Claude’s Christmas Adventure: The must-read Christmas dog book of 2018!

Perdita sprang up into the car boot, delicately climbing the mountain of suitcases and presents to reach the back seat. ‘Smells like fish. Maybe smoked salmon …’ She batted the box of interesting smells with one paw.

That was a paw too far for this dog.

Without warning, I burst through the open crate door and barked at Perdita, making her yowl. She jumped backwards, away from the box, scrambling against the twins’ Christmas present as she slid down out of the car. I growled in satisfaction, and she hissed back at me.

Actually hissed.

Well. A dog has his pride, right? I couldn’t just let her get away with that.

I leapt down onto the pavement behind her, chasing her back down the street, away from my territory. My family.

We didn’t need no stupid cats hanging around here.

I didn’t intend to actually catch her, which was just as well, as Perdita positively flew across the street, up over the fence at number 12, and away. Still, I think I’d made my point.

Slowing to a stop beside a comfortable-looking patch of grass in the shelter of an evergreen hedge, I lay down to recover from my exertions. Running is not one of my favourite activities. Actually, walking is a bit much too. I like to think I was made for warming a person’s feet by a fire, and eating. Puffing a little, I tried to catch my breath. I’d just rest for a moment, then I’d head back to the car. After all, I was excited to discover what ferry, France and chateau meant.

But then I heard the slamming of car doors, and the unmistakeable sound of an engine starting. And that was the moment my adventure really began.

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‘Right. Is that everything?’ Daisy buckled Lara into her car seat, ignoring her baby daughter’s indignant wails drowning out the Christmas music she’d put on the car stereo, as Oliver did the same with Luca on the other side. Five months old and they already hated everything Daisy tried to do. Surely it had taken longer for that sort of objection to set in with Bella and Jay? Maybe it was because there were two of them this time. Double trouble, Oliver called them, and not without good reason.

In the row behind, Jay was trying to fasten his own seatbelt over his booster seat. Beside him, Bella rolled her eyes with the kind of disdain only a fourteen-year-old could manage, and took over, clipping it in with ease.

How had it come to this? Inside, Daisy couldn’t help but feel that she was barely older than her eldest child. But out in the real world, she had four kids, a needy dog, a ridiculously large car, and a trip to make across the channel the day before Christmas Eve. Not to mention a husband who looked exhausted and grumpy before the whole adventure had even begun.

It was Christmas. A time for family, fun and celebrating, surely. Not stress eating smoked salmon from the packet and fantasising about a gin and tonic on the ferry at eleven in the morning.

‘Suitcases are packed. Claude’s in his crate.’ Oliver ticked the items off on his fingers as he recounted the list, raising his voice to be heard over the twins’ escalating cries and the sound of Slade announcing the arrival of Christmas. Still, at least the babies tended to pass out the moment the car was in motion. They just had to get on the road. Quickly. ‘We have nappies, presents, snacks and passports. Anything else?’

‘What about the hamper?’ The same question her mother had been asking every time she’d called that morning from France to check if they were on their way yet.

‘Wedged in the back seat between Bella and Jay. I figured it was safer than leaving it with Claude.’

‘Good call.’ Claude almost certainly wouldn’t like smoked salmon, or any of the other contents of the M&S hamper, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try them, just to make sure. He’d eaten a whole bowl of cashew nuts the week before, plus a slice of cheesecake from her plate the week before that. She’d just nipped upstairs to check on the twins and when she got back – gone. The blasted dog was ruled by his stomach.

‘Remind me why your parents couldn’t just buy food in France?’ Oliver asked, as he slid into the passenger seat, scowling at the fairy lights flashing on the dashboard. So she was driving then. Right.

‘Apparently it’s not the same.’ Which Daisy would have thought was rather the point. Why move to France in the first place if you really only wanted M&S food in a slightly sunnier climate? Maybe it was for the wine. That would make sense.

‘I still don’t understand why we have to go at all,’ Oliver grumbled, and Daisy bit the inside of her cheek to keep from responding that he was the one who said what a brilliant idea it was when her parents first suggested spending Christmas with them in their new house in Normandy. If she’d answered the phone that night they could be eating mince pies in the peace of their own home right now.

Or possibly not. Her father could be very hard to say no to when he had an idea in his head, and as their only child she did feel a certain obligation to them. But at least she would have tried. Who asked their daughter to traipse across the Channel two days before Christmas with four kids and a dog in tow?

