Happy Christmas from one happy dog!
First of all a big apology to my blog followers and friends for the dearth of posts this year. Since I finished writing Victory Girls, the last novel in my wartime Lavender Road series, and since our little dog Maisie died in September 2018, we have been mostly away, travelling the world!
We have had an amazing year of adventures, culminating in a road trip to the island of Kythira in Greece (where Marc and I met 19 years ago!) to bring back a very sad dog we had found there in the summer. She was chained up in the middle of nowhere, all on her own, very dirty and uncared-for, and seemed so pathetically pleased to see us that we felt we had to do something about her.
It’s a long story, and took a lot of organizing, but our lovely Greek friends on the island helped enormously by arranging for us to have her, keeping her in an outbuilding, and taking her to the vet for inoculations so she could have a passport ready for her trip back to the UK once the weather was cooler. They named her Hera, and we have decided to stick with that. So in September, as soon as we had got back from a 3000 mile trip round North west USA and Canada (wonderful!), Marc and I loaded the car with every piece of dog paraphernalia we could think of (Hera wasn’t house trained and we had no idea how she would cope with the journey) and set off to fetch her.
Hera as we first saw her in July
The trip lasted a month and turned out to be just over 5000 miles long. By now we had discovered that Hera had originally been owned by a bird hunter who had beaten her for being frightened of the guns. By the time we found her she had been on that chain for 10 years.
To our amazement, right from the start she loved the car, she behaved impeccably in the hotels we stayed in on the way home, and enjoyed the various walks we managed in a range of locations (mainly trying to avoid the attentions of local street dogs!) She is now settling well to life in Wales and we are delighted with her!
Wishing you all a very peaceful Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year!
Helen x
Thank you for the lovely article, Helen. I’m so glad Hera has settled down so well with you. I wish you, Marc and Hera a very happy Christmas and everything of the best in 2020.
What a wonderful thing to do for poor Hera. She’s had an awful life but at least she’s happy now. I applaud you and your husband for what you have done.
Happy Christmas to all in the house!
Teresa.
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I’m so sorry, your lovely comment only just popped into my in box! How things have changed since then! But you will be pleased to know that Her is doing very well She is loving the sunshine and we are lucky that we have a big field she can run in, as well as walks of course!