And the unairbrushed version...

I've just realised that the last few posts about wild asparagus, fresh eggs and calçots may well give the impression that we're living some sort of soft-focus, idle, gourmet existence in the sunshine.

We are, sort of, and it's very, very lovely, but real life isn't ever quite as we portray it to other people, is it?

Perhaps one of the reasons that so many people suffer from anxiety and depression is because it seems to them as though their lives are never as perfect as everyone else's. The media fuel this by filling magazines with 'aspirational' articles featuring beautiful people with impossibly wonderful lifestyles, and TV sitcoms starring 'ordinary' families are filmed in unfathomably huge London terraces. Although I'm a journalist, I could never bring myself to generate this kind of soft-focus copy, which is probably why I tended to end up going to sink-estates to interview asylum seekers rather than hob nob with the celebs on the red carpet.

Now that I'm living a lovelier life perhaps it's begun to knock the sharp edges off my storytelling.

So, to rebalance the last few posts, you might like to know about the Week of the Sick Puppy. Koko (now seven months old and energetically fulfilling the puppy manual's entire list of what adolescent dogs might do to test your sanity) started the week with a wild chewing frenzy. She tore the stuffing out of her bed, chomped her way through a couple of socks before pinching the washing up sponge and consuming that. Goodness knows what else she put in her mouth because the next day she was very sick indeed, many times, until there was nothing left in her stomach.

The sick kept coming though, she was retching and retching and bringing up nothing but stretchy yellow bile. She wouldn't touch food, and barely drank any water. Her usual bounce disappeared, the naughty glint left her eyes and her ears began to point down.

We feared fatal poisoning from one of the let's-just-put-it-in-my-mouth-and-see-what-it's-like adventures. We know too many people who've had dogs die after picking up something nasty the hunters left behind so we took her to the vet; then took her again two days later when she seemed to be getting even worse (a v costly exercise indeed).

There, you don't get dog sick in many glossy mags, do you?

She's better now - back to eating everything, particularly other animals' poo.