I am typing this on a plane to Edinburgh, Scotland, before heading to Ayrshire later in the week. I have just dropped my Italian greyhound, Domino, at the Whippet Hotel near Gatwick. It is essentially a cottage, but a hotel nonetheless in terms of pampering and comfort. Domino is our first family dog. As Hugo went off to university Domino moved in. I resisted getting a dog for years as the Potts family are suckers for animals. It comes from Bev, my mother. We grow insanely attached to them.

The weather is pleasant today. It is my birthday. I am 54 years old and I am a zillion miles away from the place of my birth, the great land of Australia. I feel old and young all together. Some days it feels like I have lived a long life, full of memories and the weight of time, like a heavy load. Like the bundle the Jolly Swagman in Waltzing Matilda carries on his back come rain or shine. Other days I feel as light as a feather – as if I am a skip away from the young girl running around barefoot and free in Sydney.

Skipping reminds me of Skipper my first dog. He was an Australian kelpie – a Queensland cattle dog. If I was running he was always behind me. He was my best friend apart from Anne Collins. From the age of 5 to 18, I walked roughly the same route from home to school and back: Monday to Friday. Until Skipper died in my early teens he waited for me to come home from school – at the top of the hill in Laycock Street where I lived. He was stationary like a statue until he saw me, and then he bolted like lightning over cane fields, running around me in circles.

Skipper loved the Potts family best. They say that dogs look like their owners and Skipper looked like Stan the Man, my Dad. But Skipper was not exclusive. He would roam the streets of Bexley North when I was at school. Wherever I went on my bike with him running alongside me truckloads of people would yell out, “G’day Skipper.” I think he had other families, but we were his main family. He was a beaut dog – a one in a million.

Sometimes he would embarrass me and come into shops, start eating the food below counter level and I would pretend he wasn’t mine. He would look at me with a confused look as if to say, “You know me, don’t you? I belong to you.”

He was also a bit of a Romeo. He would find stray bitches and bring them to the back door and bark. We always said the same thing. “Skipper, not again, she’s a shocker”. He seemed disappointed with our verdict, but he would take her back to his kennel anyway.

I had other dogs that I loved, Ben, Scruffy, Sally, but I loved Skipper the best, that is,until Domino entered our lives 18 months ago. He’s my little mate. He’s besotted with me and loves me no matter what. Whether I am having a bad hair day or not.

More from Edinburgh.