Nutty's tumour grows bigger

I haven't written for quite a while as my beloved Sheltie Nutty's mouth tumour (it's full horrible title is squamous cell carcinoma) shrank considerably and I was lulled into a sense of security about his long-term prognosis.

But I am sad to report that over the last few weeks the tumour started to grow again, though fortunately outside his mouth instead of inside, as it had previously done. At least he can still drink and he's enjoying his food and his walks. But the tumour is swollen and bulbous and he drips blood everywhere. I carry tissue around, stuffed in my bra, all the time to mop up after him. Yet the vets and my psychic insist he is not in pain. He doesn't seem to be suffering, so I will take their word for it as there is no point pumping him with pain killers unless he needs them.

Talking of medications, Boyfriend-on-a-Short-Fuse has been quite up and down of late. This morning he was in a terrible mood. Was it very dreadful of me to slip half a Valium into his porridge? It seemed to work a treat and today he has been calm and happy. But I wonder if it is illegal to foster drugs on people without their knowledge? The last time I was involved in this sort of terrible activity was 30 years ago in Verbier when some bad men in our skiing party slipped dope into a very dull girl's soup. It cheered her up no end. Do not try this at home, etc etc.

But back to my beloved Nutty. I'll never give up and I'm keeping up with all his treatments. C recommended he see her healer, who has really helped her, so I'm making an appointment as soon as he can tear himself away from his stall at the Mind Body and Spirit Exhibition. Why someone of his calibre wants to exhibit at that pulsating hell-hole of spiritual shoppers and desperadoes, I have no idea. I speak as a reformed spiritual shopper you understand.

We had a terrible moment in the park with Nutty today. I am trying to exercise a bit as the less exercise I do, the more weight I lose, I'm getting far too skinny. So I was doing a hand stand against a tree and as I kicked up I knocked Nutty's jaw. He was right behind me but I had not seen him. He cried out, a terrible whimpering, all the more terrible as he is so stoic and that is the first time I have ever heard him cry. I came down straightaway and to my horror, he was shying away, his mouth a mass of blood. His tumour had split open and a piece of it was hanging from his mouth....

Can anything be more terrible than hurting an innocent creature? Why didn't I look behind me? If only I could have gone back in time and checked. We all walked home feeling dreadful but Nutty, tough little soldier that he is, seemed to buck up. When we got home he polished off a plate of fresh chicken and seemed no worse for his ordeal.

10 hours later the wound now looks as it did before, a black and bloody mess, but it is not bleeding and he seems in good spirits. Click clacking around the flat on his little white fluffy paws as he follows me around.

And so we all soldier on. Please pray for my lovely old boy who has never had a bad thought in his life and is so kind to all dogs and people. Even when the Bichons gobble his food he is easy-going and equable. `C'est la vie', he seems to say as he staggers away and leaves them to it.

A Mini-Break In Deepest Darkest Norfolk

We are currently in deepest north Norfolk, renting a lovely cottage in Cley on Sea. I usually go for ultra modern houses, (in my dreams I would inhabit a bright white cube with nothing in it but  a bed and a table for my laptop, my only other essential, a kettle, would be hidden in a secret cupboard).

So this 17th century cottage is a departure from the norm as it has quite small rooms and low ceilings, but it has been sympathetically modernised, as they say, and is painted in a daring Farrow and Ball palette.

I once painted my flat red on the advice of my feng shui consultant and occasional boyfriend, in an attempt to boost my career and everything else. It may have worked, I certainly had more commissions and was busier, but I am not a red person at all. I like misty blues and white and that's about it. This cottage has dark grey floorboards and daring mauve and dark brown walls, which sounds absolutely dreadful but is actually rather chic. It also has an updated 50's kitchen with marmoleum lino flooring which is an exact replica of kitchen flooring from the Festival of Britain.

Why do these sort of details lodge themselves in my holey brain when so much else of real value is forgotten?

Of course the dogs absolutely love being in the country (this is real country unlike Guildford, which as a surburban gel is my usual idea of country). As soon as they leapt out of the car they were rolling around the garden. I feel bad for keeping them cooped up in London. Yes they are walked by long-suffering Boyfriend on a Short Fuse 3 times a day, but it's not the same as being able to go outside through an open door from the kitchen at any time.

