DOG'S GRAVESIDE VIGIL

I recently read an amazing story of a dog's graveside vigil that has lasted (so far) for six years!

It seems that German Shepherd Capitan ran away from home after his master died in 2006. A week after the death, when the dead man's family went to pay their respects, they found Capitan howling by the grave.

The fact that they had never taken the dog to the cemetery made his presence there all the more extraordinary.

Graveyard staff are feeding Capitan and said: "He turned up and started wandering around until he found the tomb. During the day he sometimes has a walk, but at 6 pm sharp he lies on the grave and stays there all night."

Can there be any devotion more potent?

P.S. Incidentally, THE FOREIGNER is due to be FREE on Amazon later today (see right-hand column)!

REFLECTIONS ON DEATH

Where do the reflections in this picture begin and end? Even though I took the photo, I can't answer that question with any degree of certainty. And it seems to me that there are some parallels here to life and death. When life in one dimension ends it begins again in another. We haven't gone anywhere except beyond limited human vision.

We've just shed a skin that has outlived its usefulness. How liberating this must be - especially if that skin had become irrevocably diseased or for some other reason a burden to us! Imagine the freedom of being bodiless and having the ability to be anywhere we want to be, at will - instantly! And we can watch over our loved ones, protecting them and 'telling' them that they haven't lost us. If we tell them often enough, they'll hear us in the end.

Yes, my reflections on death suggest that there's fun ahead!

AVA GARDNER - Did She Carry Through Her Threat?

Here's a snippet about Ava Gardner from Richard Kay's page in yesterday's DAILY MAIL that I simply had to share with you:

'The brilliant biographer, Peter Evans, has died at home in Dulwich, South London. He was 78. Peter, who worked with my late colleague Nigel Dempster, was finishing his latest work, on Ava Gardner, when he had a heart attack. Curiously, he blamed Ava for nearly killing him 22 years ago after she asked him to write her obituary, saying she was about to die. At the time, Peter said: 'I didn't believe her and she ended with the words: "When I go, I'll send you a bolt of lightning."'

Sure enough, days after her death, lightning hit a tree which crashed into Evans's house, missing him by inches. Something they may be able to laugh about on the other side ... '