I’ve been wondering for some time now if I should get a dog. I know what you’ll say, but hear me out. I’ve had a French Bulldog in mind ever since seeing one at the antiques fair in Battersea Park last year. They’re a muscular sort of breed – big enough not to be confused with the pugs that the nice boys in tight jeans in Shoreditch drag around, but not so big that they need to race around parks endlessly foraging for deer or such things. ‘They don’t live that long,’ my friend Suzie says, by way of warning. ‘9 or 10 years at most.’ For what it’s worth, Suzie’s dog is a sort of half-rodent thing she carries round in a bag, which I can’t imagine living for more than two years, the average life of a rat. Anyway, I told her I thought that a 10-year lifespan was a plus, since more than 10 years sounded like a serious amount of commitment. She wasn’t amused, like most dog experts I take this up with.

Regardless, I had this vision of the gambling tycoon John Aspinall and his pet tiger walking around Eton Square in the 60s, reputedly letting it free to catch the neighbours’ cats for the odd midnight meal. A tiger might be a step too much, but I’d be equally dashing with my French Bulldog, stepping out of my new property for late afternoon strolls. Glamorous women on Westbourne Grove would stop me in the street – or stop the French Bulldog – bending down to caress and coo while I smile down, my patience and benevolence the thing they’re really testing.

‘Soooo beautiful,’ they’d cry, after which they’d realise they’d want to know more about the tasteful owner of such a creature. ‘I’d love to see him again,’ they might say. ‘He’d love that,’ I’d say, ‘but unfortunately he’ll have to bring me – I can’t be left at home alone.’ Dates would be set, canine-based romance would flourish and very soon I’d have that perfect, neurotic Notting Hill blonde in my life with, no doubt, her own nonsense dog (yappy half-rat in a bag).

‘You just want to go dogging,’ Suzie said. I suppose just by having a dog, one could be said to be dogging, now that everyone is so keen to turn nouns into verbs. ‘Do you dog?’ ‘I do, mine’s a bulldog.’ But that isn’t what she meant. ‘No, you want to use the dog to go dogging.’ Which is a crude way of putting it.

In fact, when I looked into it, I very quickly found out that the disadvantages of FB’s may well outweigh the advantages, the breed being prodigious farters who are likely to turn suicidally depressive if they’re left at home during the daytime. In fact, the other side of the trade doesn’t sound so good either, now I’ve put it into words, with the neurotic blonde just as likely to drive me to suicidal depression at the same time as the dog. Maybe I’ll just stick to my goldfish which, though everyone thinks are rather eccentric (or make me look eccentric, though they are a breed of eccentric goldfish, being shubunkins) and useless for picking up neurotic blondes in the street, at least can waft some charm about once you’ve got a girl back to the house (or garden).

Speaking of which, the other reason for having a dog was to be able to step out of my new property into the communal gardens out the back of my own private garden. Having communal gardens is a big thing for people round here. ‘Oh, I’m on Elgin,’ you’ll hear these rather self-important women say to each other at dinner parties, wearing a smirk. ‘I’m on Ladbroke,’ another will say, wearing a bigger smirk. Now I’m here, I’m not actually sure what all the fuss is about. I mean, they’re pretty with lots of blossom, but I can’t imagine actually using them. Unless, of course, I had a child or a dog, either one of which most of my neighbours seem to have, and sometimes both. Since a child doesn’t really appear to be on the horizon, the only other option is to have a dog, which will give me an excuse to go into the communal gardens. Although this raises the question, why bother, since all you’re going to do is meet other child or dog owners? As far as I can see, there aren’t many glamorous single woman strolling around the gardens looking for men without dogs or children with whom to get communal. But the eternal bachelor lives in hope.

And so I’ve stepped into the gardens a couple of times to test this out and imagine what it would be like strolling round with a dog in tow. In the winter this is a particularly depressing site and enough to put any prospective dog-owner right off the idea, and that’s before you consider all the dog fart and neurotic blondes it’s going to fill your property with. Take the stroll I had just a couple of months back in March. There I was, walking about the garden scouting for the ‘tree with orange bark’ that my mother said she’d seen and which would look good in my own garden. All I could see were these miserable looking men in corduroys and thinning hair, bracing themselves against the Ural wind as they threw balls about for ridiculous-looking dogs with floppy ears and ratty faces which could only, surely, have been the choice of the girlfriend or wife (or ex-girlfriend or wife). If this was dogging, it didn’t look so good.

The funny thing is, I’m the one who came under suspicion, presumably by virtue of not having a dog. In fact, I was taking a photo of the tree in question so I could confirm with my mother later that it was the right one when I was approached by one of the said miserable men. The tree happens to sit in one of the neighbours’ private gardens, so perhaps it looked like I was taking a photo of the neighbour’s bedroom. ‘Spying, are we?’ he asked, the floppy eared idiot-dog by his side, now equally attentive.

‘Just taking a photo of the tree,’ I said, nodding at the thing and smiling, innocently. ‘I’m on Instagram,’ I added, just to show it was all for fun (and certainly more fun that walking dogs around the gardens).

‘Oh,’ he said, still suspicious.

‘I almost got a French Bulldog,’ I told him, at which he grunted, unimpressed. ‘So I can go dogging,’ I said, hoping that a bit of manly humour might move him. But he just walked off. So now I’m not only dogless (and childless) and therefore to be suspected when out walking in the communal gardens, I’ll also come under greater scrutiny when I’m actually with my dog, should I ever choose to get one. Not that I think I will. Maybe a child would do the trick, after all, though there’s still Westbourne Grove to explore. Let’s see how that goes.