Sheepdog’s Excerpt from my novel Forever Shales

We arrived later that day, in a somewhat mud-spattered carriage, at 15 Darnley Road. I gazed at the old place, which was set a bit further back from the road than the newer, terraced dwellings, called villas, which lay close to the road.  It looked to be quite large, though the narrow end fronted the road, and the actual front of the house was set a short distance back, somewhat behind the terraced villas. Edmund attached my lead to my collar. We went along the path and up the steps, and there he lifted the heavy knocker – tap-tap . . . tap-tap. The front door opened almost immediately.
     “Oh, Master Edmund! Welcome home. Your father is waiting for you in his study,” said an excited Armstrong.  The housemaid then stooped to fondle my face, and she greeted me thus: “Shales, you lovely dog. Aren’t you handsome . . . the handsomest dog in Hackney?  And Darnley Road, as well as Cassland Road!”
     I jumped on her, and nearly head-butted her on the nose.  I was excited and could hardly contain myself.  After wiping her face with the hem of her apron she unhooked my lead, which she carefully hung next to Edmund’s hat, and without a backward glance I trotted off to explore the new residence. I discovered it had lots of rooms, but best of all, the furniture was familiar, as well as all the ornaments and carpets. It had obviously been fetched from the Cassland Road residence. A short time later, the men who’d driven the removal van began to empty it of its contents and carried the entire lot into the house. Jessie gave orders as to where each large item was to be placed, and Armstrong dashed about with a duster and a pot of polish. The other sisters peered into the straw-filled crates and removed the packed items. There were a lot of silver-framed photos as well as piles of loose ones, stacks of books, boxes of music sheets, and a lot of china, silver, and glass.
      The house was in a happy mood, and so was I.

* * *

I’d only been living in Darnley Road a couple of days, and hadn’t even had the opportunity to leave the confines of the garden and have a proper walk along any of the nearby streets and roads, when news came about Thomas. I’ve already told you that Thomas, Maud, and their baby had returned to their home in Bush Hill Park about a fortnight previously. A telegram of the utmost importance arrived at our new residence concerning him. It was early evening, and the family had just finished their dinner, and we had all withdrawn to retire and let our meal settle. Silly me, I’d had my hopes up that Thomas was summoning me to go and visit with him, seeing that we had moved away from Wayletts. Why I had ever thought that, I do not know. It is what I had hoped the telegram would reveal. Augustus waited for Armstrong, our housemaid, to leave the room and close the door behind her. The telegram was held lightly in his hand. When he opened it, which he did with great solemnity in front of the family, he first read it quietly to himself, and then handed it over to Edmund to read aloud.
     “Oh, dear!” Edmund moaned, angling the paper to get the best light from the ceiling-lamp. “It’s from Maud, and she says here that Thomas has been taken ill and that a doctor has been summoned.”
     He looked at his father, and appearing to be uncomfortable, rubbed the back of his neck. From the tone of his voice, I knew my own disappointment, so I flopped down rather heavily upon a familiar carpet that had resided at the Cassland Road residence, wondering what was to happen next. I feared that Thomas was once again in trouble, and I looked about for someplace to hide.
     Augustus sternly looked at Edmund as if he were in any way responsible for his own brother’s ailment. “Thomas has been working this week while we have been removing ourselves from Stanford Rivers, but you went over to the office today in Stoke Newington to see how things were. Was he not there?”
     He sounded angry, and I cringed inwardly at the harsh tone of his voice. I wondered if I ought to slither away to the next room, or to blend in with the pattern of the carpet and listen to Thomas’s fate.
     Edmund looked guilty as he replied, “No, Father. Well, I mean yes, he had been there up until today, but I understood he was coming in later. I had no idea he was so ill, and I’m as surprised as you are.”
     All eyes, including my own, were upon Edmund, whose handsome face looked rather worried. Poor Edmund had wanted to keep Thomas in his father’s good books . . . Forever Shales is a 472 page historical novel written by me, Deborah Berkeley. Signed copies can be purchased at Our Mother’s Keepers, 85 Water Street, Windsor, or at www.Amazon.ca.. Published by Melrose Books.com

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Sheepdog's Tit-bit

What should we call the ancient Britons?

