It’s all too much

It’s all too much. It’s two weeks since Maxwell went away and he still hasn’t come back. Every morning I wake – it’s a habit, I know – and every morning I look out at the area I euphemistically call Primrose Hill (we used to live in Primrose Hill) and every morning I think about Maxwell and think about the good life he had and the journey from Battersea and the rich tapestry and what it’s like and… and… and it’s all for nothing. Bloody dog’s not there.

It’s been a year for deaths and I hope this is the end. It started with Fluffy. Fluffy was a great bunny. I’ve not got a great deal of experience with rabbits and I don’t know that much, but one thing I do know is this: Fluffy was a great bunny. I’ll tell you a story about Fluffy that will show you just how great a bunny Fluffy was.

This is the story. The story is this. When we got Fluffy we decided that he was “a house rabbit”. No one asked Fluffy, no one told us; we just decided. We’d got Fluffy for LouLou for Christmas 2005, six weeks old, this little bundle of grey fluff. A lop-eared lionhead. We came up smart arse adult names like Starsky or Stew or, I don’t know, but LouLou had that clarity of childhood. LouLou took one look at him and called him ‘Fluffy’. It was, of course, perfect. Anyway, Fluffy lived in LouLou’s room – or more precisely under her bed. It was an unsatisfactory arrangement for everyone. Fluff hid under the bed, made a mess, poo’d everywhere. Ate all the wires and nearly killed me when I inadvertently touched an exposed end. He quickly became a nuisance, something that we never saw but had to clear up after.

We decided that Fluffy the house rabbit had to spread his wings. We decided to put him in the garden during the day and bring him in at night. I was, I’ll readily admit, concerned. The seagulls were huge and predatory, aggressive and not to be messed with. Fluffy was small, furry, not hugely streetwise and might easily have been seen not a Fluffy the Bunny, but as Sunday lunch. (Well, makes a change from bin liners). But we figured that there were sufficient bushes and places to hide… let him take his chances.

Later that first day, I remember looking out of the window and seeing Sammy The Seagull standing about a foot away from Fluffy. About another foot away, maybe in between them, was Fluffy’s food bowl. Fluffy and Sammy were looking straight at each other. Fluffy was standing on his back legs, his little arms raised high, like a smaller, fluffier version of a cartoon boxing kangaroo. Three months old and feisty beyond his years. In front of him, Sammy was looking frankly perplexed. Sammy was prepared to take on most things – seagulls are arch-survivors and not much phases them – but this was something else.
The next time looked out of the window, I saw Fluffy and Sammy standing either side of Fluffy’s food bowl, both of them taking it in turns to have a bite like a polite old couple. Sammy, not a bird to take fools gladly, had also recognised that Fluffy was a great bunny.

We had Nelson come to stay for a week and that was a blessing. Another old, deaf dog getting in the way and wanting to go out and come in and go out and come in and not eat his food but scoff down the cat food. It was amazing how many of Maxwell’s traits Nels had – the little skip before setting off for a walk – but in the end… he went back home and that was that.

Tomorrow we’re off to the RSPCA. Got to really.