A creature of habit, three cars called Annie One, Two and Three, and three special dogs called Lucy - Part one

For some unknown reason when something is important to me it is always given a name, I therefore find myself with an electric mixer/mincer/juicer/whatever, that is named Patsy. This makes complete sense to me as it belonged to my mother and on inheriting it I named it after her. Then there is Jimmy the microwave, named after my father and Gladys the beautiful large serving plate that only comes out for celebrations and was named after a wonderful family friend from childhood days. There is Judith the DVD machine and Judy the canteen of cutlery, both named after one of my sisters.
My treasured computer is named Lovely Lady as, since she was a present from myself to myself, I could not exactly name her after anyone and I did not want to confuse her by giving my name over to her, perhaps I would have been the confused one, better meditate on this for a while.
I have owned three cars in my life and have named them Annie One (red VW Beetle), Annie Two (white Ford Meteor) and Annie Three (green Ford Lazer) still with me. I always felt that if they were to look after me and take me wherever I wanted to go I needed to give them a very gentle name so that they would look after me in a special way. I must admit it does seem to have worked, the three Annies have always been the most reliable of friends and have seen me safely to many different destinations and then home again, often on dark and rather unfriendly potholed roads.
My first Lucy dog was a champagne coloured English bulldog that my father gave me. She was named after a rather famous Lucy, the one from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". I chose that name because the Lucy in the book was so very open to believing in things like fauns, and tree people and marshwiggles and such creatures. As a child I had myself believed in them, actually I still do.
This Lucy was like a human child, she loved to play on slides, swings and roundabouts in the local park and was never afraid to chase away anyone she thought was abusing or overusing her playground equipment. She was protective and would follow her younger human sister around the yard to ensure safety at all times.
Lucy bulldog enjoyed car rides and when she saw a car door open always took it as an invitation for a ride, this worked fine with family and friends who would willingly take her for a ride around the block, but it absolutely terrified the two policemen who happened one hot day to stop to buy ice creams from the ice cream van at the precise moment that I had run quickly out of my yard, Lucy en tail to buy my daughter one. Lucy forgot the thought of ice cream and gaily climbed into the police vehicle and made herself comfortable on the back seat. I thought it was cute, the police thought their vehicle had been taken over by some vicious form of alien matter and refused to go near the car. I explained as politely as I possibly could that all my sweet dog needed and wanted was a nice ride around the block in a police car and weren't the officers there to assist the public. The police did not see things our way at all and demanded that I remove Lucy from the back seat forthwith. This was impossible to do as the car was a two door and I did not have the strength to climb in and carry one rather large bulldog lady out of it.
In the end Lucy won and the two fearful members of our protective services gave one sweet innocent bulldog several vitriolic glares, climbed into their car and dutifully drove a now happy dog around the block. On their return they both jumped out, relief showing clearly on their faces as they opened their doors in the hope that the slobbery monster, (their words), would now get out. Lucy was happy to daintily climb off the back seat and out the car, she thanked the police with an angelic, slobbery, drooling smile, (my words), turned around and with a neat wag of the bottom and not waiting for me, returned home. This was a girl who knew what she wanted and went for it.
Lucy bulldog went to doggy heaven thirty years ago, and I always remember her when I see nasturtiums as on hot summery days she would love to lie on the plants and pretend to be a nasturtium flower.

to be continued