Bit of a shocker

Yesterday wasn’t my favourite.

I had a major run-in with the eldest and forgot to a) give them their school lunch and b) check I’d shut the side gate properly after an early morning walk.

I was pretty addled as I drove to work, but I threw myself into a big day of writing, which always soothes me.

Until … I got a call from the local vet around lunchtime to let me know they had my dog Charlie.

He’d been found wandering the streets. Have I mentioned I live on a very busy road?

I totally freaked out and sobbed pretty much the whole way home, worrying about my other dog that hadn’t been handed in. I was imagining the worst: that I was going to find him squashed on the road.

I was soooooo scared. Poor DD may have copped a couple of totally deranged phone calls from me.

When I got home, the side gate was closed. It must have blown open long enough for Charlie to slip out, then shut again in a gust of wind.

I opened it and tentatively called out: “Bilbo!”

There was no sign of him for a second and my heart sank, then he came bounding and panting from the bushes and I clutched him in my arms with joy.

I hopped back in the car to grab the other little bugger from the vet. Bilbo was delighted to see his missing brother from another mother and Charlie looked a little too pleased with himself for my liking.

Then I drove back to work and threw myself into some more soothing writing.

Bloody dogs. Bloody hot palaver in 36C.

I was contemplating ducking up to DD’s for a late swim after cooking dinner for the kids last night, but I couldn’t raise him.

He finally let me know that he’d been having a swim at Bilgola when a girl fell off the cliff. If you recall, a 15-year-old boy called Brody died from a cliff fall at exactly the same spot last week.

The immediate fear was that Brody had committed suicide, but Nick Carroll at Coastal Watch writes in a story called The Burden of the Beaches: “His death appears to have been completely unintentional – just a terrible accident.”

DD provided medical assistance to the girl until the rescue helicopter arrived.