It is so peaceful. No traffic noise, no planes, no shouty people (apart from Boyfriend on a Short Fuse of course). Our little garden is quite secluded and overlooks a church. It is so serene.

Nutty goes from strength to strength. His tumour continues to shrink and he is able to eat and drink by himself. Truly it is a miracle.

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse absolutely loves it here too. He is researching PrimeLocation, as I write for cottages in the area. But I don't know.... though I love it here he is not at his best away from home as the change of scene can stress him out. He veers between being calm and relaxed to being irrascible and shouty.
He has enough Valium for a few more days, but what will he do when it runs out? His doctor refuses to give him anymore so I shall just have to resort to Dodgy Davey from EasyMedz on the Internet.

Follow Nutty Nutkin on Facebook


This is an excerpt from my new book, Letting Go of the Glitz, one woman's struggle to live the simple life in Chelsea, just out in paperback and available from Amazon and about 3 bookshops.

The Daily Mail calls

Bit of a shock to wake up at 9.30am to find doorbell ringing with my long-suffering cleaner and a friend who I had invited to come and chant with me, clamouring to come in. Oh God, of course I knew clocks had gone forward but I hadn’t got round to changing my watch – it was actually 10.30am. Really, don’t these people ever sleep?!

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse was still snoozing; he has enough Prozac, Dequacaine, Valium and Night Nurse in his system to fell an army. Prozac, Dequacaine and Valium are OK but the Night Nurse has really done him in.

He still has a bad cold and I am desperately trying to keep him upright and functioning so he can fulfil his daily duties, the most important of which are taking the dogs out three times a day.

`You’re no use to me if you get ill!’ I shout sympathetically as I dole out his drugs.

`I never thought I would end up fifty-six and an unpaid dog walker’; he constantly grumbles as he assembles Nutty’s pram and clips on the two Tinies (bichon frises) leads.

Because of my early morning guest surge there was no time to feed the dogs. Nutty is rarely hungry first thing but the tinies are always starving. They are such lovely little dogs and accept that Nutty must come first when it comes to first dibs of the best food. They are still being fed well on Lily’s tinned food, the odd bit of raw chicken, eggs and left-overs. They will eat fresh apple and raw carrot as well as any cooked vegetable. I would like to give them a completely raw meat diet but it’s hard to get enough raw meat because it doesn’t go very far.

So, unlike Nutty, they will eat nearly everything, which is such a relief as poor Nutty does need quite a bit of coaxing and hand-feeding. I buy whole chickens from Daylesford and after they are roasted or poached I mix up with Lily’s chicken and spelt pouches. He prefers the latter to be honest, like Teflon-dad he was raised on tinned rubbish and turns his nose up at anything a bit new always going for anything processed.

……………………….

I had a strange email from an editor at The Daily Mail a few days ago.

Had I read about the engagement between Millie from Made in Chelsea and the Hackney rapper, Professor Green?

No I hadn’t, I didn’t admit. These luminaries only exist on the distant perimeters of my consciousness. (Shades of the judge who asked; `who are the Beatles?’ But we only have Freeview on the telly so I only watch news and property programmes and I only listen to Radio Two so I never hear rap music, only the rubbish that Jeremy Vine plays).

She went on to ask if I could write an article about the class differences between this happy pair, (I have in the past written endlessly about the thrill of dating a working-class boyfriend, aka Boyfriend on a Short Fuse).

My heart sank; I had a stinking cold and was trying to tempt Nutty with his chicken medley, so I really didn’t want to write about the same old, same old. And this Rapper from Hackney sounds quite posh, he probably went to Radley or something. And he is by all accounts very successful and not short of a few bob. So really the story of posh girl marries rich, successful man is as old as the hills. It doesn’t matter what class a man is, if he is rich these days all doors are open.

Unlike poor old Teflon-dad who in the fifties was refused an army commission because he wasn’t posh enough and made to feel lowest of the low by my baronet Grandfather because he was from the wrong side of the tracks. But saying that, I know more mixed race couples than I know mixed class couples. So class is still important when it comes to relationships.

