San Ysidro Ranch

The sea, the sea, the beautiful sea! I can’t help but gasp as the road merges parallel to the Pacific. It’s just so glitteringly gorgeous it’s impossible to feel blue.

            We cruise for another half an hour and then take the Montecito exit, passing signs for Mimosa Lane, Bolero Drive and Laguna Blanca School, all of which hint at the lush and fragrant beauty that abounds in one of the wealthiest zip codes in the whole US.

We may have many motels in our future but we are beginning our journey in style at the legendary San Ysidro Ranch. It’s a somewhat justifiable extravagance as it doubles as research for California Dreamers (Hollywood Calling in the US) – the book I am supposed to be at home writing right now. I was looking for an exclusive hideaway, somewhere a celebrity might relax with her secret husband away from prying paparazzi. (In the story he’s a naval officer and their dog is called Bodie – quite the stretch, I know.) I was quickly entranced by the romantic history of the ranch: Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier married here. John Huston wrote The African Queen during his three-month stay. It’s even Oprah-endorsed – she lives up the road and is a regular at the hotel’s Plow & Angel cellar restaurant. Plus it’s less than an hour from Port Huaneme naval base. Perfect for the story but what’s in it for Bodie, you might ask?

            Well. Quite a bit actually. The property backs onto 17 miles of trails, there is a dedicated dog menu and, on account of the owner being Beanie Baby creator Ty Warner, each dog-occupied room comes with a complimentary Bow Wow Beanie, be it Stinky the Skunk, Inky the Octopus or Nuts the Squirrel.

            But the biggest doggie draw in my mind is the pet massage. For $75 Bodie will have his muscles manipulated and fur fondled by expert hands. I quite envy him his appointment.

            ‘Here we are!’ I spy the hotel sign – Western-style lettering branded on weather-greyed wood. I experience a butterfly-flutter of anticipation as we turn up the long driveway, bordered with olive trees and brimming with Spanish lavender.

The gatekeeper motions us through and our tyres grind at the golden grit as we approach the main building, a white storybook cottage cascading with vivacious cerise bougainvillea.

The adjacent rose gardens have a distinctly English feel but the backdrop is pure California with the sun-steeped Santa Ynez mountains and cobalt blue sky. Bodie whines in rapture, eager to get out and press his undulating nose up against the beauty.

            ‘Any minute now…’ I tell him.

            This is the first time I’ve ever checked into a hotel with a dog so I’m not quite sure of the petiquette – is he allowed to come into the lobby with me? I take tentative steps but the bowl of bone-shaped treats and dedicated registration book for ‘Privileged Pets’ suggests yes.

            There’s just the small matter of the tabby surveying our movements from the library lounge.

            ‘That’s Bentley,’ the woman on reception introduces us. ‘He’s the resident cat.’

            ‘Lovely name – very refined.’

            ‘He was actually a stray, found hiding under a Bentley car.’

            ‘Ahhh,’ I smile, looking back with even greater affection. He looks so at home on the leather-topped desk, wedged between a brass lamp base and silver planter – literally part of the furnishings now.

            Oh, here we go, Bodie has clocked the feline presence and surges at him but Bentley’s obviously seen it all before – the fur on his back doesn’t even bristle.

‘I won’t bother you if you don’t bother me,’ his steady gaze implies.

            ‘Fair play,’ Bodie moves on, enticed by the freebie dog biscuits handed to him by the welcoming staff.

            ‘You want another?’

            He doesn’t need asking twice.

            ‘And another? How about some water to wash them down?’

            Presented with a shiny bowl, Bodie gulps down the contents like its Happy Hour. More biscuits, more water, oh the excitement is just too much – with one almighty hack, he throws up the whole lot right there on their priceless pale fawn Persian rug.

            Oh. My. God. I can’t believe my eyes. I go to speak but nothing comes out.

            ‘And this is the reception area…‘

            I look up and see an impossibly glamorous couple approaching on a property tour. Nooo! I use myself, Bodie and my bag to shield the heap of goo and then try to lock eyes with them as they pass so they don’t look down.

            ‘I’m so sorry,’ I whisper to the reception staff as the couple pass on into the gardens. ‘He’s never done this before.’

            Their manners and training are so impeccable you’d think Bodie had done little more than sneeze. They tell me not to worry and to enjoy my stay but as I turn back to give one last rueful look, I see the vast rug being rolled away. I can’t even imagine the cost of the dry cleaning bill.

