Alex Bell – fantasy author

Moose is my eight week old Great Dane puppy. She is gorgeous. I have owned her for a week and already I love her like you wouldn’t believe. When we first brought her home she got straight onto Loki’s bed. So he went and sat in the cat bed and looked pathetic:

There may be some things in life more daft than seeing a Doberman trying to squash himself into a cat bed but – trust me – there ain’t many. Later that night, though, they were lying together like this:

And already they’re becoming fast friends – even if Loki isn’t too sure about how to play with something so small (little does he know that she’ll end up being much bigger than  he is).

I’ve booked Moose a place in puppy training classes. After all, if you’re going to insist on having a dog the size of a small horse then you probably should learn how to control it. I’m also going to take her to the puppy playgroup starting at the vets this week. I wasn’t going to bother at first because it starts just two weeks before her training classes begin. But then it occurred to me that as these are both organised locally there’s a fair chance that the puppies that go to training will have been to the puppy playgroup first and when Moose starts training I don’t want her to be the only puppy there who’s never met any of the others before. She might end up having no doggy friends. Yes, I know I’m possibly being a little bit batty about this. But she’s going to be quite a bit bigger than the other puppies as it is. And I have a horrible feeling that if the other puppies snub Moose and refuse to play with her then I might become quite irate, and unreasonable, and possibly even vicious. Like an over-protective parent whose child is being bullied at school or something.

I’m not a complete recluse but I won’t deny the fact that I generally prefer animals to people. And now that I finally have a Great Dane to go with the Doberman, and the Siamese, and the rest of the gang, I finally feel that life is complete. I bought Moose with some of the money I’ve made from the books, and she is definitely the best thing to come out of them so far. And to think I might have frittered all that money away on tuition fees for law school. I literally shudder at the very thought.

Well, I am now back in the good old United Kingdom. Hello Marmite and Branstone (smooth) – the two things I miss the most while I’m away after pets, relatives and friends (in that order, obviously). Since I got back yesterday my little Siamesey has hardly moved herself from my lap.

I had a great time in Disney World. This is mainly – although not entirely – because of the fact that they have a lot of silly hats there. I love silly hats – yes, I do, and I ain’t ashamed to say so. Mr Devereux demanded that I obtain a picture of myself wearing Mickey ears. I don’t quite have that, but I do have a pretty good substitute:

And this:

That’s a chocolate martini I’m drinking there. Er . . . not as nice as it sounds, actually. You can probably tell from the expression on my face . . .

Obviously I didn’t spend the entire ten days with silly things on my head but . . . well . . . I suppose I spent most of the trip that way (hey, if you can’t do it in Disney World, then where the heck can you?).

In other news – anyone who knows me personally is aware that I have struggled with the fact that one of my Dobermans died shortly before I went away. My Mum (who also happens to be my best friend) has had to endure rather more of my (slightly tipsy) sobbing over the bottle(s) of wine than anyone should really have to deal with in such a short space of time. But because she is an eminently classy lady (and always has been), she put up with it and leant a sympathetic ear, (or got a little bit drunk with me, as the occasion demanded) – which has helped quite a lot.

When we got back from our holiday yesterday I may have acted just a little bit pathetically at the fact that only one dog was welcoming us home rather than two. I really wanted another one, and my plan was to ask my parents for a Great Dane first, then plead for another Doberman if that didn’t work, and then – if even that wasn’t successful – beg on my knees for a chihuahua. Look, I’m a poverty-stricken author so I’m still living at home (and am very happy there as my parents are almost as eccentric as I am), so I am a bit at their mercy where adding more pets to our menagerie is concerned. But to my shock, they agreed to let me have a Great Dane at the first pitch (I am earning a bit of money from the writing now, after all – and we do have quite a lot of land).

A Great Dane! I’ve wanted one since I was about six years old and first saw this movie:

Seriously, these dogs are the size of lions! What’s not to love about that? What is not to love? They’re freakin’ huge! Even bigger than Dobermans!

So I’m writing it all down here on my blog because, for various reasons, I’m probably going to have to wait until August to get a puppy, and I don’t want my parents changing their minds in the interim. But now that I’ve recorded the agreement here it effectively constitutes a binding legal contract . . . er . . . despite the fact that there’s no intent to create legal relations, no consideration whatsoever (even of the peppercorn kind), no offer & acceptance, no meeting of the minds . . .

Look, I used to be a law student – trust me, it’s binding – binding, I tell you! That Great Dane is as good as mine already . . .

(And I really love my parents right now – seriously, this would be a very good time for them to ask me for favours . . . )