I was drunk by an Italian lake last summer when the pet detective called. She told me she had found Biff – last seen 11 years ago. Astounded, I regretted that extra limoncello shot.
If you could design a pet, you would design Biff: cute, brave, affectionate and with none of the sharp edges sometimes found on cats. I loved him dearly, but he was a wanderer. I rescued him from sheds, cellars and coal stores where we lived in east London, or I would scale trees, shivering in pyjamas, to bring him down. When we moved to Gloucestershire in 2011, he walked out one midsummer morning and never returned.
