My Teddy - such dedication!

During my author talks, people ask about my book dedications - there have been a variety over the years. Though book number 13 is unique. (Whilst taking the photo the sun shone through the crystal, which hangs at my writing room window - hence the rainbow!)   

This miniature poodle has been my constant companion while I have written over one million published words, plus many thousand yet to be published! He never complains, moans or grizzles at me for the hours we spend in my writing room. He never says it’s too late, too early or yet another weekend! There’s not an hour on the clock that we haven’t written together, in silence, in that tiny room. He simply settles in his basket to snooze or watches me type, scribble or read aloud (despite him being deaf now). 

When he was younger he’d smuggle a tennis ball upstairs but those days are long gone. Now I have to carry him up and down the staircase, about eight times a day, due to his aging joints. Though throw a tennis ball in the garden and you’d think I was imagining his stiffened joints and days of clunky hobbling.
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Many authors have chosen animals as their companions: Beatrix Potter had a menagerie of rabbits, mice, toads and a hedgehog. Steinbeck had a standard poodle called Charley. George Orwell a goat called Muriel (who was included in Animal Farm) and Hemmingway had various cats. It’s their comforting presence alongside loyalty, devotion and sheer dedication which we all need in life, but more so as an author as the silence lingers and the hours and years slip by.

​Photos: Now and then - the same two Teddys, both are ageing though one has had extensive needlework repairs!

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