Instead of heading to our cottage I decide to take Bodie for a quick walk in the woods, just to make sure any further gunk is expelled before we settle into our luxury quarters.

            The sun is mellowing and it feels as though we’re stepping into the pages of my Flower Fairy book from childhood as we stroll past cottages with names like Fig, Tangerine, Oak and Willow, all lovingly entwined with foliage.

This place really does have a special feel to it. No wonder Oprah, along with Stedman and their dogs, chose Montecito, of all the places in the world, to call home. I can’t help but wonder if we’re traversing some kind of ley line or ‘spirit path’ as the Peruvians call them. For me it’s about that particular feeling when tranquillity meets radiance. It may sound a bit woo-woo but one thing I know for sure is that all traces of this morning’s self-pity have left my body. Suddenly I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

‘Come on Bodie!’

            To get to the trails we lean in and climb a hill set with expansive residential homes, the first of which is marked Very Private Property. As opposed to Moderately Private? I wonder. Talk about keeping up with the Joneses! I expect the next house to be marked, ‘Even More Private’ and then the one after ‘The Most Private of All.’

            I’m just wondering who might live here when Bodie veers off towards a grassy plateau, the kind of area designated for event tents. It’s quite bare so I’m wondering about the urgent appeal when he starts chomping on something.

            ‘Oh no you don’t!’ Instinctively I prise open his jaws, reach deep down his throat and pull out a pita triangle. ‘Oh for goodness sake!’

            ‘What?’ he looks back at me.

            ‘A cocktail sausage I would understand but pita?’

            As I wipe the saliva from my hand, it dawns on me that I just experienced my first ever knee-jerk motherly reaction. It didn’t even occur to me that he might bite me. I feel a strange sense of accomplishment. I didn’t know I had that in me. Maybe I wouldn’t have been such a bad mother after all. Maybe certain skills would have just shown up without me having to learn them first.

            ‘Oh Bodie!’ I cry out in exasperation as he goes for the discarded pita again. Perhaps he has some Greek heritage I don’t know about. Definitely some Swiss, I decide as he responds with admirable neutrality to the frenzied barking of a Boxer, rallying against the gate of one of the grander mansions. Bodie literally doesn’t even react. I love this about him. Just like Bentley he just rises above the fray and continues to do his own thing.

            Walking on, I run my hands along the roadside lavender bushes and crush a few purple buds in my hand, inhaling the soothing scent so often used in holistic calming potions. I offer my palms to Bodie but he seems more interested in sniffing his most recent pee, trickling down the rock wall. The most overwhelming smell, though, is of money. I stop at the brow of the hill and take in the priceless view – the distant ocean the palest wash against a hazy sky.

            It’s hard for me to look at the sea and not wonder where Ryan is right now. He’s out there somewhere. Surrounded by endless blue. Or perhaps every shade of orange and gold? He could be watching the sunset now. What a panoramic vantage point that must be. I wonder if he ever thinks of me…

            ‘Hey!’ Bodie pulls me on. ‘This is not what we came here for.’

            He’s quite right. And so I turn my back on the ocean and head for the woods.

LINE BREAK

Within minutes we find ourselves engulfed in forest, weaving around peely eucalyptus trees, stepping over mossy logs, inspecting bristles of thistles and feathery ferns. Bodie kicks up a flurry of fallen leaves. This is real deal dog territory, I feel like I should be wearing tweed knickerbockers and marking each step with a knotty walking stick.

           ‘Isn’t this idyllic?’ I pause to marvel at the leaf-dappled light, the glossy trickle of the creek beside us, the clarity of the cool water spilling over the rocks.

So many times I’ve been somewhere beautiful and wished I was sharing it with someone and now I am. Someone who is loving every second – darting this way and that, sniffing busily, fascinatedly. He’s like a street kid in nature for the first time, curiosity driving him on to new discoveries. And then we reach a clearing and the sun infuses Bodie’s fur with a golden aura. My angel.

I take a deep breath, inhaling harmony.

Then Bodie lurches at a scuttling bug.

            ‘Okay, that’s far enough,’ I yank him back. ‘We have an appointment to get to.’

            There’s just the small matter of retracing our steps. I made a mental note of a big craggy boulder, it should be along here somewhere… Stream to our left, that’s right. But wait a minute – the ground appears to have switched from a twig-latticed path to a 50-deep layer of leaves. It’s like walking on the forest’s equivalent of a pillowtop mattress – crackling and crunching underfoot, yet remarkably springy.

