SHOP - Edward’s good wishes were so nicely said that Grace could feel herself grinning; she suggested they go for a walk with the dogs around the lake on the next fine day, to which Edward enthusiastically agreed… and when Grace ended the phone call, she saw that Roxanne had taken the opportunity to dash into the nearest shoe shop to grab a delightful pair of cream and black kitten heels.

GREGARIOUS - Grace was out with her daughters and son-in-law, having a gorgeous afternoon tea, and they’d just finished and were heading out of the hotel when an old school friend recognised her and approached to talk her head off; Grace remembered this person from school and even back then the woman had been extraordinarily gregarious, so Grace was actually relieved to get a phone call so that she could say”Must answer - lovely seeing you again - bye!” and then she rejoined her daughters and at the same time answered the call, noting with pleasure that it was Edward.

LOST - After the excitement of the cocoa frog incident, Grace was glad that the next few days were calmer; she spent much of the weekend looking for a particular dog toy that had got lost inside, with Bailey trying several times to chew her new slippers, which had Rufus charging at him and rolling him over (for Rufus had some thorough experience in the sanctity of Grace’s slippers!).

ENVIRONMENTAL - The amazing cocoa frog continued to gaze at Grace (or so it seemed) as she carefully and quietly phoned the ranger and then Edward, and it was an enormous relief when Edward arrived within minutes to take charge of the dogs; it wasn’t long before the ranger and a frog expert turned up and shook their heads in amazement at the astonishing little frog while securing it, and the expert said, “We thought it might be a joke - but good lord, it is actually the real thing, hypsiboas sp. - and to find it here could have a huge environmental impact, so we’ll be following up to not only return this little fellow to Suriname, but also investigate who smuggled it into Australia”, with the ranger adding, “You did all the right things - thank you!”

EXOTIC - As she looked more closely, to her complete astonishment she recognised it as a very rare and exotic chocolate-coloured frog, which shouldn’t be here in Melbourne, Australia, as she had read the online reports about this relatively recently discovered frog native to Suriname; it was sitting on a branch, and Grace’s mind raced with so many conflicting thoughts all at once – Rufus and Bailey mustn’t try to touch it or eat it – this must be an escaped pet – how could it be a legal pet; it couldn’t be legal! – who has had it imported – what on earth should I do – will this frog hop away – should I try to pick it up – no! it’s toxic, isn’t it? – where’s my phone – I’ll call the council – Edward! He can keep the dogs occupied - council first, then Edward – oh, lord, it’s the most absolutely adorable little thing I’ve ever seen! …

TENSE - The thought was fleeting, brought on by the events of last night - and Grace realised she must be incredibly tense, so she made herself a soothing cup of Melbourne Breakfast tea and called one of the local massage therapy centres to see if she could book a session.

EXCITED - The hubbub outside was muted now, and Grace swung her feet over the bed and peered out through the window; she’d only nodded off for less than a minute, but in that time, the two uninjured policemen had gained control of the situation and had the youths handcuffed; even as she watched, two more police cars and an ambulance were drawing up, and Edward was knocking on the side door, calling out “Grace, all’s well”, while the dogs made excited snuffling sounds as they recognised his voice.

Oops.

DOWN – Grace spun around on her heel and raced inside, but she’d noticed something in that split second beforehand; the youths were right next to the sprinklers down on her nature strip and she could isolate those sprinklers and turn them on full bore — which she did, and to her glee she saw that the sudden blast of water had caught three of the youths off-guard as the two uninjured policemen wielded their tasers, and Edward seemed to have one youth in an armhold.

Grace spun around on her heel and raced inside, but she’d noticed something in that split second beforehand; the youths were right next to the sprinklers on her nature strip and she could isolate those sprinklers and turn them on full bore — which she did, and to her glee she saw that the sudden blast of water had caught three of the youths off-guard as the two uninjured policemen wielded their tasers, and Edward seemed to have one youth in an armhold.

MOUTH - Grace came out, giving Edward a grateful smile and greeting the police; one of them asked her a few questions while the others dealt with the youths who objected to being searched – understandably, as three of them were carrying two tyre irons, knives, and drugs – and one in particular had a very big mouth and used some foul language.

GANGSTER - Edward had heard Grace talking about the time of the attempted home invasion and car theft, so he could understand her nervousness; he hurriedly drove over, phoning the police at the same time, and he saw a dark puddle of shapes in the street, which resolved itself into a group of youths standing there with gangster attitude.

TEMPTING - Rufus was curled up in one dog basket while Bailey spread himself lavishly in the other; Rufus’s little nose was twitching slightly as he breathed out in soft little “hrumph”s and dreamed of chasing tempting things over a green field while his beloved owner looked on admiringly…

DELIGHTFUL - It was with relief that Grace relaxed as the room cleared, and she breathed in the delightful cleanness of vanilla, musing upon the history of those pods when they’d been considered exotic during the 1700s; but in the back of her mind was a little refrain “What on earth caused Bailey to have such fearsome gaseous trebuchets inside his beautiful little doggy self?”

🐶🐶🦴🐾🐶🐶

GIGANTIC - Bailey immediately let out a gigantic (and unfortunately rather smelly) explosion of wind in panic after being catapulted out of his deep sleep – and there was Rufus, pulling a shocked grimace and running to the other side of the room, even sticking his face under the wing chair as if to escape the dastardly stench.

SNEEZE - Grace headed off with Rufus and Bailey, having remembered that Edward would be at work that day; she took it very easy, as her shins and shoulder and lower back were still recovering, and it was so sweet to see the dogs staying close and not tugging on their leads – but oh! her shoulder suffered such a wrench as she couldn’t help but sneeze explosively near some bottlebrushes.

