LIZ JONES S DIARY In which disaster strikes and I so very nearly lost my beloved Alice…

Friday was not a good day. I went down to put the washing on in my cellar, only to find it flooded due to the torrential rain. I now own an indoor pool.

Next, Teddy went for Mini, who fell over in shock. Then, yet another email from Octopus: ‘Based on your current prices and estimated use, your payments really should be around the £572.95 level, which is an unusually large change from what you’re currently paying, which is £200 a month.’ I have an air source heat pump and a log burner! I didn’t know it then, but worse was yet to come.

I took Alice the spaniel for her usual off-lead walk along the river. Even I could hear the roar of the water as it swirled and dashed towards Durham. On the way back, I saw a tall young woman with a collie. She was repeatedly jabbing him in the neck with a choke chain. He was yelping. ‘You are hurting him,’ I said to her. ‘What you need is a halter.’

‘My trainer says it’s OK.’

She was lucky I wasn’t with Nic, who would have punched her lights out. I’m sick of witnessing animal cruelty, an almost everyday occurrence in the Yorkshire Dales. When my horses were at a livery yard, I would see girls and old women punching horses in the chest, just because they stamped a hoof to dislodge a fly.

But then I realised I couldn’t see Alice. I started shouting, ‘Alice! Alice!’ And then I spotted her. She was struggling in the middle of the raging torrent of bubbling, crashing water, her little woolly head just above the waves. She was paddling but staying still.

‘Alice!!!!! Alice!!!!!’

I hared down the riverbank. We are always reading about women who jump into frozen lakes after a dog, only for them both to die. Well, I was not going to allow Alice to perish alone. She saw me, her huge brown eyes worried, frantic.

I waded into the icy water, my wellingtons filling up, weighing me down. In a flash I was reminded of a holiday in Jamaica when my future husband wore combat shorts with numerous pockets that quickly filled with seawater and sand and nearly drowned. I’d laughed then. Not now.

Up to my waist in icy, fast-moving water, stumbling on rocks, I was almost lifted off the ground. I’ve never been a good swimmer. In primary school I had to wear my mum’s cap covered in plastic flowers as she couldn’t afford to buy me a plain cream or black one; the other children laughed, pointed, called me Granny. Scuba diving off the coast of Mozambique, I was the only one to be tied by a rope to the boat; there were actual newborn babies in our party. Despite spending £26,000 on that holiday for me, my sister and my nephew, I realised I didn’t like the thought of all that water over my head. It’s true, though: when you think you’re about to die, life, mistakes, loved ones flash through your brain.

Alice started to paddle sidewards towards my screaming, and I lunged to grab hold of her harness. If she’d been wearing her winter coat, which she always manages, Houdini-style, to escape, she would have drowned.

I pulled her on to the bank and we both collapsed in a heap.

All this time I’ve been thinking I’m about to lose Mini Puppy. I could so easily have lost Alice. I’m always telling you how nervous I am, scared of wet leaves and steep steps, my email inbox, the postman, crossing the road, motorways, taxi drivers, colleagues, voicemails, WhatsApp, waiters, hotel receptionists. But when it really mattered? I was brave.

I walked Alice the few steps home, rubbed her with Conran Shop towels and used a hairdryer, which she thought was great fun: her ears levitated, Dumbo fashion.

She now resembles Sonic the Hedgehog. I smell of pond. Life truly can turn on a sixpence.

No-moans Jones… what Liz loves this week

• Does anyone else hoover their walls or is it just me?
• And for everyone who thinks I protest too much… I returned to Harley Street Hearing to have my aids fine-tuned, and they told me my old hearing aids, which I’d discarded, have been refurbished and donated to charity. And my friend in York read my New Year resolution to learn the piano and sent me a baby grand!