By way of explanation, I plan to write this as it arrives in my mind. My mind is a jumble. Things arrive out of sequence, shoot off at tangents and generally behave in a disorderly manner. Mostly this happens after 2am when I wake up and can’t sleep. I considered waiting until I had written down everything I wanted to write and then editing and arranging it tidily in sequence. While that might make it easier to follow, it would be a sort of censorship. A sort of tidying up the mess. And right now I am a mess. I have been a mess for 4 weeks and one day. Four weeks and one day since a vet I never met before killed my dog. In the process she screwed up my head and for now at least, my life. I have neither the energy nor the inclination to make that tidy. I’m writing this for Murphy. Murphy who was the kindest, gentlest most polite boy you could wish to meet. Thank you for reading it.

I never left a dog at the vet’s without anxiety. Not because I didn’t trust them, I certainly did, but something more primitive. Something about leaving them behind without me.

Once, while sitting in the clinic car parkI watched as a man in an unmarked van parked close to the side door. He got out and went in through that side door. Soon he came out again carrying something heavy in 2 black bags. He opened the van door and threw them in and drove off.

Another time, while sitting in reception I glimpsed a vet nurse carry a heavy bag out of an empty consulting room lke she was carrying some particularly awkward trash. Part of me could never quite dismiss the knowledge that they do death here as well as healing. I suppose death must become matter of fact. You can walk in with your dog and later you can walk out leaving the awkward trash behind. But no, that was never going to happen to me. I wouldn’t let it.