EASIER - Grace contacted LifeBlood and booked a time for her first blood donation, and found that the whole process was a lot easier than she’d expected.

REGULAR - Edward enthusiastically mentioned LifeBlood (formerly known as Red Cross) which had many centres where people wishing to become regular (or irregular) would go – checking their eligibility first, and finding out their blood type if they didn’t know it… and then to donate whole blood or plasma, and in fact the nearest one was just 8 minutes’ drive away!

HOTEL - As a young bloke in his early twenties, Edward had worked as a sous chef in a very swanky London hotel, and he was determined to bring every bit of expertise to this endeavour to please Grace.

SUDDEN - Edward paused, and smacked himself on the head even while planning all of this, telling himself “Whoa, hold your horses! You haven’t even met Roxanne and Lissa at this stage, and you know that Grace’s demeanour is telling you to take it slow, so this would be too sudden!”

STUTTERING - It wouldn’t have been so bad had the organist been competent - but sadly, the music was played in a stuttering fashion, with many repeats and mistakes, to the point that both of the dogs were had howled in protest (and Edward felt decidedly sympathetic towards the doggy protest).

DINGO - There was a documentary about the genetics and history of the dingo directly after the Greenland  documentary, which rather intrigued Grace, although she wondered how Rufus and Bailey would take to the image of these wild Australian canines.

SOAP - Grace replaced the crumbly remnants of the previous soap bar in her en-suite, admiring the new soap bar’s delicate colour and the pleasing curves of its shape, laughing as Rufus got up on his hind legs to sniff approvingly at the basin (which he’d done ever since she had him) – a habit which seemingly had Bailey baffled!

GRIND - Her elegant two-wheeled shopping cart was about 2/3 full, containing some whole freshly roasted Kalawesi coffee beans which she would grind as needed, some aged cheddar, smoked turkey slices, tomatoes, a chicken carcass, a meaty bone (both of these for stock), mushrooms, spring onion, carrots, celery, broccoli,  a can of insect killer, some handmilled soap, and some more of those wonderful caramels that she’d discovered; thankfully, Rufus and Bailey were happy to trot along beside the cart.

RIDDLES - Edward was charmed to be invited over, and they had an enjoyable afternoon filled with dog-play, crossword-solving, silly riddles, music, and coffee with freshly baked scones.

YUCK - As Grace was putting down the phone, she spotted a cockroach near the front window, and sprang up muttering “Yuck!”

TEARFUL - She felt strained, tearful, tightly wound like a wind-up toy, and a sense of melancholy fell upon her – but this would never do; her dogs relied on her to be fed, given attention and exercise…

STAIN - Grace reached for a punnet of raspberries, intending to add some to a bowl of yoghurt, but the punnet slipped from her hands and two or three of the raspberries were squashed into the carpet by a delighted Bailey … and the raspberry-coloured stain elicited a cry of “Oh no!”

TERRIBLE - Grace then laughed and took a photo on her phone of the nudity-donation letter, saying “I’ll text this to Lissa – she’ll laugh her head off!” and Roxanne rolled her eyes as she commented “Honestly, Lissa’s sense of humour is just as wacky as yours - it’s terrible! … but mum, on a more serious note, are you going to introduce Edward to the two of us soon?”

GEM - It was an astonishing find - a gem that awoke mixed emotions in her - but it made Grace draw in a quick breath of dismay as she pictured what might have happened if one of the dogs had found it and swallowed it.

LAP - Grace was so pleased to have Roxanne over for the day, and was only sorry that Lisa was too busy studying for an exercise in her tutorial; Roxanne rubbed Rufus’ ears and gestured to Bailey to jump onto her lap while Grace saw the last of the squirrel as it scampered out of sight.

GRIM - Grace was actually not surprised when she received a text message about an hour later, purporting to be from Roxanne, saying “Hey mum, lost my phone & had to get new, put down this number in your address book. im in trouble really need yr help”, as she had read about the “hey mum” scam – so with a grim smile, she called Roxanne on her usual phone number, and when her daughter answered, she said “Roxanne, sweetheart, I just received one of those ‘hey mum’ messages and I thought I’d give you a quick call just to confirm that of course you haven’t replaced your phone and suddenly lost all of your grammar! - oh, and I’ll call Lissa as well in a moment.”

HACKED - Grace’s phone started ringing; it was Roxanne, speaking with both distress and annoyance as she said, “Mum! My email and Facebook have been hacked, so be careful if you get any weird requests supposedly from me!”

SATISFIED - She continued to mull over this, but in general she did feel satisfied that Edward was what he seemed to be – a genuinely nice bloke – and Grace let Rufus and Bailey out into the back yard for a game of “Hunt the Bones”.

DOCUMENTED - Looking at the web page, it seemed that Edward’s great-grandmother might be her maternal great-great-grandfather’s sister… which would be such an interesting connection - but how on earth could she mention the possibility to see whether this was accurately documented without revealing that she’d been checking up on his online information?

TIRING - The ball launcher gift was certainly keeping the dogs very occupied, with no sign of them tiring as they charged in turn after the balls and then came rushing back to drop the ball, panting, at Grace’s feet.

NUTS - In fact, Edward felt such a joyous lift in his heart thinking about her that he muttered to himself, “Let’s face it, Edward - you’re nuts about the lady”, and began planning a gift for the dogs - for he’d noted that Grace loved her two boys.