Buckley Day.....

Woke up and went down to see Kate and see what she was going to do today.....amazingly she didn't have any meetings so we decided to declare the day Buckley day and spend it together. You see the wonderful thing about having a best friend is that everything you do is better if they are there and although Clare loves living in Los Angeles the one bad thing about that is that her bff is in England. The slogan of the day was "Better with Buckley" and maybe we'll have t shirts and stickers made to let everybody know. Clare has a lot of friends, really more than she could ever have hoped and prayed for and she cherishes every single on of them, but Kate is special and she knows that. The wonderful thing about a true friend is that they know you well enough that no matter that you sometimes make mistakes and put a foot wrong and are human that they forgive you and know that you are a good person and they carry on loving you regardless. Nobody is perfect but the sacred pact of a friendship is that you trust a friend not to tear you down for the things you may do that they think are not in your best interest or dubious. They give you the benefit of the doubt, empathise and try as hard as they can to see things from your point of view but trust that you are doing the best you can because sometimes in a disagreement both people could be right.
We drove down the hill to have breakfast with Young McKenna which is what Kate calls Paul, then we went to Rodeo Drive and Clare bought a pair of Chrome Heart sunglasses to celebrate the recent good news then we went over to Ammo and all had lunch. Later on Clare and Kate went to PinkBerry of course and sat in the car with the ac blasting enjoying being together for one last day before Buckley leaves. In the evening we had a wonderful dinner on the patio with friends and were still there at midnight because we just didn't want it to end....I hate endings, they make my heart ache, my ears droop and my tail just hangs there like a string of spaghetti.....do all good things have to come to an end I wonder......

Curiosity....

Woke up this morning and was happy to remember that our bff Buckley is in the hotel and so we raced down to see her. Clare and Paul had work meetings today so after saying good morning to Kate we jumped in the car and headed out to the beach because their first meeting was in The Marmalade Cafe in Malibu with their new literary agent in america. Well the meeting was quite long and so I decided to pass the time by eating and once I started I couldn't stop. Really it was just curiosity, there were so many things on the menu I had never tried and so I kept trying another and another until I was so full I could hardly walk. I have to say I was glad that we drive an SUV because I don't think a compact car would have taken my weight!!!!!
Curiosity can apparently get you into all sorts of trouble, I mean curiosity killed the cat, and although I am not a big fan of cats, I like to think I can learn from their mistakes. However, sometimes questions are more important than answers and I don't think you should ever lose your sense of curiosity. One of the most boring things in the whole world is somebody who thinks they have all the answers and know everything there is to know. Being curious makes sure you always have lots of interesting things to do and after all life was meant to be lived so curiosity must be kept alive or what is the point of it all.
We had a wonderful dinner on our patio with Paul and Kate and the fantastic actor John Hurt and his wife. John is here making Indiana Jones 4 although it is so top secret I am not sure I should even have told you that but we were all so curious about it being a big secret that we probably drove him crazy asking all about it. Mark Twain said "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do that by the ones you did do. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover." Go on..........

Jet Set....

It felt as though I had just fallen asleep when the alarm went....surely some mistake because I opened one eye and it was still dark outside. But there was Clare, up and about, singing and packing a bag and the clock read 4.45am. I followed her out of the door and we drove down the hill. I looked up at the sky and amazingly there was an eclipse of the moon so I knew it was a special special day. I really believe in signs and I look for them everywhere in everything. The universe is always talking to you, telling you the answers to your questions, as long as you open you eyes and ears to them. I decided to trust, have faith, and go with the flow. At Paul's hotel there was a limo waiting and we climbed into it and drove to LAX, but not the usual terminal, a small building nearby where we said hello and were taken straight out to a plane sitting outside. It was called a Citation 10 and it was really beautiful and apparently the fastest commercial jet in the world at the moment. It must have been because four hours later we were landing in NY with the skyline winking and smiling in the sunshine. Wow, we were in New York City again.
We drove in to Manhattan and checked into The Four Seasons and then Paul had to get straight on with some work he had been flown in to do. Clare meanwhile immediately met up with one of the closest people in the world to her, someone who she counts as one of her best friends, somebody she trusts implicitly who is wonderful, funny, kind, loyal, and always there for her. He was in town because he is competing in the US Open Tennis this week so the timing couldn't have been more perfect. They talked and laughed and it was great to see Clare so happy and at peace and comfortable again. They hung out for hours until Paul called and said he was done and we headed downtown to Tribeca for a business meeting with take out from Nobu which made it special.....we were done by midnight and headed back to the airport where the jet was waiting to speed us back to Los Angeles.....wow what an exciting day and what a memory, only made better by sharing it with two of the greatest people on this planet.....love and friends will always make anything good better......