 

 What should we call the ancient Britons? There is no evidence that the people of ancient Britain or Ireland ever referred to themselves as Celts, like we do today, and there are no ancient writings in existence that refer to them as Celts, although we know that their ancestors migrated to the islands from mainland Europe. Neither the Romans nor the Greeks ever used “Celt” in their descriptions of the islanders. However, the term Celt was used by the Romans to describe the inhabitants of central Gaul. After the downfall of the Roman Empire, “Celt” and “Celtic” became forgotten words and did not come into use again for over a thousand years later, when in the 16th century Scottish scholar George Buchanan described the speech of the inhabitants of ancient Gaul as “Celtic”.
     So what did the Ancient Britons call themselves, and what did they call their island? The oldest recorded name for the island of Britain comes from the sixth century B.C., when an explorer from the Greek colony of Massilia called the island “Albion”. Then, in 400 B.C., Avienus referred to the island of Britain as being “island of the Albions”.
     Around the third century B.C. the Greek explorer Pytheas sailed around the British islands, made several landings, and called the islands “The Pretanic Isles”. However, he didn’t give any specific name to Britain, although he named the inhabitants the “Pretani”, which means “people who paint themselves”. Pretani is possibly derived from the Celtic tongue.
     Did, then, the ancient Britons speak Albion, or Pretani? At the time of the Roman landings (Julius Caesar 54 B.C.) the Romans referred to the language the islanders spoke, a variant on the continental Celtic tongues, as Brythonic, or Brittonic, and they called the people Pretanni, or Brytanni. Julius Caesar and other Roman writers converted the ancient name Pretani into Britanni, and the island became known as Britannia, and later Britain. 

Ancient Briton Warriors

Celt Vercingetorix surrenders to Julius Caesar

Ancient Briton Torque

 Bibliography – Ramon L Jimenez. Caesar Against The Celts: Castle Books, 1996.

Sheepdog's Adventure

Costa Rica

Costa Rica means “Rich Coast”. Although I have never been there, people say Costa Rica is a wonderful place to visit. My brother and his wife were there recently and they loved it, so I felt inspired to do a little research. Also, a Facebook friend of mine says she and her husband are planning on retiring in Cost Rica. Central America seems to be a magnet for Canadians. Many are retiring down there, and I even have friends who have permanently left Canada to retire in Panama. I’ve tried to cram why Costa Rica seems to be so attractive into a very short article:

    

 Costa Rica is a country located in Central America. Its size is 742 miles in length and is no wider than 190 miles, and it is bordered on the north by Nicaragua, on the southeast by Panama, on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and to its east is found the Caribbean Ocean. It is a democracy, and has been since 8th November 1949. Many of its people are poor, so don't be shocked at the amount of poverty you will see, but tourism is essential to its economy. Its climate is rated tropical year round, but the country has mountains and deep valleys as well as sandy beaches, so micro-climates cause the weather conditions to vary from one region to the next. Unlike North America, its seasons are restricted to just two each year. Typically, summer lasts from December to April and winter lasts from May to November. 





    

Courtesy of Nat. Geographic

Nat. Geographic photo of Arenal Volcano

In San Jose

Night lights of San Jose

There are lots of things for the active tourist to do. In the capital city of San Jose, one can visit museums that are proud to show off the country’s pre-Columbian heritage, and there are lots of jazz clubs and fabulous restaurants. Then take a trip to Poas Volcano, just over an hour’s drive from San Jose. Peer down into its steaming crater from the observation centre near its summit. There are 5 active volcanoes in Costa Rica out of the 26 found in Central America. At the base of Arenal Volcano, one can hike trails, soak in hot springs, or go horseback riding. For bird watchers, there are over 850 recorded species of birds in Cost Rica, so you might want to visit the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve. Also at the reserve are interesting exhibits on bats, frogs and insects. 

Courtesy of Nat. Geographic

For surfers, there are excellent world-class surfing beaches, and for the diver there is world-class diving, where one can swim amongst manta rays and sharks (if you like that sort of thing!). Sports fishermen can catch marlin and sailfish, and although I didn’t read it anywhere, I’m sure the women’s sport of shopping is most excellent.

