‘Isn’t it usually darker than this?’, I ask myself.

It’s stupid o’clock when almost everyone is still in bed. Well, being Tuesday, not everyone. In fact, the market is already being set up by the stallholders.

But there we were, getting used to the light at this God-forsaken hour and then everything changes. However, it is the signal for me. I long for sandals and T-shirts. I long for heat; real heat when my skin seems to have a permanent ‘slickness’ about it. When we get up and the sun shines and I get home and the sun shines and, even in the middle of the night, it’s just sandals and shorts and T-shirts.

So, in spite of the fact that this is a crazy time to be walking around, I have a certain lightness in my step and I ache for the ‘sandal time’.

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I don’t say ‘I’m sure it will be soon’. I’ve been saying it for almost a couple of years. In spite of myself, I am slightly superstitious and I wonder if I shouldn’t say it – just to make sure it doesn’t come true?

The other day we went round to F’s flat for a few minutes. F had bought new toys. As we were in the lift, going up, Rufus got over-excited. In fact, I haven’t seen him this excited for a while. He knew where we were going and he knew it would mean biscuits and treats. He’s not stupid.

He tries to push the lift door open with his head, even as we’re moving upwards. He is desperate to get there. And, sure enough, when we arrive, he has biscuits and treats. The toys he’s not interested in, really. But then, they’re for Dino, really.

The floor, however, is a problem. And he is less steady on his feet. His legs give way and he is there, much like a spatchcocked chicken. I stand at his rear, keeping his back legs close together with my feet and put my hands underneath his all-too-obvious rib cage and lift him up. Within a few moments he is, once again, doing his impression of a parachutist in free-fall. F tries but hasn’t really grasped what I do. I explain and he almost gets it.

It happens a few more times and I decide to go. F can also see that it is difficult for him. Now, I think, there’ll be no stopping at F’s during the night. I did offer on Saturday night, since F did not feel so well but ‘no’ apparently because of Rufus.

Then, as I was on holiday yesterday, last night I had done stuffed pimentos. F had bought them back from Spain and I found a recipe that fills them with a fish stuffing and made some adjustments to fit what I had. It was after we had finished and we sitting drinking some wine and having a cigarette. Rufus did a little whine or two. I stroked him and he stopped whining. Then he got up or, rather, he tried to get up, his paws slipping on my floor, which is not really a slippy floor. But I know it is probably his arthritis playing up a bit. A change in the weather, perhaps?

And that’s when I thought that it wouldn’t be long now. The whimpering a sign of some pain. Not so much but just a little; the getting up made difficult by the stiff joints.

But I don’t want to voice my concerns. F won’t handle this so well, I think. No, it’s better not to say anything. But I wonder if he’ll even make it until Easter, when we all go away? Or if it will just be the three of us?

Maybe it will all be alright again in a day or two. Who knows?