Our beautiful, black Labrador, Riley, travelled all over the UK with Phil and I in our former van, the bus-with-a-woodstove. Similarly to ‘Jack’ in my novel The Eliza Doll. Jack lives in a van with his companion, Ellie, who travels the country selling her handmade dolls at craft fairs. Jack is modelled entirely on Riley.

It nearly broke our hearts when Riley had to be put down in 2016. He had poisoned himself by eating what we think may have been a death cap mushroom.

We now have two rescued dogs who were both found on the streets of Romania. Luna, my birthday present two years ago, came to live with us when Riley was still alive. They were a perfect visual contrast and shared a brief love. Luna had been found in a cardboard box…

…on the street in Budapest with her two sisters at the age of about five months. Riley helped her acclimatise to family

(and beach) life.

In my sixth novel, Luna ‘plays’ Alicia, a white stray dog that adopts my character Maya, while she’s living in a Catalonian mountain community. The Vagabond Mother, as yet unpublished, is the story of a middle-aged woman who takes off with a backpack, in search of her missing son. In the book, Alicia follows Maya as she leaves the community she’s been staying at to hitch hike to Barcelona, and Maya ends up taking her back to the UK with her. Alicia is as loyal, nervous and loving as my own lovely Luna.

Pixie is the second dog we adopted from Seven Strays Dog Rescue. It was too sad that Riley had to be put down and that Luna was left alone, so we chose a smaller dog to keep her company. Allow me to present introduce Miss Pixie:

Pixie was also abandoned in Romania. She had a puppy, who has now also been rehomed in the UK.

Pixie ‘stars’ in my fifth novel (currently out on submission) Sea Babies. Pixie plays a similarly-small, brown dog call Titania (Tatty) who’s dumped on my main character, Lauren. Lauren quickly grows to love Tatty and they explore the wild countryside of Uig on the Isle of Lewis together (see second-to-top picture in this post) and Tatty comforts Lauren while she comes to terms with a recent, drastic change in circumstances

Luna and Pixie love each other, and they love me and Phil and our cat, Pheoby. The Girls (including the cat) are happy whether we’re off on one adventure or another in our van, but also when we cuddle up on the sofa at home.

Oh, and here’s a picture of Pheoby, the camping cat. I really must add a strong, female cat character in my next book…