The sport of navigating through a market 

 

 

Surrounding San Jose

The country’s language is mostly Spanish (Costa Rican Spanish) - it was a Spanish Colony in the past. 

Visit  www.visitcostarica.co. For more photos, check out National Geographic
     My sources were National Geographic Traveller July/August 2009 issue.

Sheepdog's Favourite Quote

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. – L.P. Hartley

Hants Journal Interview March 29, 2012

Sheepdog's Round-up

“Of course our well water is safe to drink!”
 

Introduction: One usually assumes that their well water is completely safe to drink, and it usually is. Most people don’t give it a second thought as they turn on the tap to fill the kettle, or drinking glass, especially if the water appears to be crystal clear. There are times when people need to take a sample of their well water and have it tested (buying or selling a house), but not always do these samples come back with a satisfactory result. Sometimes people find out that bacteria are present in their well water. If this happens it can be frightening, especially when they don’t understand what the words “total coliform” or “contamination” really mean. One must remember that bacteria are invisible to the naked eye, and just because a water sample may look to be crystal clear, it does not mean that it is free from parasites or bacteria. Groundwater, because of the layers of soil of overlying soil, gets filtered naturally and is usually safe to drink, meaning it’s usually free from the presence of disease-causing micro-organisms. It is important to understand that if bacteria are present in someone’s well, quite often the people are unaware of such conditions, but sometimes, says Patrick Stewart of Envirosphere Consultants Ltd in Windsor, “Once in a while bacteria in your well could be a sign of problems and a possible explanation for ongoing health issues.”
     I write from experience, so I do know that wells can get contaminated from time to time, and sometimes quite often - depending on how much rainfall we’ve had. As many people often do, I used to hold a glass of water up to the window and say, “See! It’s clear - it’s good, safe water!” But I once learnt a serious lesson: I was living in New Brunswick and my husband and I were about to sell our house. The sale depended on the well’s water test coming back negative - and it didn’t! We were in shock. What had happened to our water? When we had bought the house the water had been declared safe, and we had a drilled well and drilled wells are supposed to be reliably safe, aren’t they?
     Somehow, total coliform bacteria had got into our well water. There was a river and lake very close by, and it was a shallow drilled-well of about 100 feet; we wondered if this was the cause. The real estate agent asked us questions: “Do you feel unwell? Have you been suffering from headaches, or diarrhoea?” And like silly ‘whatevers’ my husband and I both answered “no”. Because of our ignorance regarding coliform bacteria we sort of panicked because we didn’t want to accept that there was anything wrong with our well, but I had been having peculiar headaches, more like tight bands surrounding my head. When they appeared I felt like I wanted to go outside and breathe in bucketfuls of fresh air, and I even accused the furnace of leaking deadly fumes, but after being inspected, it was given a clean bill of health. Whenever I bent over sideways to pick something up, it felt like there was a lump deep inside, which frightened me, but that came and went. Also, I felt excessively tired. Shall I mention the sudden surges of diarrhoea, usually when we were out shopping or away from home? I had actually thought I’d developed a sensitivity to pork, which seemed to go right through me, especially when it was cooked on the bbq! My husband had also suffered on and off, but except for the tiredness, he had more serious symptoms. He had even been in the hospital for tests for his illnesses, even for parasites - all coming back negative and confounding his doctors!
     So, yes, we had been out of sorts on an off for well over a year. But now what were we to do about the contaminated water? We wanted to sell the house and move, and we were told the house could not sell until we fixed the problem; those were the regulations. Thanks to our real estate agent (thanks Phil M.) he suggested we install a water-treatment system. It was a UV light system, and we had it professionally installed. Right away the real estate agent ran the tap (to flush the pipes of any lingering bacteria), and took a water sample. How nice when it came back negative showing there was no longer any contamination in our well water, and the sale of our house went through. Even nicer was when two weeks later I realised I felt sooo goood in myself. I felt energised instead of the lethargy and sleepiness I’d struggled with, and there were no more peculiar headaches. The diarrhoea, as well as the tenderness in my sides, was gone! Only then did both of us really connect our health issues to our well water.
     We had learnt a valuable lesson.
     Then, a year later, my mother got sick. Because her symptoms sounded eerily familiar, I urged my parents to have their well water tested. It was hard to convince them to do it because their well is spring fed, which had given them a false sense of security over the years, believing that their water was always pure. Finally they gave in to my nagging. When they did have it tested, a low count of total coliform (not E. coli) was found. To prevent any further illnesses they installed a UV light system and have never suffered from those contaminated water symptoms again. I must stress, though, that my mother had been to the doctor several times, but not once did the doctor ask if she was drinking well water. Also, as with my husband, bacterial infections caused by total coliform did not seem to show up in any tests. It frightens me when I think of where this can lead to, especially if one has been plagued with symptoms on and off for many years: more hospital tests? Surgery? A close friend of mine, who lives in another province, has a serious problem with her heart. She has been warned by her cardiac physician that bacteria in her body could create life-threatening complications for her. A couple of years ago she wasn’t feeling well and her symptoms sounded familiar to me, so I told her just what I’ve told you. Sure enough, she found out that her well water had been making her ill.
    