            As Bodie pulls me on, the branches start to close in around us – I’m having to duck and twist just to get around them. Of course Bodie has no qualms about letting a bendy bush branch spring back to thwack me in the shins but I am concerned about him inadvertently jabbing himself in the eye – the prongs are coming to us from all angles now, snagging at my cardi and needling at my thighs like woodland acupuncture.

            Perhaps it’s best we turn back, it’s obvious we’ve strayed from the official trail. I turn around but nothing looks familiar or indeed accessible. It’s as through the forest invited us in and now has woven a prickly-pokey fence around us. It’s then we hear voices from above.

            ‘There must be a path up there!’ I cheer.

            I pray the people keep talking and when I identify the voices as female I am confident the chit-chat will be continuous. We move towards the voices only to be greeted by a steep, damp bank. I’d say they are about two track loops above us. All we need is to get to the first level. Bodie is game for the scramble but every step I take, I skid back two and now I’m so low to the ground my eyes are the ones in danger of getting a gauging. I reach for my sunglasses and put them on as protective goggles. Right. We can do this. There’s nothing for it but for me to claw myself up using Bodie as leverage. His strength is a definite plus now and he does a heroic job of pulling me up to safety.

I’ve never been happier to see gravel in my life. Better yet I know exactly where we are – we have all but looped back to the start of the trail.

            ‘Good job Bodie!’

            He gives me a confident grin. ‘All part of the service!’

LINE BREAK

The hotel guide assigned to show us to our cottage is too polite to joke that we look like we’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, even though we have.

            Just to ram home our lack of polish, our cottage, Rose, is positioned directly adjacent to the Kennedy cottage where the former President and First Lady honeymooned in 1953. You can bet Jackie O didn’t turn up with mud-scraped shins and Stig of the Dump hair. But then we are in the countryside, I remind myself, not on the Laboutin-studded Sunset Strip. Besides, this is Montecito mud, it probably has fantastic beautifying mineral properties.

            ‘I can’t believe it!’ I gasp.

            Our guide has opened our private gate and bid us ascend the steps to the decking and there at the top, beside the front door is a wooden sign branded with two words JONES and BODIE.

I look back at him in amazement. ‘H-how?’

            It’s only on closer inspection that I realise the sign is made up of individual letters. So clever. Just slot them in. What a lovely welcoming touch – it really feels like this is our place now. And what a place it is.

            You know how rich people often have eccentric touches to their exquisite taste? So you’ll have the luxuriously upholstered window seat and the antique chandelier then you’ll notice a little hand-painted porcelain pig sleeping on his side with its head resting upon a soft tassled pillow. That’s what it’s like here – classic high end mixed with ‘trinkets from my travels’, as if this were a real home, right down to the worn-to-softness wine-toned rug splaying hearthside.

            What Bodie is noticing is that there is a bottle of Evian water beside his bone-shaped dog bowl (giving new meaning to the term bone china). His treats come in a little gauzey bag embossed with black velvet paw prints. His dog bed looks so plush it makes me want to curl up and take a nap. His assigned Bow Wow Beanie is the Spring time Bear – white with a confetti-like sprinkle of pastel dots. Perhaps a better match for a fluffy little Bichon Frise but Bodie clamps down on it and gives a little prance-dance of joy. Always amazes me how a dog instinctively knows what gifts are meant for him.

            He brings it along as we are shown the bathroom – easily long enough to play a game of fetch, especially if you open out the far door onto the patio. This may be the prettiest bathroom I’ve ever seen, magazine layouts included. It’s all white wood wainscoting and cinnamon-coloured natural beams and natural leafy sunlight gleaming through the picture-book windows. There’s a clawfoot tub with a fawn-coloured Persian rug beside it and branch-woven baskets filled with scrolled white towels. The silky-smooth tiles on the floor even heat up – we might just come in here later and lie down on it, like some interior design version of a hot stone treatment.

            Then again we might just sit in the hot tub. We’re outside now and I can totally see Bodie, cocktail in paw, panting a little as the bubbles tickle his tummy.

            The hotel guide leaves us there, marvelling at the rest of the patio – an outdoor shower with Bulgari cleansing products, jasmine tumbling over the walls… I’ve never seen Bodie’s eyes look so bright. I watch him as he listens to the birds, every time they make a chirrup or a coo his head jerks to the side and his ears prick up all the more. Just delightful.

