‘IT’S TRUE, I DO’

Yes, I am guilty as charged on every count. I have loved my dogs more than my quaranteenager in lockdown. Why? Because the dogs are unfailingly ready the nanosecond I am, to go for a walk. Every time I ask Daisy to do anything, like unload the dishwasher, first she has to change her clothes, or rearrange her clothes or put on some clothes. Then she spends hours applying eyeliner to walk to the village. The dogs do not spend their spare time buying and selling clothes on Depop, then demanding I take endless packages to the village post office because they “don’t understand how it all works”.

The dogs look at me adoringly, whatever dishevelled state I am in. They do not tell me, as Daisy did yesterday, that I look “like a member of the Taliban” because I am wearing a linen collarless shirt. The dogs do not have a burst of manic energy in the evening. They sit outside their crate, at 5.45pm, waiting for their daily 6pm lockdown – a bedtime biscuit and night of secluded peace. After the endless drudge of domesticity, this is my lowest point of the day. But it’s Daisy’s high point. As I’m preparing supper, she insists that I do insanely complicated TikTok dances, then mocks my complete lack of rhythm, hysterical with laughter. But I don’t need a daily audition for the musical she seems to imagine her life is, singing endless songs and dancing manically.

She takes the most unflattering photographs of me in my dressing gown, looking like an aged, fat,

She seems to imagine her life is one long musical

polar bear, then posts them on her private Instagram account. When I complain, she scoffs: “It’s creepy that you care what a load of teenage boys think of you.” Weirdly, I do. And let’s face it, the dogs love watching whatever I want to watch on television. They don’t insist that I “get into” Cooked with Cannabis or Too Hot to Handle, so we can have “quality time together”.

Hasn’t lockdown ensured that we’ve had far too much of that already?