Symptoms: One may experience soft stools or mild to severe diarrhoea, occurring on and off throughout the year, sometimes accompanied with stomach cramps, or perhaps not. Headaches where it feels like there is a band around your head and you feel “fuzzy” and need fresh air, a slight temperature, possibly increased urination, inflammation in bowels and intestines resulting in a feeling of tenderness when you bend sideways. You may also experience an unusual tiredness or excessive sleepiness (napping when one never used to nap), and a general lack of “go” in you (from your body fighting off an infection), and possibly aching bones. No two family members will suffer the same symptoms, and some people don’t seem to ever be affected whereas others can become quite ill. They may seek a doctor’s care, but he or she may not suspect the real cause of the symptoms.

Testing for Total Coliforms: When lab tests are done on well water samples it is to find whether or not there is a presence of coliform bacteria in your well. These “coliforms” occur naturally in the soil, but one species, Escherichia coli, commonly known as E. coli, can come from the intestinal tracts of warm-blooded animals; the combined occurrence of both types is known as Total Coliforms.

The performance of your well: Groundwater is more often than not naturally clean and safe for consumption because the overlying soil filters it. Contamination of your well may mean that your well is not performing the way it should: there may be a crack in your well-casing, or if your well is a shallow dug-well, the depth of soil may not be adequate enough to filter it properly. Contamination may occur after heavy rains, but after a few weeks of reasonably dry weather it may disappear only to return again after more heavy rainfalls.

E. Coli: Should you be told that your well has tested positive for E. coli, this is a serious problem, as the presence of E. coli in any well usually means it is faecal in origin. The source may be sludge from your septic-system, faeces from family pets, or perhaps livestock or poultry manure. If E. coli is found, there is cause for great concern since we humans share various diseases with other warm-blooded animals. An E. coli presence in your well water can give you an increased risk of contracting a disease, virus, bacterial infection, or possibly parasites.
    
Testing: Environment Canada suggests you test your well water regularly, two or three times a year. If you are on a drilled well I’d still get it done once in a while, just to be safe. In Nova Scotia, if you are purchasing a home that is on a well, your bank will request that the well water be tested.

Fixing the problem: One can either pour bleach down their well (amount is determined by quantity of water in well) and “shock” the well, or they can purchase an ultra-violet light system that will kill all types of coliform bacteria without leaving any aesthetic effects (see www.evowater.ca). There are businesses that will provide and install one for you, for a price; the light has to be replaced in them yearly (recommended), but it leaves your drinking water worry-free. I have one, and I know quite a few people who have had them installed. Health Canada approves of the UV systems and works closely with NSF International to develop standards for these water-treatment systems. There is another way, and that is to do what people did before modern times, and that is to boil all water before drinking it. However, you have to boil it at a rolling boil long enough to kill all the bacteria.

Boiling water: If you boil it long enough it will kill any bacteria or parasites in it. It sounds easy: “We put the kettle on all the time!” But modern electric kettles turn off just after they reach a rolling boil. We bring vegetables to the boil and then we turn down the heat and simmer them. That isn’t hot enough to kill all types of bacteria and parasites – yes, parasites. I have heard two minutes to ten minutes, so I did a bit of internet research. New York State only recommends, if there is a “boil order”, for towns people to boil their tap water for 2 minutes. The International Red Cross recommends you boil any contaminated drinking water (at a rolling boil) for at least five minutes. Any people living in towns where they have been put on a “boil” order will be familiar with the inconvenience, although recommended times for how long to boil their water may vary from town to town and country to country.