To think a few months ago he was on his last day at a kill shelter and look at him now! Talk about the American Dream.

I just need to get him cleaned up for his massage.

As tempted as I am to place him in the clawfoot tub, fill it with bubbles and hand him a back brush, I decide the outdoor shower is the more appropriate way to de-mud him. Except of course that way I get spattered in dirty water and then, as I towel him dry, all his excess fur transfers onto me, coating me in blond fluff. Hmmm, I wonder if the masseur would know the difference between us…

Ding-dong!

            Bodie greets the doorbell ring with a wolverine howl. Gosh, I hope the masseur knows what she’s letting herself in for.

CHAPTER 6

Glenys is an instantly-likeable South African woman in her sixties dressed head to toe in white with a mop of tousled grey hair, pink cheeks and a tea & scones hug. I go to introduce her to Bodie but she stops me in my tracks by saying, ‘Oh, I already introduced myself to him an hour ago.’

            I falter. Did they meet in the woods while I wasn’t looking?

            ‘I did a meditation to prepare him for our time together.’

            Interesting. Perhaps this is why Bodie is being so obliging – Glenys suggests we head out to the patio and he trots along behind her. She places a white towel on the sunlounger and before I can ruefully inform her that Bodie is unlikely to hop up there or stay he does just that.

I watch in amazement as he submits to her touch. He’s typically such a fidget-bottom, all jumpy and wriggly-writhy but within minutes he enters a deep meditative mode. His lids are heavy, his body outstretched, holding each position with perfect poise like a yoga master. I sit down on the neighbouring sunlounger and watch slack-jawed as she methodically works her way around his legs.

            ‘How ever did you find out you had this gift?’ I ask.

            She gives a happy shrug. ‘I’ve just always loved dogs. My friends call me the Dog Whisperer!’

            ‘I have to ask – have you ever been bitten?’

            ‘Never. All breeds love to be massaged.’

She’s working on Bodie’s middle-back now and he is responding with some kind of ‘upward dog’ pose – back legs fully extended, front paws stretched way out, chest raised as he tilts his head all the way back so that his ears are touching his shoulders and his nose is reaching skyward, all the while his eyes are fixed on a cooing Glenys.

(This image later becomes the featured image on the hotel’s Pet Welcome Letter!)

‘That was wonderful,’ Glenys sighs as she concludes his half hour session. ‘He’s a very special dog.’

            ‘I bet you say that to all the dog-owners!’ I smile.

            ‘Really, the pleasure was mine.’

            Both Bodie and I are smitten with Glenys and sorry to see her leave.

            ‘So now what?’ Bodie looks up at me.

            ‘Now we dine.’

LINE BREAK

One of the great treats of staying in a hotel is ordering room service and now Bodie can get in on the act with a bone-shaped bowl of Chicken & Rice while I enjoy Steak Diane and a glass of opulent red wine.

            We eat fireside – one flip of a switch sends bright yellow flames reaching up the faux-blackened chimney. While I savour every flavoursome morsel Bodie inhales his dish in two get-every-last-fleck minutes.

Afterwards he joins me on the tapestry-textured sofa. I relish the increasing weight upon my chest as he surrenders to a full-bellied sleep. As my left hand smoothes his fur, my right holds a small anthology of dog poetry – Doggerel by Carmela Ciuraru. It includes works from such luminaries as William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Rudyard Kipling. And it was placed within arm’s reach of me on the sofa. I don’t know the last time I paused to read something purely for pleasure. It feels so calming to do so, especially in this setting.

My favourite verse is from Siegfried Sassoon’s Man and Dog.

What share we most – we two together?

Smells, and an awareness of the weather.

What is it makes us more than dust?

My trust in him, in me his trust.

LINE BREAK

I set down the book and look back at the fire, feeling so safe and cosy, as if I have returned to my childhood home and found everything exactly as I had left it: a wooden rocking horse, a hand-knitted blanket, a benevolent nanny, bearing more than a passing resemblance to Glenys. Not that I had these things but it gives me that feeling of being taken back to a time when I was oblivious to all potential harm and heartache.

I certainly didn’t expect to feel so good so soon. If I was writing a novel my character would have to overcome a multitude of obstacles to attain this depth of sated satisfaction. Can it really have been this easy? I thought maybe a couple of weeks in I might start to feel better, but a couple of hours?