Daisy took a deep breath. It would all be fine. It would be a lovely, family Christmas. They’d all be together, playing board games, or maybe charades. She and Mum would cook a wonderful Christmas roast, and they’d all eat too much pudding. Claude and Petal would beg for turkey scraps, Jay would pull everyone’s crackers for them, and the twins would sleep through the night finally.

Well, maybe not that last one. Even the season of miracles had its limits.

But the important thing was they would all be together, having precious family time.

Daisy smiled to herself. There. Everything felt much calmer now she’d focused on what really mattered. She kissed the twins in turn. They scowled back.

‘Right, kids, everyone okay back there?’ she called, back through the seats. No response. ‘Bella?’

Daisy peered further back. Of course. Bella had her phone out and was staring intently at the screen, her headphones clamped over her ears. Jay was already deep into some game or another on his tablet. She glanced at Oliver for some parental support.

Oliver was playing Candy Crush on his phone.

Another deep breath. This one didn’t help nearly so much.

‘Right!’ she snapped, reaching between the front seats and whipping Oliver’s phone from his hand.

‘Hey!’

‘Hand them over.’ She held out a hand for Bella and Jay’s devices, and they both stared at her in horror. ‘This is a family holiday. Time for us to reconnect as a family unit. To talk, share our thoughts, play together. Not stare at individual screens for the next three days then go home again.’

‘So, what? You’re going to lock up our phones?’ Bella raised her eyebrows. ‘Seriously?’

‘If that’s what it takes.’ Did she even have somewhere to lock them? Daisy cast her gaze around the car and spotted her mother’s old vanity case that had been turned into a first aid kit, sitting on the floor of the back seat. That would do.

‘But I’ll miss everything!’ Bella wailed. ‘How will I know what’s going on at home, with my friends?’

‘You can ask them when you get back,’ Daisy said. Leaning across the twins’ car seats, ignoring the squeaks from the babies, she plucked the tablet and phone from Bella and Jay. Then she flipped open the vanity case and dropped them and Oliver’s phone on top of the half full packets of plasters and some antiseptic cream that had gone green around the lid.

‘What about your phone, then?’ Bella’s face was thunderous. ‘I mean, if we’re not allowed ours …’

‘Fine!’ Daisy pulled her own phone from her pocket and added it to the pile. She rifled around in the pocket inside the lid of the vanity case to find the key, shut the box and turned the key in the lock. ‘There.’ She decided to ignore the rebellious mutterings from the back seat. ‘Now, is everyone strapped in?’

A downbeat chorus of agreement followed. Daisy manoeuvred herself out of the back of the car, uttering a silent prayer that the twins wouldn’t choose today not to sleep in the car. Or that they would at least stop wailing sometime soon. It was so hard to think with that constant howl of noise.

Shoving the tiny silver key in her jeans pocket, Daisy checked her watch as she reached up with her other hand to slam the car boot, blocking the noise for a moment at least. Damn, they were running late now. Portsmouth was an hour or more’s drive from their leafy Surrey suburb, and the ferry wouldn’t wait for them. She’d have to put her foot down to make it. Belatedly, she glanced at Claude’s black and white coat through the grimy rear windscreen, small beside the absurdly huge gift she’d wrapped for the twins. What had she been thinking? Well, actually, she knew the answer to that. It had been October, and she’d still been thinking she’d be spending Christmas at home for once, instead of traipsing around the country visiting family. She’d thought that, just for once, they could have a peaceful family Christmas, just the six of them. Well, seven if you counted Claude.

She hadn’t been expecting her parents’ phone call with their demand that they all cross the Channel to spend Christmas in France.

Daisy sighed. It would be fine. Claude seemed to be sleeping, at least. She just hoped he didn’t need a toilet stop before they reached Portsmouth …

‘Are we going then?’ Oliver called from the passenger seat. From his tone, Daisy surmised that he was not best pleased to have lost his own entertainment. Well, tough.

‘We are,’ she said, as cheerily as she could manage. Buckling herself into the driver’s seat, she started the engine and turned up the volume on the Christmas CD. ‘Right. Which way do I go?’

Beside her, Oliver shrugged. ‘How should I know? The sat nav is on my phone. Which you locked up.’

God, he was more petulant than Bella, and Daisy hadn’t honestly believed that was possible. But she was not going to let it get to her. She wasn’t.

Daisy reached into the tray under her seat and pulled out the ancient road atlas they hadn’t used since Bella was a baby. ‘We’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way then, won’t we?’ she said, smiling sweetly at Oliver as she passed it to him. ‘Now, who wants to play a word game while we drive? I’ll start. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with M.’

‘Muh! Muh! Muh!’ Luca called desperately, and Lara began to wail in response.