Boxing Day dawned with grey and grumpy weather but we made our way to Harlyn Bay with Turkey sandwiches and a flask of tea. The parking gods gave us this remarkable view from the back of our van. A trip to this beach is always on our festive tick list, this year the tradition had a special significance. Hugo, and by default Lola too, were going to be allowed off the lead to scamper about freely for the first time since Hugo was attacked in late October.
They were both giddy with freedom.
And more than happy to mingle with other dogs also off their leads/leashes.
They also managed excellent recall which is not always their finest moment when on this beach.
10 years ago this was Hugo posing as a louche kind of barfly, making his dog chew look like a gangster smoking at a bar.
Here he is 10 years later posing straight after a trip to the groomers who cleaned him up after his street brawl and consequent facial surgery of last week.
A different sort of barfly this time, the sort that might explain away his lop sided face by a tale of street fighting.
Same sofa, same dog, 10 years of doggy experiences. Percentage wise, most of his life is spent on this sofa gently dozing, often with a favourite human. His dreams are far more vivid than his real life. Just the one bit of drama, last week, and as you can see he has put that behind him now. Unless of course you ever happen to meet him at a bar …
The sun rises on November. October said farewell with a violent attack on our little family, by an enormous black dog, unleashed and intent on knocking over an adult in order to make a feast of poor Hugo. Over in seconds it left him with a broken jaw, a squeezed and infected eye and multiple piercing injuries. The dog was able to take his whole head into its mouth. The owner knew serious harm had been done and still chose to walk away. The care of the vet, police and our community has lifted us from the despair of this brutal attack to a place where we feel comfortably nurtured. As I write this Hugo rests in a sunbeam, his jaw wired up and his wounds cleaned. Events like this show the dark side of one random human’s nature. But as we woke up in November we realised that for many many reasons we are extraordinarily lucky to live in a community that cares and makes that care obvious by acts of kindness. November has started as a bright and beautiful month. Long may it continue on this setting.
Long ago Hugo, when he was a puppy, was a model for neckerchiefs for a local, coastal clothing brand. After this event he is not quite the attractive chap he once was. He has a good side and a very bad side. For the time being he is only available for bookings in profile.
Today there is no morning sunlight for Hugo to bask in. The rain is relentless. Having consulted an early morning weather forecast we were up and about to grab the two daylight hours where no rain was predicted. Our reward for the early start was a chocolate croissant.
The dogs love the soft, doughy underparts. I get the crispy bits and chocolate. We are all happy with this arrangement. I am happy that we missed the rain, which arrived early. The dogs have no idea that the morning plans have been adapted and changed purely to keep us all dry. No compromises for them they are sleeping off their croissant and I have things to be getting on with.
Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.
This question caught me on the hop. We are a very small family. Beyond meeting up, and supporting each other, on the good days and the bad, we pretty much conform. We have high days and holidays. Long walks, short walks. Shared experiences and adventures. We also do the humdrum and the mundane. Our one idiosyncratic tradition is the purchase of chocolate eclairs to celebrate, commiserate or just perk up a dull day.
Specifically, a chocolate eclair marks the death of a family member who was run over and killed while walking her dog. She loved chocolate eclairs and never needed an excuse to buy a box of four to share with a cup of tea. Our continued purchase of eclairs, after her death, doesn’t come from a place of sadness. It is a sense of solidarity.
I was caught on the hop because I have never bothered to photograph eclairs and to many who read this blog an eclair may be a mystery. One shockingly bad photo in my archive.
Maybe one of my tasks in 2024 should be to learn to bake eclairs. Not as a replacement for the traditional ‘box of four’ but as a useful life skill.
If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?
This is entirely the wrong question. I am completely at ease with my dogs not always fully understanding me. They however struggle with my failure to always understand them. Anything from the length of a cuddle or the temperature that a cup of tea should be served at, is misconstrued by their humans.
A canine huff is loaded with disappointment, and sometimes they just have to throw themselves to the floor to recover from the latest example of human incompetence.
Our purchase of a camper van was one of the biggest examples of our failure to correctly understand the way of their world. We thought the van would extend adventures. They see it as a bed with constantly changing backdrops to their thinking and dozing.
It has been a whirlwind of family interactions in the last few days. Some planned and some serendipitous. Our dogs love having an increased pack. Yesterday Hugo took a little time out and perched on a small dining chair as if it was the only place he could find a space for a five minute gap.
By coincidence the two British locations our family occupies are represented by these little books in the prayer book shelves.
What have you been working on?
In answer to the above question I imagine Hugo could be wondering where the Little Book of Hong Kong was for him to do research Then he would then fully be able to fall asleep surrounded by books that represent his entire human family.
Rather a greige weekend to report but there were colourful and opportunistic highlights. The coffee shop on our regular dog walk is very popular and there is rarely a chance to sit inside and shelter from inclement weather. The weather conditions frightened off most coffee drinkers and only the most hardy were out and about. A free table turned us to people and dogs who were ‘in and about.
An entirely acceptable way to walk dogs in the rain. All the tulips on our walk were very woebegone, wet and droopy. Creating a double exposed image is a far more pleasing image to view than the poor drenched blooms were actually feeling.
In other bad weather news, the little moss heart that I found for Saturday’s blog had been blown off her last posing location and laid broken on the pavement.
I picked her, the moss heart, up Sunday evening and brought her home to safely rest in my wild garlic. I have no idea if wild garlic can fix broken hearts but you never know.
Wet weekends, enough now, roll out sunshine please.
On this one occasion where @theoldmortuary goes Time Out follows, albeit at the number 7 spot on their list of most overlooked places in the world. Who even knew @theoldmortuary was quite so on trend!
I’ve copied and pasted the Plymouth section so I can use my own illustrations and add my own small pearls of wisdom. Actually these Pearls are of wealth and not mine to share. There is every possibilty these Pearls passed through Plymouth in the 16th century. Elizabeth I favourite man with very dubious morals, Francis Drake, opperated almost exclusively out of Plymouth. She liked gifts and he supplied them.
The Armada Portrait, currently at The Box Plymouth.
Plymouth, England If the Devon city of Plymouth were any smaller, it’d be considered a jewel of a day-trip destination. If it were any bigger, it simply couldn’t be overlooked. Perhaps because of its middling size, it’s slipped under the radar, and that’s pretty unfair, if you ask us. I like a city that I can do most things by walking or using public transport, not always possiblebut defiantly achievable most days. Like art? The Box is a brilliant, recently opened gallery that celebrates local artists.
Local artist, not celebrating.
Like architecture? You’ll be dazzled by the newly done-up Market Hall, which also has its own ‘immersive art dome’.
@theoldmortuary goes there often, good coffee and cake, 360 degree films and a memorable lesson in Aerial Yoga.
Like swimming? Few pools are more spectacular than the Tinside Lido.
Tinside, fun swimming and fuels my obsession for abstract photography through glass bricks.
Like gin? England’s oldest distillery is smack bang in the historic city centre.
Cocktail from a glug jug.
Book a room at the Bistrot Pierre B&B, in the revamped Royal William Yard, and you’ve lined up pretty much the perfect weekend away.
No need for a room at Bistro Pierre but @theoldmortuary can easily bore the socks off you all with our daily dog walks here.
Thanks to Time Out for giving me an excuse for a quick dip into my photo archive. Congratulations for getting to Friday with me.
For someone born 60 miles inland, I have spent an extraordinary amount of time living on the coast. Yesterday I had a great day by the sea. In the morning I went to a post-Covid, reunion,social gathering of women in the majestic buildings of the Royal William Yard. Quite cheeky really as the word reunion did not apply to me. I had never met many of these people before. The cafe we met in has several massive sofas that can fairly comfortably sit ten people. I was not the only cheeky one. Lola and Hugo came with me because there is nothing they love more than a walk that terminates in a cafe. Lola is always a sociable soul, Hugo more reticent. By the time I left Lola had cuddled and been cuddled by everyone on the large sofa. I realise that makes non dog lovers recoil but there was no recoiling from her warm curly cuddles yesterday. Hugo noticed the attention she was getting and made slower progress along the row of laps. After a brief interlude of domestic admin* I was back for a small afternoon gathering of friends, mulled wine and rats.
We met in old Stonehouse pub that has recently reopened. A bar that also sells coffee and cake, a game changer for me. I am fairly certain I have never paired coffee cake with mulled wine before. It works. Hidden in the pub are four small rats. I plan to only ever find three, that way there is always a reason to return.
Did you say Quiche?Do you have any Coffee Cake?Yes, I am the Bass player, who’s asking?
* Who gives a crap about my domestic admin? There was a small order error when I ordered the festive toilet rolls. The error was quickly rectified, rather generously, by the company. Yesterday’s most pressing domestic admin task was to find homes for 100 toilet rolls.
42 rolls on each shelf.
Suddenly I have become the sort of person who over-caters for Christmas.
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