Do you want to have your well water tested? You will find several water testing labs in the Halifax/Dartmouth area, or you can have your water tested in Windsor at Envirosphere Consultants Limited, 120 Morrison Dr. (798-4022) You can pick up sample bottles (you cannot use your own container) at the Valley Regional and Hants County Hospital as well as at other Valley hospitals.


My online sources were:
1.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coliform_bacteria
2.  www.evowater.ca   
3. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/1/8
4  http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/pubs/water-eau/well-puits-eng.php(Health Canada)

Dog Boarding. Board your dog in a non-traditional kennel. At Forever Shales there are just 3 kennels, so less dogs means less noise and more attention for your dog. Daily walks are included in the boarding price, and there is a fenced-yard directly off the kennel room. Kennel room is attached to the house and is not a separate building, and it is partially carpeted and decorated in bright colours. Deborah Berkeley 757-0744 South Rawdon.

Dog Obedience Classes. Paws and Claws offers dog obedience classes and puppy classes in Ardoise. Ask for Heather at 757-1730  email: pawsandclaws10@gmail.com

Dog Agility Classes. Want something to do with your dog after the obedience classes are over? Try agility – it’s fun for both dog and owner, and you get to build on your dog’s obedience skills. Classes are in S. Rawdon at Lietash. Ask for Bob at 757-0929.

Our Mother’s Keepers. Check out this lovely store located at 85 Water Street, Windsor. Leesa sells products that are for ‘soul and planet’. Drop in and visit her and her cats, and check out the handcrafted products she has for sale – some are locally made. She also sells copies of Forever Shales. Thank you Leesa, for handing out copies of The Sheepdog.

Tan Coffee. Thank you for allowing me to leave copies of The Sheepdog in your lovely café for people to read. It is very much appreciated. People, please drop into Tan’s on Water Street, Windsor, and have a coffee and a bite to eat.

Daniels Flower Shop. Thank you for handing out copies of The Sheepdog. The appreciation of flowers is a deep reflection of what is inside one’s heart. Please go to Daniels, 40 Water Street, Windsor, and appreciate that special person in your life. 798-5337

Snapshot album of Sheepdog's images

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Contents for March issue:

Sheepdog's Adventure - Jerome, Arizona
Sheepdog's Tit-bit - Tracing your English surname
Sheepdog's Round-up - author Stella Stafford
Excerpts from the novel Forever Shales
Sheepdog's Quote - Jane Austen



   

Sheepdog's Adventure

Jerome

Jerome, Arizona is a most unusual place. At one time Jerome was a mining town and was known as Arizona’s Billion Dollar Copper Camp, but in 1953 the mines closed down, and as a result of Jerome’s collapsed economy the people moved away. End result was that Jerome became a “ghost” town. But years later, artists began to move into the empty shells of abandoned houses and other buildings built into the side of Jerome’s high, sweeping hill, and the town began to live again. Now it thrives, welcoming the visitor from afar who just might buy a house there and move in – like many have done.
     Outside of Jerome is a ghostly place where the mines were. Still standing are the individual small buildings that made up the small mining “camp”. One can view the tiny dentist’s building, as it was when it was first abandoned: the old-style chair and dentistry implements lay covered in decades of thick dust. There is a small street lined with other tiny one-roomed buildings, all filled with dust-covered furniture of the times. A small mill that saws wood is in operation, so you will see some human activity there, and perhaps the donkey will be in his pen – Pedro Gonzales Gonzales Gonzales – named after one of the town’s past mayors. Old-model cars and trucks sit about where they were last parked many decades ago, collecting desert dust and looking as if you could just turn the key and drive off in one. There is a fee to walk around this “ghostly” part of Jerome, but it is off the beaten path, so chances are you will encounter few other tourists there. *It’s advisable to take water along with you because you will be in the desert.

  

Cars and trucks are still standing where they were left decades ago. Garages are still full of tools and spare parts.

The Grand Hotel, situated on Jerome's hilltop.

The view from the Grand Hotel.