LA Social

Today was another great day I realised when I opened my eyes because I remembered that Clare's bff Kate Buckley was arriving to stay for a week and we miss her soooooo much when she's gone. We raced down to see Paul and he was there and we had breakfast and they talked and talked all the way through it. They got some work done and then Clare and I drove up to hike the canyon. To begin with we were going to try and break the new time record that we set on Friday but it was very hot and Clare and I weren't feeling it, so we slowed down a little and took it easy and let ourselves off the hook which was a huge relief for me. I'm a fit dog but charging round the canyon, running down those steep hills, it takes it out of me. I love breaking our record but sometimes if we make it all about being competitive the canyon can suddenly become smaller, about five and a half inches actually, as that is the space between my ears.....it's amazing how much where my head is at can affect the way my body feels, and it all has to be feeling top of its game to really go for it. Having said that, absolutely nothing feels better than the few times we have gone for it and won. What a high.
In the evening we met up with Kate, picked up Paul and took our place at our favourite table on the patio and I waited to see who would show up. First up was Jeff Gordon, Nascar champ and honestly the most wonderful man, who is married to one of Clare's oldest and most beautiful friends, Ingrid. They got married last year and two months ago had the most beautiful baby so we just couldn't be happier for them if we tried.
Then before I could even take that in, Rufus Sewell and his stunning girlfriend Alice Eve arrived too. It was just awesome to see Rufus again, he is one of our favourite people and one of the nicest, most positive, friendly, lovely guys we know. Paul and Kate were both tired from jet lag but they battled through it and we were still on that patio at midnight. It was one of the best and funniest evening's we've had for a while and just so good to see all our old friends in one place......happy days....

Paul arrives....

I love days when Paul is arriving...I can't sit still or sit down or even sit no matter how many times Clare says that word to me. At three we set off for the airport and on the way got the text telling us "Landed" and everything is suddenly good in my world. We pulled up at the Virgin exit and there was Paul with his suitcases. There was so much news to catch up on in the way to the hotel and so they never stopped talking and I just sat and listened with my tail wagging quietly. Now it seems like nothing ever happened. I really believe that whatever you focus on gets bigger so it is brilliant that Paul has arrived and we can focus on him and get on with our work and the reason we are here in the first place.
It has made me really sad to find out that there are so many hateful people in the world but the best news is that Love will always triumph over hate, every single time. I feel so so sorry for people who have to walk around with attack thoughts, feeling separate and against people they don't even know. Hate definitely hurts the hater more than it injures the hated and you can't possibly hate someone else without hating yourself so what an awful way to live life. I cannot even imagine it so I don't.
We unpacked Paul and then drove up to the hotel and met with John Ferriter, our William Morris agent and discussed work as well as having a very good laugh. Then Jonny Lee Miller turned up for dinner which made me so happy. He is currently filming a fantastic new series for ABC called Eli Stone which sounds absolutely brilliant. He is one of the most talented actors ever, and one of the most lovely, authentic, cool people I have ever met. Spending an evening with him and Paul was the best tonic for my bruised heart that I could ever imagine. We stayed up just past midnight to help Paul get on to LA time and over his jet lag quicker......did I mention how happy I am that he's here......

Normal Service resumed....

I am soooooooooooooo happy because I just heard that Paul is coming back to LA tomorrow....oh thank the Lord. He is the most comforting, level headed, supportive, wonderful, funny and brilliant friend we have in the world and everything is better when he is around. I can barely contain my excitement and I woke up this morning wishing it was tomorrow already which is crazy. Meanwhile it was still today and we had things to do. We got in the car and headed to Brentwood to see friends, our favourite Saturday morning activity. After a good breakfast at The Coral Tree we ran about in the car doing some errands. I love days like this, driving about in the Range Rover, picking up laundry, getting the car washed, listening to american radio and enjoying the quiet. After lunch we drove up the hill and went with everyone to watch the football. It is so much fun and they won again which was a fantastic result.
When we got back I jumped in the car and drove along Mulholland listening to tunes and pulled up at Dougray Scott's house still smiling thinking about the day. Parties at Dougray's are always the most fun and it was great to see everyone. He is one of Clare's oldest friends and Sculfor came up too as well as a whole bunch of other people. They have a beautiful house and it's always full of laughter and friends. As usual fun and games were organised and we had another table tennis tournament which was fantastic because Clare and her friend David won it. They had to play each team one after another and they beat them, each and every one. Now everybody knows that it's not the winning it's the taking part, but oh if feels so good to win. Who knew that Clare could even play table tennis, let alone be a champion......slept like a dog....a very happy dog.....

Trust.....

Hmmmm...well I am not sure what to write anymore, it's hard feeling judged and being criticised. We have had a lot of e mails from people telling us how sad they are about the mean things people are saying and to ignore it. Unfortunately I don't know what they're talking about because Clare is not looking at any of them. She says that what other people say and think about us is absolutely none of our business so I have my paws clenched firmly over my eyes in case I am tempted to look. So we will continue blogging without looking left or right and say a big thank you again for all the nice things friends of the blog have written. I hope and trust you will continue reading....
Trust is the number one ingredient in any friendship and I trust my friends and they trust me and that is not something that happens overnight and is earned not instantly given. To be trusted is as much of a compliment as being loved. Walter Anderson said "We're never so vulnerable when we trust someone but if we can't trust we can't find love or joy" and that is so true. I love and trust my friends both, if they all jumped off a bridge of course I wouldn't follow them but I would be there at the bottom to help catch them. Trust in friends, trust in God, trust your heart, but most of all trust yourself...."create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the inner spark of possibility into flames of achievement".
So we hiked yesterday in the hot sun but took a different route up the middle which was an adventure. In the evening gorgeous Amber showed came for dinner, then our beautiful friend Elle was on the patio and joined us until a lot of friends were there, and there we sat, having dinner laughing, eating joking and loving......

PS I don't think I am better than anybody else, I am just trying to be better than I thought I could be...

Patience...

Woke up with a start....back in my bed in LA but with a funny feeling in my tummy....I didn't know why but I just knew something good was going to happen today. We have been waiting a long time for some good news and that requires patience, which is not something that comes easily to this dog. Patience is a virtue but it can be hard which is why you have to practice it. If everything just happened instantly, the moment you wanted it, then there would be no fun in it all. Sometimes it is the waiting and wanting so much that is the best part, while there's still hope and expectation and you just don't know....that is delicious. In the meantime, while you're waiting, you just have to accept things as they are and keep the faith in yourself and the direction you have chosen. The keys to patience and to life are acceptance and faith, they will get you through anything. But today, there was no more waiting, it was good news day and Clare and I jumped up and down until my paws were sore. Not too sore to go hike though and we drove up Laurel Canyon with Clare singing along to all the songs on the radio. We decided not to try and break our record this time but just have a good hike in the best company, which we did. I love this canyon, love everything about it at the moment, it's so special and beautiful and it teaches me so much and I cherish it as much as I could anything, it does my head so much good, did I mention I really love it..... So we drove back down the hill and the best surprise of all was still to come, Clare's friend Elle was checking in and they talked for such a long time about all the things you can talk to an old friend about without judgement.....very grateful for my life today....thank you.....

Perspective

Wow this is the view I woke up to this morning...I love NY. I love it.....I love the way they make bagels here, the way umbrella sellers appear a minute after it starts raining, the way the humidity makes my hair curl, the way friends Clare has had for twenty years treat her like she never went away, the way italian food tastes, the way that every street we walk down holds a memory, how heroic fire fighters look here....and the way everybody walks, this is a walking city and that suits me fine. One of the best things to do here is to really explore Central Park. Most people just go and sit on one of the lawns or walk through it but there are amazing little secret bits that are incredible like the castle on the hill, like the Ramblings, like the beautiful pond surrounded by Willow Trees up by 103rd st on the West Side.
So we flew in Thursday, hopped in a yellow cab and into the city. Already a change of scenery has done us both good. It's funny how when you are very close to things it's hard to get a good perspective and hard to tell what is real and not and what is up or down so we took a giant step back and a big deep breath and things are already easier to see. Persepective is ai important. At the end of the day, you are all you will ever have for certain and some things are not entirely clear but that's ok, they just are what they are. I think that what you see depends on what you look for so I look for the good in things and that's what I find. In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity, just seeing it can be hard sometimes. Since we've been here we haven't stopped....there are so many friends to see who live in this city as well as other friends who happen to be here right now...love and friends, love and friends, love and friends, that's everything to us especially right now....

Confusion...

I woke up and the sky was blue as blue could be and my tail started wagging before I was even fully awake. I went with Clare to meet some friends with lunch and then we went for a hike and it felt so good to be there and for my body to feel fit and strong and we fairly skipped round. It's amazing how different you can feel from one day to the next....somebody once told me that when I feel a certain way that if you write it down on a piece of paper and put it on your bedside table that a week later you will look at it and probably not even remember why you felt like that. Feelings pass. They just do.
At the moment Clare is a little confused, I think that is a feeling, or maybe it's a state of mind, anyway it is a strange feeling and it's easy to be scared when things are confusing. There is no perfect ending. You learn the hard way that some poems don't rhyme and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen. A good friend understands that. A very wise person once said " "When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us we often find that those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing and face with us the reality of powerlessness, that's a friend who cares." So this confusion will pass and in the meantime all we can do is come back to faith and the certainty that everything, absolutely everything is exactly the way it is meant to be in God's world tonight. Off to NYC....we had a last night dinner with Paul Sculfor and it was so good.....life is good even when it's confusing....

Hi guys....

No I am not going to stop blogging. This will all disappear as quickly as it came. I am going to New York tomorrow though but first let me tell you first hand what happened today.....
I woke up and everything seemed perfectly normal and then everything wasn't. Sculfor came to pick me up to go to the valley and when Clare and I walked out of the driveway to get in the car quite a few people were there too.....men with cameras, big ones, little ones, video ones, it was quite a surprise. Well we decided to do exactly what we were going to do anyway with the idea that it shouldn't stop us doing what we planned to do and that when they realised we weren't doing anything very interesting they would go away. Clare was just sad that she was wearing an old green t shirt that she didn't really like very much....good that she still had a sense of humour. So we did a convoy over to the valley with eight cars following us and they all came to Pinkberry where we had some frozen yoghurt with Mike and Amber, did some errands and then came right back again with all of them still following.
All I can say is that I feel very sorry for the real famous people who are followed like that all day and night. I think animals have a built in sense when they are being stalked and followed and that it puts you in a permanent fight or flight mode that takes a lot of stress and energy to cope with. Thank goodness we are only famous for 3 minutes. Somebody came up to us in Pinkberry and asked who we were and Clare said nobody, we're happy to be nobody if being somebody is like that.
So we went hiking and it was the hardest climb ever but we just kept putting one paw in front of the other and eventually made it to the top with a lot of help from our friends.....and that's the way life goes....thanks for the helping hand.....

Love love love...like the beatles

It's a funny thing when funny things happen to you and you kind of get to find out who your real friends are, and just how many you have. Thank you to everyone who has sent funny e mails to Clare and left messages on the blog. Obviously she is not going to comment...No comment.....but who knew that there were so many people she hadn't heard from in such a long time who very sweetly got in touch to say hello.....and welcome to all the new friends who are now reading the blog. Somebody once gave me some good advice....to keep your mouth shut, your mind straight, and your heart open....I am trying to do that right now.
The whole crazy thing has made Clare feel very loved and that is the best feeling in the whole wide world as we know. LOVE. That's what it all comes down to in the end. Apparently the eskimos have lots of words for snow, not just the one word that we call it. They can differentiate between all different types and kinds of snow, and that is kind of like love.
There are so many kinds of love....love for friends, for family, romantic love, love of places and things, love of animals, although I think the love you feel for a dog is even different to the love you might feel for a goldfish (I hope so)....but love is love and it is what makes the world go round, and heals even the biggest wound. The best thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return. I think the best love of all is unconditional...give love and unconditional acceptance to those you meet and just notice what happens. It is the greatest gift you can give to anyone. The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love which includes not only others but ourselves as well....practice some today....

Always friends.....

Woke up this morning and it was another beautiful day. We jumped out of bed and headed up the hill to see friends for breakfast. We picked up Paul Sculfor on the way and it was great to see him. He's been in London filming a big advertising campaign for a month but it's great to have our friend back. We spent the day catching up on all the news of the world which was interesting. We went to a really fun barbeque in Beverly Park and saw Johnny Buck and so many people we haven't seen in a while. It was at the most gorgeous house which was just like being in a villa in Italy and we ate so much food we could hardly walk out of there.
Swung by The Grove for some wandering and shopping and Clare bought a cowboy hat to keep her face out of the sun which is always a good idea. The sun is so strong at the moment but it isn't going to hurt her if she's wearing a hat. Then it was on to Runyon where we hiked the hard side in pretty quick time, a Jamba Juice to celebrate and that was another perfect Sunday.
In the evening Clare and I went to dinner at Katana with our friends Mike Tyson and Amber Dawn Lee. Amber is such a gorgeous girl and Clare loves spending time with her because she is truly beautiful inside and outside which is very cool, and Mike is just amazing, he is wise and special and gentle and is so completely the opposite inside to how you might imagine from looking at him from the outside. New friends and old friends, they are all friends. I think friends are the siblings God forgot to give us and I cherish every single one of mine and am so grateful to have them, especially on days where you might feel judged by people who don't really know you at all. Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they are meant to be there, that they serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson and help you figure out who you are.....that's what real friends are....a beautiful day that ended perfectly with resolution with a best friend.....they'll always be a best friend, they know too much :-)

Secrets....