Here's an excerpt from one of my articles about the delights of dating a working-class boyfriend.

`When the Sex in the City TV series first hit our screens in the late 1990s, like many of us I thought the gorgeous, powerful but ultimately unavailable Mr Big was the ideal man. But he and all those other romantic leads are nothing more than characters in a fantasy. It’s a great disappointment that Carrie ends up with Mr Big in the film—in the real world of course he would have ditched her for an 18-year-old Russian hooker/model. But maddeningly the myth is thus perpetuated for another generation.

It is a universal truth that men who are ‘good on paper’ just don’t live up to the promise in the flesh. Why aren’t girls taught essential facts like this in schools, along with how to wire a plug?

This is why I am so very appreciative that I am dating a builder with his treasure chest of vital life skills. Years of exposure to effete and impractical old Etonians, bankers and aristocrats have left me with breathless appreciation of his practical skills.  What use is it to me if my beau owns a county?  It’s far more useful if he can, like Boyfriend on a Short Fuse, assemble my flat pack filing cabinets from IKEA in under an hour. 

And while I don’t share his interest in football, the grunts and shrieks from the sofa when Arsenal play are far easier on the ear than the terrible shrieks one must endure at Glyndebourne. 

Luckily Boyfriend on a Short Fuse’s relatives are all in the building trade, so I now have access to tilers, wooden floor specialists, roofers, master carpenters - at sister-in-law rates. 

And these days I get driven around in style in a spacious white van rather than a cramped, jealousy-inspiring Porsche.  It’s all win, win, win. 

With the benefit of hindsight, I advise ladies looking for love this year to follow the example of a well-known soap star who whenever she was single reached for her Yellow Pages and organised for a series of quotes from builders, plasterers and plumbers, several of whom she went on to form lasting relationships with. Nobody seems to use the Yellow Pages any more but maybe it should stage a comeback as a lonely hearts directory.

Boyfriend On a Short Fuse Is In A Saintly Mood

Felt tired and run down today. I’ve felt quite well under the circs, but we haven’t had heating for nearly 2 weeks and it remains absolutely freezing inside and out.

I haven’t slept very well the last 2 nights which hasn’t helped. Funny to think that only 7 weeks ago I was happy in my ignorance, fretting over small things, not aware that the cruel bomb that my beloved dog has inoperable cancer was about to be detonated. Certainly the past seven weeks have been greyer and gloomier, coloured by this devastating news.

But our lives and minds change shape to deal with the news and life goes on. I no longer cry every day, only as I’m going to sleep.

Spent all morning on dreary personal admin, searching for relevant car documents so we can secure our all necessary Kensington and Chelsea car parking permit. These things are worth their weight in gold and I have witnessed many tearful interactions with desperate K and C inhabitants, begging the harridan faced creatures who man the `car park shop’ for their permit. If for some reason you are not on the database you need to provide an arcane list of documents including a firearms certificate.

Oh, imagine living in the 60’s, and being able to park where you wanted, imagine how much less personal admin there must have been. We can only dream.

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse was blowing a gasket this morning. It has transpired that I may have shredded the car insurance document (I am not admitting to this mind), cue terrible rages. I quickly slipped him his Valium and peace was restored.

I called a dear old pal, R, who I haven’t seen for ages since she has been in India fighting her ghastly-sounding money-grabbing rellos. I meant to call her about Nutty but have felt so flattened I just hadn’t got round to it. I called and she was only round the corner from the dreaded Car Parking Shoppe where she lives, so we met in Wholefoods for a coffee.

To cut a long story short, the three of us (that’s her, me and Boyfriend on a Short Fuse) have decided to spent half the year in sunnier climes and half the year in London. I voted for Hawaii, Boyfriend on a Short Fuse for New Zealand and she is keen on Goa.

Boyfriend on a Short Fuse at his most saintly, fetching water and coffees for us. All my girlfriends think he is wonderful. He is definitely in a better mood these days, the Valium is really working - or maybe the Prozac is kicking in at last.