The little dentist's office. Inside are the chair and dental implements, all covered in decades of dust.

Sheepdog's Tit-bit

Tracing your English surname
According to the Oxford Guide to Family History, Oxford University Press, pub. 1993, there were a great many more surnames in use in England in the Middle Ages than there are today. The Black Death and other pestilences of the Middle Ages wiped out entire families, thus their surnames became extinct. Some rare surnames have survived and still exist in their area of origin, but over the centuries names have changed. To trace an English surname back over several centuries can be a difficult task; some family’s surnames changed when they moved from one village to another, when locals identified them by using the name of their previous village or town and not their surname, and after two or three generations the new name became permanent. French immigrants into England will have had their surname Herve changed to Harvey, and Charpentier into Carpenter, making them indistinguishable from the English Harveys and Carpenters. Also, one will find that many English surnames originated in countries like Denmark and Holland. With genealogy being the most popular “hobby” on the planet, many people encounter these name-changes and have difficulty picking up the trail of their ancestors, meaning it can be the end of the line in one’s research, although not always.
     In 16th century England, the unusual practice of a baby being given a surname to be used as a Christian name began to become popular. Lord Guildford Dudley is one of the earliest recorded examples of such naming when he was given his mother’s surname as a Christian name. Such naming practices were usually efforts by the nobility to preserve the surname in the mother’s family when the male line became extinct, and it became even more popular in Victorian England. Once only used as surnames, Douglas, Dudley, Keith, Stanley, Stuart, and Neville are now thought of as Christian names. 
     Some Christian names are uni-sex, such as Evelyn, Allison, Marion, and Hilary. The pet forms of names are another confusion, such as Nancy for Anne, Meg for Margaret, and Sally for Sarah, and my own great-great-grandmother switched from Maud to Mary, and back again, creating a confusing paper trail for her future researcher.

Sheepdog's Round-up

 

Stella Stafford - UK author

Stella Stafford is the author of the light-hearted mystery novel ‘Did Anybody Die?’ This vibrant story takes place in the fictitious village of Little Wychwell, as well as the colourful university town of Oxford, England. The mystery begins when Priscilla finds herself house-sitting for her friend Elodea, and what with the shock of having to take over Elodea’s village activities at short notice, Priscilla finds that all is not well in Little Wychwell. Written without graphic violence or foul language, Stafford has written an intriguing mystery filled with surprises that will entertain the conscientious reader.

     When in a recent radio interview in the US, she commented about the way she writes: “My characters write the plot for me. I begin with an outline, and then they change the whole thing!”

     A follow-on from ‘Did Anybody Die?’ is called ‘A Very Quiet Guest’, which will be released this May. To follow are three more mystery novels. Stella also writes poetry, sings in no less than four choirs, and is also working on a fantasy novel.

     Published by Melrose Books of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England, ‘Did Anybody Die?’ is available at Amazon as a Kindle book as well as a paperback. 

 

                                                                                   

 Amazon.com

Amazon Kindle (with different book cover)

                                                                                   

A poem by Stella Stafford


(Untitled)
Dark and yet also white.
The night fog condenses on us in huge droplets.
No sounds – not even an owl hooting.
We have to leap to the verge to avoid dazzling headlights.
Illuminated for a moment,
We can see each other.
Then, tilting your head upwards,
You laugh at me and wag your tail.

Amazon Kindle  

                                        

More excerpts from the historical novel Forever Shales

Amazon.ca 

 Melrose Books (UK)

