurence, and Claude, who stayed with us for a few gloriously sunny days. We launched into a full weekend of activities, starting with a visit to the Actelium Vineyard in Streat, then the following day to Eastbourne for a walk along the coast and pier, and back via Beachy Head and the Birling Gap, where we stopped at the Cuckmere Inn, and an evening meal at the Hare and Hounds in Framfield. On the next day, we walked around blooming Sheffield Park with its huge array of rhododendrons, then tasted wine at the Bluebell Vineyard nearby, ending with fish and chips and a mini-session at our local, the Alma Arms. After they left, we spent the rest of the day in the sun-drenched garden, where we could almost see the grass, flowers and plants around us growing to make up for lost time. We also saw that the goldfish in the pond (the survivors of the heron’s April massacre) were multiplying.
I spent nine days in Yorkshire in visits to Debbie and Fi in Wetherby, to Denis in Otley, and to Charlie and Liz in Barnsley. While there, I visited Old Mother Shipton’s Cave in Knaresborough, the amazing 300 million years-old Brimham Rocks, Spofford Castle, Barnsley’s Cooper Museum with its exhibition of local artist Fred Wildsmith, Sandal Castle in Wakefield (where Richard, Duke of York perished and the Battle of Wakefield kicked off the Wars of the Roses), the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Elsecar Heritage Centre, and Barnsley’s rejuvenated city centre with its intricate paving. With Debbie and her friend Mike, I ate a fine meal at the excellent Da Capo restaurant in Boston Spa. Debbie and I also went to Wetherby’s micro-cinema to see “Back to Black” about the tragic life of Amy Winehouse. With Liz, I saw the very impressive Scottish folk singer Karine Polwart in a concert where the average age of the audience was somewhat advanced. When Polwart encouraged the audience to sing with the choruses, it felt like an old people’s home singalong. At Denis’s house over lunch we discussed antecedents and family ancestry. The Yorkshire visit was overshadowed by the awful news from Burgess Hill, where Alli, Jessie, Ella, and Gwen were arranging search parties, sniffer dogs and heat-seeking drones to look for Bonnie throughout the week. The heartful kindness and generosity of so many people in the Burgess Hill area, mobilised online and co-ordinated by our daughters, warmed and gratified us all.
For the love of dogs,
Lionel