A dog called Gary

One of the best things about finally having made it to Nepal is that we have a dog again. He is called Gary. His full name is Gary Bahada Rai. His head looks like a grey bear, but he has a ridiclulous curly tail and poncy behind. Apparently he is a Tibetan mastiff. He arrived at the house of the previous owner as payment for a gambling debt from one drunken night in the hills. Hubby has just pointed out that he would look very good on our bed, but I think if we allowed that to happen it would not be long before we were sleeping in the kennel and he was telling Meena what to cook for supper every evening. I'm sure he is our other dog's evil Nepali twin. Hubby is trying vainly to train him, but I think the only commands he will ever understand or obey are 'Gary please snatch a biscuit out of a small child's hand' or possibly 'Gary please woof loudly at nothing in particular'. I think I may also train him to do some other complex commands such as 'Gary please lie somewhere inconvenient and ignore anyone who tries to get you to move' or even 'Gary please stare menacingly at Twin 2 until she cries' - all of which will be more successful than your more conventional commands like 'sit' or 'stay'.

As well as Gary, who is supposed to be our guard dog, we also have five lovely staff: a security guard, driver, gardener, housekeeper and cook. And as luck would have it they all like playing with children. Happy Days. The house is even more gorgeous than we imagined, and although it's monsoon season, it's not impossibly hot. Haven't been out of the house much yet, except for food shopping, but we are hoping to explore a bit over the weekend - if Gary will let us.