Chapter XI
It was Bleak, Black, and so Victorian

The weeks passed by slowly, the late heat of the summer having long since ended, and now the nights were once again gloomy and chilly. The fireplaces in our house all had fires blazing in them at some point of the day, giving the house a cozy warmth, though the ones in the bedrooms usually weren’t lit until the evening hours. Often the weather outside was cold and drizzly, and on many of these days the London sky became a thick and brownish grey and the outside air smelt awful. They called it smoggy fog. It settled upon us in Hackney like a dirty veil. With most houses in the London area having several if not many fireplaces within their walls it was no wonder, even to me, a dog, that the air would become polluted. The chimneys chugged out smoke from the fires lit below, but on foggy days the smutty smoke struggled to become one with the sky, and a tell-tale coating of sooty smuts would be dusted about the rooftops, and just about everywhere else as well.
     As winter beckoned, there were times when it rained and everything outside seemed to have a grimy coating of oily soot, which would not come off one’s clothes, or white paws, so easily. To my own astonishment, the rain was actually dirty, something I’d never before encountered. Even the lush, green grass would become dark and grimy, and the trees and flowers were dark and depressed-looking from the coating of the filthy rain. Other times it became foggy, and at these times it was so thick you couldn’t see across the street, the lamps appearing to be but a dim, disembodied glow, and the air would smell foul and repugnant. These strange fogs were commonly known as pea-soupers. Jessie referred to them as Purgatory. During a pea-souper, ordinary sounds such as hoof beats upon cobbles, or my own voice emitted as a bark, sounded eerily distorted, so they were an excuse for all Londoners to remain within the cosy confines of their homes and to cancel their evening’s plans.
     Everyone burnt coal, and I mean everyone. London town and its area thrived on coal. Every house had either a coal shed or a coal cellar, and the housemaids carried the coal throughout the houses in shiny coal-scuttles, and lit coal fires out of those black and dusty lumps and nubbles. We could not survive without it, and I marvelled at the amount our house burnt on a weekly basis, never mind the endless trips our maid-of-all did, carrying the heavy scuttle from room to room, to ensure there was always a plentiful supply of coal on hand.

   * * *

Chapter XII

Mr Peppermint and a Dog with a Job

All was quiet outside the house. It was all a hush; there was no one calling my name. I found I had not been missed, and felt pleasingly refreshed after that little bit of exercise. I licked my front paws clean until they gleamed pure white, thus removing any traces of dirt and other evidence of my escapade. I gave myself a good shake in order to dislodge any signs of twigs or brick dust clinging to my back. I stared at the gaping hole where the leafy branches of the hedge had been broken and pushed aside, and I hoped it would not be noticed. I knew that in the future I would have to be careful to not get caught. I could not risk discovery. In other words, to prevent my being found missing from the garden, future excursions would have to be short ones, but besides that I would have to be careful when crossing the streets and roads. They, especially Mare Street, were busy and dangerous because of the many cabs and other traffic such as omnibuses and delivery wagons, many of which travelled up and down them non-stop. And besides, how would I ever explain coming into the house with a broken leg or a crushed foot, when I had simply been sent outside to do my looing?
     One spring night, when Edmund and Augustus had just returned from their gentlemen’s club somewhat earlier than was usual, an announcement was made. Augustus took the centre of the room and told the female population to hush, pointed to me, and then told Charles, his daughters, and Maud, that I had become somewhat infamous. He related to us that a particular gentleman who lived on Mare Street, in one of those old mansions, was also a member of his club, and the gentleman had commented to him just that very night about the dog, which he knew to belong to Augustus, had been seen to make regular journeys up and down his street, and usually in the morning hours. Augustus, not at first believing this gentleman, then had had to accept the man’s word when the unmistakable black collar with the shiny brass nameplate was described to him, as well as the dog’s amiable nature and white eyebrows.
     When I heard this being revealed to the four walls of the house, I felt my cheeks begin to burn, and I am sure they had a scarlet glow to them. Even my ears felt hot! Oh, what shame! I had been caught. The dismay I felt was akin to the floor being snatched from beneath my feet. I had a good idea of who had told on me. He did! It was Mr Peppermint! The gentleman at the club must have been that nice elderly man I sometimes encountered, who called me by my name, and who usually gave me an innocent peppermint, pulled from a small paper bag and offered with an ageing, feeble, shaking hand. On more than one occasion the feeble Mr Peppermint had by accident dropped a sweet onto the pavement, which I quickly snatched up – giving me a tally of two mints. Thus, I always associated him with peppermints; hence his name.

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You have just read about four pages, chosen from two chapters, of Forever Shales. This is an historical novel written for adults, or older teens, but is uniquely written from a dog’s point of view. It is set in Victorian England and is about 472 pages in length. One can purchase copies from Leesa at Our Mother’s Keepers on Water Street, Windsor, NS, or online from Amazon or Melrose Books (see above links).

Sheepdog's Favourite Quote

Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love. – Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey.