Month: May 2020

It’s now Day 1,149 of the lockdown and I’m starting to detect an air of change. I feel I’ve aged 20 years but that’s just being stuck in with Mater. Yes, she is still alive much to my surprise, if not hers. Always one to have a finger on the pulse of the modern world I’ve noticed that the roads seem to be a bit busier and there are more people in the park. This fits in with the smell of Spring in the air and the hints of renewal all around. Have we decided to release the lockdown ourselves without reference to the government or is it an optical illusion? I want to see it busier therefore it is?

The lockdown appears to have lasted forever but in fact is only 6 weeks, technically only 41 days. It just seems like 1,149. They may have seemed like the longest 6 weeks ever, even longer than summer holidays appeared when you were young but it is only 6 weeks. However, even if the lockdown was lifted tomorrow the rest of Spring and Summer will not seem like Spring and Summer as we would usually know it. There will be no sporting competitions, festivals or garden fetes or RHS shows. All of the things that we would usually attend have been cancelled. So I would encourage you to try something new this summer. Go to an art gallery, museum or follow a heritage trail. Find out something interesting about your home town and go and take a photo of it and put it on social media. Encourage members of your family to do the same. Learn to play a musical instrument or bake the ultimate cake. Take up a new non contact sport – archery, golf, geo caching, orienteering (something mad Norwegians do for a sport). Whatever you do don’t stay in and complain about the rubbish on the tv, which frankly has been terrible. We all need to acclimatise to a new normal, in fact completely write off 2020 and just skip ahead to 2021, it’ll be easier.

So don’t forget Stranglings I’m here looking out for you. Stay safe and well and remember this too will pass. See you on the other side.

I’m well known as an animal lover within my circles and I can’t remember a time when we didn’t have pets of some sort or another. I have been the mistress of both dogs and cats and for a very brief period, gerbils (not to be advised). My ideal animal is one who loves me to distraction and doesn’t beg too much when I’m eating. Ollie fits the bill here perfectly (apart from the not begging too much when I’m eating). Ollie is a Cavachon which is a cross between a Bichon Frise and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. As a breed they are loving, very clever, very cuddly, good guard dogs i.e. noisy and don’t shed a lot of hair so are good for those with allergies. I say breed, I’m old enough to remember when a cross breed was also known as a mongrel! We’ve had him since a pup and he’s now 3 years old.

However, the newest addition to the family is a completely different proposition. Looby Lou came to us as a rescue dog having been rescue from a puppy farm in Ireland. I cannot think how bad her life was before she came to England but she has been with us now for 3 months. She has put on weight and grown stronger with regular walks and now runs after Ollie as she has realised he is doing what dogs do on walks and she does her best to emulate him.

She has taken to Mater very well and follows her around from one end of the Castle to the other and is distraught when Mater has a bath and she is locked outside (she won’t go in the bathroom at all). Looby, though, has taken against me with a loathing which can only be imagined. The only two times during the day when I approach acceptability is when we go out for a walk and I can put her lead on or if I’m eating when she will approach me to get a titbit. Her usual response to either of these things is to do the “Dance of Anticipation” which involves dancing on her back legs whilst making a “rorroror” noise. Other than that she cannot come near me and regards me with a stink eye which if the evil eye existed would see me 6 feet under. I do not know why she has taken against me like this but she is practiced at getting her revenge for various slights she thinks I have done against her. Her usual revenge is to have a wee in my bedroom. This happened when I gave her a bath and then when I clipped her hair. I’ve taken to locking my room against her incursions but sometimes she manages to get through with Ollie. When we were accepting visitors her other speciality was acting startled whenever I came near and running away at high speed, a look of terror on her face. I’m assuming that this feeling will go with time but I’m not sure. I know it’s only 3 months but it is disheartening. I’m being made to feel like a dog batterer rather than a dog whisperer.

I don’t regret getting Looby for a moment. She is a beautiful, gentle dog who is finding out where she is in the world and the joys that world can bring. I bitterly regret that her early life was so dreadful that she cannot look upon people without thinking that they are going to cause her pain. With time and patience she may start to learn that she is safe and will be well looked after for as long as she lives. And if she could stop weeing in my bedroom I’d also be eternally grateful.

Until next time Stranglings…