            What if this is as far as I need to go? If I just stay here would the feeling sustain? Perhaps perpetual motion isn’t the answer after all, perhaps it’s simply a case of knowing when you’ve arrived at the right place and stopping.

Of course unless I woke up to find I’d written a bestseller in my lseep I wouldn’t have the funds to indefinitely extend my stay. So I’d better relish this one night.

LINE BREAK

I stand before the vast canopied bed, resting a hand on the dark wood, admiring the neverending whiteness of the sheets. I have the feeling I am going to sleep well tonight.

But I am wrong.

            No sooner am I laid out, ready for my five star slumber, Bodie starts to pace.

This is no late-night snooping. He’s not in security surveillance mode, checking the latches on the doors and windows, he is fully agitated and anxious.

            I prop myself up so I can study his thought bubbles.

            ‘Look, it was nice to visit but I’m ready to go home now.’

            ‘Actually we’re staying the night.’ I give him a ‘Aren’t we the lucky ones?’ smile.

            ‘You’re kidding.’ His face falls and his pacing increases in intensity. ‘Oh no-no-no.’

            ‘Bodie!’ I try to break his manic routine but he ignores me.

            I fall back onto the pillow and feel an uneasy chill creeping through my body – I’ve concocted this entire trip for him and it’s not what he wants. He’s all for the daily excursions but at night he wants to be home in his own bed.

            ‘But it’s so lovely here, Bodie,’ I try to reason as I reach out and attempt to enfold him in my own personal bliss.

            He fidgets away, panting and looking imploringly at me. ‘Can’t you hear all the strange noises out there?’

            ‘That’s just the countryside. No harm will come to us, I promise.’

            ‘I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit!’ he frets some more.

            And then his whining turns into a low growl.

            There’s something – or someone – in the yard.

            ‘Would you feel better if we took a look out there?’ I raise up the blind on the glass door, spooking myself with my own reflection, and then peering into the leafy darkness.

            Bodie’s growling escalates further. I’m presuming he’s reacting to some rabbit on a moonlit hop when he erupts the most blood-curdling howl and frightens me half to death. Talk about sleeping with the enemy. Suddenly this idyllic picture book cottage feels like the Hammer House of Horror. I drop the blind and scurry back to bed, heart rattling in my rib cage. That didn’t quite go according to plan. Now both of us are quaking. I take some deep breaths and look at the clock – eight more hours ‘til daylight. I can’t help but wish Ryan were here. He’s such the protector – professionally trained to stand watch and guard against all harm. Not to mention the fact he has biceps like silk-wrapped boulders.

            I sigh.

            Then again maybe Bodie just scared off an intruder, about to perform some audacious deed like putting a chocolate-dusted almond on the pillow.

So now what?

            Never having been in this position before I reach for my laptop and begin Googling everything related to dog travel and hotel anxiety.

            According to Cesar Millan I should have entered each room ahead of Bodie and thus infused it with my scent to offer something familiar and established amongst all the new fragrances. Darnit! Too late for that now.

            I console myself with the fact that we are only 90 minutes from home. We can of course turn back. Just pack up the car and forget the whole thing. Chalk it up to inexperience. I had no idea he would have this reaction. I thought this was the dream plan but if he’s like this here, a place with all these Oprah-endorsed good vibes, what hope is there for the rest of the trip?

            Crestfallen, I see all the amazing things I had planned slipping away from me. It’s not just the Doris Day hotel or the reunion with Winnie and Molly, it’s the thought of losing this newfound sense of purpose. Planning this itinerary has consumed me for weeks, forcing me to look forward. The idea of back-tracking, of returning to all that sadness… I don’t know what I’ll do. I feel the shadow of despondency creeping over me again. A leadenness returning to my heart. Why didn’t I see this coming?

            I look over at Bodie, hoping for some clue as to my next move and find him snoring into the bedside rug.

            Oh. My. Dog. I mouth into the lowlit room.

            Is it possible that he has settled? I daren’t even switch off the light for fear that the click will trigger another episode. Instead I slide my laptop onto the other side of the bed and inch down beneath the sheets, utterly in awe that I have been given a reprieve.

            But not so fast – now it’s is my turn for the night-watch – I lie awake until 3am, waiting for the nerves to subside, worrying about absolutely everything until sleep finally claims me.