Sorry about the short vacation.....I needed a few days to recover from all the excitement, Paul left on Sunday and I had a good sit down and put my paws up and had a rest...there is only so much glamour you can handle if you're a dog living in this town.
So I'll tell you a secret.....I had a secret. It's strange, I am very used to telling people everything I know but lately I was keeping something to myself and it was a strange sensation. And not a very good one either. I heard people say that you're as sick as your secrets and I am not sure that's true but I do know that secrets hold a lot of power and when they are revealed to people, they don't anymore. So I found somebody I really really trusted and I told them my "terrible" secret and it helped a lot, helped me realise that it wasn't such a terrible thing except in my mind. If there is one thing I would wish for everybody is that they have someone in their life to tell their secrets to, someone they can trust, not only to NOT tell anyone else, but to love them despite of it. That's really the definition of a friend, somebody that knows all those deep dark things about you but loves you anyway, loves the good and the bad of you. We all have a dark side and it is never as dark as we think if we shine the light of truth on it. So if you're keeping a secret that's making you a little sick, get it out, it's only big when it's in your head, take it out, right size it and see it for the nothing that it is.
Sunday afternoon Clare and I hiked Runyon on our own and then went back and Clare had a massage and an early night......just me and her.....and my secret......

HHHMMMMMMMmmmm....

I have a sixth sense being a dog.....sometimes I wake up with a funny feeling in the tips of my ears, paws and tail and I just know something exciting is going to happen that day. Well this morning it started in the tip of my nose and just kept spreading. I was so happy I couldn't go back to sleep and joined Clare and Paul on the patio for a power breakfast. There was an excitement in the air I could smell and feel and I waited and watched to see how the day would unfold. Clare and Paul went their separate ways in different cars and I chose to jump in with Clare as we drove around and then up the hill to work out with a friend at his house. He has a gym with all sorts of equipment and they did ten minutes on each machine before going down to the garage where they put on boxing gloves and hit a big bag for twenty minutes.
I climbed under one of his cars because I didn't want to get in the way and accidentally get punched. They were grunting and sweating and sometimes I wonder if I will ever understand why people do the things they do but at the end they whooped and hit gloves and ran around like Rocky Balboa so I think it went well.
In the evening we went to a fantastic steakhouse in Beverly Hills with Jonny Lee Miller and Michelle, a bunch of friends, Jude Law AND my favourite crush in the whole world Cameron Diaz. Well, I couldn't speak, well I don't anyways, but looking at her face made me all funny inside and I just glanced at her every ten seconds and then when she smiled I put my head back between my paws because it made my tummy go funny....she is so beautiful. Of course they all ended up back at our patio, talking, laughing and sorting the world out.....for once we closed the patio down it was so late and then.....well then we carried on some more......nobody wanted the night to end......slept like a silly love sick dog but with a big smile on my tingly face.....sigh......

Beginnings.....

So Clare put her apartment in London on the market today.....she has found a wonderful house out here in Los Angeles and to be able to buy it she has to sell her other house, our other house. I feel a little scared. Beginnings are scarey. Change is scarey. Martin Luther King said "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase just take the first step" and that is so true. I wake up every morning hoping to see a new thing, to feel a new thing and most often I do. Every single day is a new beginning and as well as being exciting it's

nerve racking too and that's when faith comes into it. You just have to leap and have faith that the net will appear, go forward and act as if and the universe will conspire to help you.
Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way, stay away from what might have been and keep looking at what can be and you'll be just fine. I have faith that everything is going to work out just fine and that wherever I am that something is looking out for me and taking good care of me. I just know they are.
So tonight we were having dinner with our lovely friends Mark Griffiths and Gillian Anderson of X Files fame who are just the most fun and wonderful couple and it was so so good to see them. Rob joined us and then so did Guy and Emma and then Jude Law joined us and suddenly the table had grown again and everyone was talking and laughing and getting on so well that my tail started wagging without my asking it to. It was a perfect evening and I went to sleep with the biggest smile on my face that lasted til morning......didn't know it was possible to be this happy.....