Happy Gotcha day to Lola. 9 years of being photogenic when she is asleep or dozing.
A woman who lives her most adventurous life when travelling in a camper van with a bed.
Category: Hugo and Lola
#1162 theoldmortuary ponders.
Pyjama Day/ Gotcha Day
The need to de-rig Christmas was derigueur yesterday.
Not because I always adhere to the custom of the 12th night. But because I had done half a job on Saturday, and half a job is worse than no job at all.
To motivate myself, I started early and decided to do the job in my pyjamas, promising myself that I could not shower or dress until the job was done. Not a popular decision with two dogs who love an early walk. By 11:30, everything was done, and some Christmas lights had been converted into winter lights to pull my summer-loving soul through a gloomy mid-winter towards Spring.
Pyjamas Day explained and on to Gotcha Day.
12 years of Hugo, the original urbane city gent who moved to the Cornish countryside and then relocated to the coast and currently lives the life of an old seadog. His current good looks are still a little lopsided, but nothing a few more weeks of hair growth can’t cure.
#1152 theoldmortuary ponders.
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.
A happy endings story for Twixtmas.
#1099 theoldmortuary ponders.
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 …
#1092 theoldmortuary ponders
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.
#817 theoldmortuary ponders.
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.
#797 theoldmortuary ponders.
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.
Our dogs are the colours of a chocolate eclair.
#793 theoldmortuary ponders
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.
#695 theoldmortuary ponders
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.
#551 theoldmortuary ponders
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.
#549 theoldmortuary ponders
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.
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