Often during the many occasions while laying hospital on a trolley waiting for a second opinion after another of those little mishaps, I have tried figure out why, why us, why me. I cast my mind back to the point when Digger entered our lives.

How did it happen, what went wrong, what did I do to deserve Digger, I can never quite put my finger on it. Was it Digger who found us or was it us that found digger, I am never quite sure. It was Tuesday or was it Sunday it seems so long ago now.

There was at one of out little family meeting, we often had family meetings in those days happy joyful occasions where everybody had their say on equal terms. We were that sort of very dull orderly boring family who had very meaningful family discussions. There would be democratic votes on holidays, television, even the food we ate. It was all very nice, very wholesome.

We were a nice family, boring but nice. In those days when we all sat down together we did not end up throwing things and screaming at each other. Its funny how these little thoughts flutter across your mind while you're laying on the x-ray machine waiting to find out how many places you leg is broken.

It was at the February family meeting, the excitement of Christmas had been and gone and we were planning holidays. Looking back now there did seem to be an unusually tense atmosphere as this particular meeting started. Nothing you could put your finger on, just something.

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved and all the general items gone through with an unusual speed. It was private members motion number twenty five, item six on the agenda. A motion was proposed by the youngest member of the family, Monomer.

I drove the car that all the car magazines had voted as the best family car. I was so exciting to drive that the little nodding dog in the back window had died of boredom.

"As we were an average family." she said. " We ought to have pet. Everyone else at school has got a pet." It as innocent as that. A pet, a simple nice fluffy pet for the youngest member of the family. How nice.

We could have had a tortoise, a rabbet, a mouse, several mice. A cat was suggested, cats are nice I like cats. Someone actually said that cats were boring. I ask you boring, we all agreed we could not have a boring animal.

We did the logical family thing at this stage, the sort of thing any good committee would do. We made an annotated list of all the unusual pets and animals that we could possibly think of. Against each animal we listed all the good points and then all the bad points.

The list started simply enough with green parrots then went through various snakes, chipmunks, alpacas, pigs. Things then started getting rather out of hand as baby water buffalo and walrus were added to the list.

My memory at this point starts to get a little misty as the list extended into the hundreds, it must have around this point that I must have made the fatal mistake, I said. " This is getting ridiculous, we ought to have a dog like every one else."