Robert the Westie. My life. By me.

3. Home is where the bed is.

Steve took my lead, Danny collected the armful that was the totality of my earthly goods and we progressed through a heavy black door to a path that lead to the main lobby of the building. A continuous stream of traffic roared along the road just beyond the path. This was going to be a noise-filled home, surely. That prospect didn't thrill me at all, not after the tranquility of Lockerbie, or even the relative calm of the Basingstoke townhouse.

The lobby was all polished stone and glass, the only smells reaching me being the petrol fumes and hot rubber from the traffic outside and a hint of disinfectant from whatever had recently cleaned the foyer floor. Steve pressed a silver button and the doors of a lift slid open. In we went, intriguing odours from the spotted carpet giving me an excuse to bury my nose in the corner.

"I hope he's not about to mark his spot in the lift," said Danny. Steve pressed the button for the sixth floor and gave a tug on the lead.

"No pissing in the lift, now Robert. Nor in the flat, for that matter!" he added.

The lift halted. We exited and stood at the door to my new home. Steve pulled a bunch of keys from the pocket of his jeans and unlocked the wooden door. He stooped to release me.

"Okay, in you go," he said.

I peered inside seeing a long carpeted hallway. Light flooded in from the right. I padded in the direction of the illumination. A huge door propped open lead into a long living room. Immediately in front of me four black-lacquered legs supported an enormous piano. Beyond, a combination of seats, a sofa and a wooden table confronted a television perched in the corner. The room was remarkably quiet, all the din of the traffic left behind the closed front door. I made my way to the windows that lined the opposite wall from floor to almost ceiling level. There, right in front of me, a sweeping expanse of water filled my vision. To my left, the room extended parallel with the river for even more yards than the distance I had just covered.

"Welcome to your new home, Robert. Hope you like the view. It's the Thames," said Steve.

"Do you plan to chat to your pet, man to boy, on a continuous basis or is this just a temporary settling him in phase?" enquired Danny.

"Oh, don't be such a pain. We'll want him to understand our commands. So it can't do any harm to engage him in our conversation, can it?"

Naturally, I was in complete agreement with Steve, even though he, of course, had no idea that I already understood his every word.

"Come on Robert, let's show you the terrace. That's going to play a big role in your life!"

I followed Steve down the longer leg of the vast L-shaped room, past the sitting area set in the bay window suspended directly over the river, around a table and ten chairs, presumably for dining, then up a step through double doors and into the great outdoors.

Now this was yet another surprise. Before me, but high above the street we had left below, stretched a real garden. Well, it was real in the sense that there were trees around the perimeter, tubs containing a mixture of shrubs and conifers and other plants that looked like they had flowered months ago and faced a long wait before their next moment of glory. Where it failed in its pursuit of authenticity was the lack of grass. The surface was stone, apart from a raised area of decking in the corner closest to the river, serving as the platform for a table and four armchairs. In the centre of the terrace, behind a statue of a naked man holding a bunch of grapes, a formation of low tubs surrounded a rectangular area in which tall fronds swayed in the breeze.

"Come and have a look at the pond, Robert," Steve suggested. I padded over, put my front paws on the ledge of a tub and peered into the water.

"You won't see the fish now. They are hibernating. But they'll be around to amuse you in the spring."