Part X

"The Spider Chronicles" - Living with Ed and Frances

by Michael Eldridge

I found the above by chance just now as I was looking up a quote by Wordsworth. I'd put the book down beside my PC preparing to write and saw Frances wandering out from it. She walks directly out of the empty PCMCIA socket. The one which is supposed to be housing a new smart card adapter.

About dogs

You said if I was kind to Orso and let him in and fed him that I would be rewarded in unexpected ways. (Orso is Valerio's new Peruvian Mountain dog. He's a 6-week-old pup).

Well it's true; I have been rewarded.

I'd had instructions from Valerio to lock him in the hallway whenever going for a walk with Bess, in case he got the wandering habit. They wander these Peruvian dogs. Usually I wouldn't bother with such dubious advice but this morning I did, can't think why.

So what did he do? He broke in to my place and within twenty minutes wrecked it.

What has he done? (In twenty minutes for God's sake?) Well, he's chewed up an as yet unread Weekend Financial Times (my lifeline to the World). He's raided my domestic cleaning substances patch under the medieval sink and deposited its various items throughout the house. I rushed immediately to my computer room but no damage only a bottle of fabric conditioner placed neatly next to the modem.

Most items I've found piled up on the bed you slept in, on the side you slept. All I can think of is that you have obviously had some effect on each other and I wish you'd sort it out between yourselves.

I hold you personally responsible for all and any damage, which might occur in the meantime. And in the future.

You’d insisted on inviting him into the house on the weekend. Orso, the darling cuddly bear- like Peruvian Mountain I'd said no absolutely not and you let him in anyway.

You said in your email

'You know what it is like to be young! Poor thing he has to discover the world! Perhaps you have to be patient and show him round to avoid further damage. As for the Financial Times... well... he must be an intelligent dog! I think the real problem is Valerio who demonstrates no sensitivity or interest towards animals. I think the real message is to educate both, Valerio and the dog. You should be flattered to have been asked to succeed in such an important task. Good luck'

More dubious advice.

Now, my attitude to dogs is important to describe not least because I measure others by their attitude to dogs and expect the same measure of myself.

The scenario and who’s who dogwise

The first ever dog here was Smako. He is large and black and is loosely described as an Italian Sheepdog because, I believe, his ears stick up. They stick up because Cesare propped them that way with wire and scotch tape when Smako was a pup.

The hunting dogs

Then Valerio moved in here with wife (who is now tractor driver's lover as you know) and Valerio promptly built four kennels and stocked them up with twenty hunting dogs, most of which weren’t his.

I came to her over two years back with a promise from the farm manager that he'd see to it that all hunting dogs were removed because of the night barking habit that is a particularly favourite pastime of such creatures. They were only 20% removed on account of some male bonding stuff between farm manager and Valerio. It's to do with Sardinians and the farm manager's daughter I believe. I haven't as yet understood this.

And the hunting dogs howl every other night and I wear ear plugs now because it’s easier than arguing with Valerio who says (after a bottle or two of farm wine) that they are his only passion since his wife ran off with the tractor driver and if I complain they’ll force him to leave and that he will kill them all tonight anyway. He talks like this often and I have to pretend to believe him. It’s the game we play.

But the hunting dogs stay.

Last night they didn’t howl because there was a storm. It biffed the house across the hillside, washed fields away and uprooted hundreds of trees in the wake of its floods. It woke me at God knows what hour in the night and I stumbled to pull out phone leads and modem leads because of the lightning zapping. It flashed and crashed and entered my dreams as it made the dogs dream and kept the deer and boar away and the porcupines at home with their young and away from my potato patch.

This morning the house is still here, there has not been the flooding I'd imagined and the earth and trees are as they ever were. The air is still and cool. Tonight the mosquitoes will continue their lifecycle.

Dogs (continued)

Next dog to arrive was Bess.

Bess is my dog.

I’d already said a definite and everlasting no to any further dogs in my life after the tragic death of Plutone, the life and adventures of whom you’ll read later.

But Bess had been rescued from the kennels by Mara where she worked as a volunteer. She would rescue dogs in varying shapes and sizes on a weekly basis which were in need of first aid to a lesser or greater degree. Usually lesser. She has a strong and exaggerated mothering instinct. This, much to the desperation of her live-in boyfriend Piero.

Bess had been left as a puppy in a cardboard box outside the gates of the kennels in the early hours. Recent arrivals were kept at the top end close to the car park for the obvious reason that those recently lost could quickly be returned to their owners should they have a change of heart about abandoning them on the Superstrada. They seldom did. Bess had been put in a cage with two ill-natured bitches that attacked her and left one leg in pieces. At the time I was working with Piero creating a website and there one evening I first saw Bess huddled in a corner bandaged up to the eyebrows with an overlarge white plastic snoot to prevent her tearing the bandages off. This made her look like Good queen Bess (and hence the subsequent name). Needless to say despite my pleadings she ended up as my dog not least because I was the first visitor (after 2 weeks immobile in a basket), whom she ever struggled off her blanket to greet. We knew, then, despite her closeness to death that she would make it.

Recently she reached two years of age and we allowed her to mate with Smako.

She had eleven pups whilst I was away in California (and I felt guilty for not being by her side as you might imagine).

We found homes for them all, some with the angels, but Rosie kept one, a male named Poggy.

Then there arrived Pepe another new dog for Valerio. A cheeky dachshund.

And three weeks ago Orso, the cuddly Peruvian Mountain dog who eats The Financial Times.

So there you have it. In our community of discordant souls we have 20 dogs. Oh, and cats in equal number. Mice nil. Spiders millions.

Have you ever seen spider eggs up close?

Do you know how tiny they are?

Did you know that there is no physical difference between a water-spider and a land-spider?

And that no one knows when the latter took to the water to become the former?

It was an evolution of intent and not a physical one.

Do you understand this?

I've peeped inside my PCMCIA slot with a torch and I think that there are tiny eggs in the left-hand corner at the back.

Part I |  Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X

Tales from the Garden