What's been happening? I know have a first class Honours Degree in Literary Studies and Creative Writing. (Up yours to Melbourne University who told me I was useless at English in 1979. But thanks, though, because you pushed me into a History degree which is an excellent addition to my current life).
I am currently researching material for an urban fantasy novel set in Regency London (NOT influenced by Georgette Heyer!). But that's what the writing blog is for.
I'm going to keep this as a personal blog and go back to posting pictures of dogs, craft and food. (My interests have not changed in this regard).
Edited to add: I obviously can't count. I appear to have already introduced Cleo to the world and got the year wrong! Anyway, enjoy the photos!!
Three months after my last blog post we had to say a very sad goodbye to the goodest dog in the world, Sirius. It was heartbreaking. We loved her every moment of the 14 1/2 years she spent with us (even the time she ate the jumper I had just finished knitting in expensive hand-dyed 4 ply wool!) But the time came to be kinder to her than to us.
A few months later, actually on the day of the Federal Election in 2016, we adopted a 'twelve month old Whippet Cross' from a delightful, no-kill pet shelter in the country. She walked beautifully on a lead and was exactly what we'd been looking for. The immaculate winged eyeliner around her eyes meant that she had to be called Nefertiti or Cleopatra, and you can guess which one is slightly less silly to shout out loud in a dog park.
On the long drive home I noticed that she had inflamed gums. This isn't unusual in rescue dogs (she'd been rescued from a pound near the Murray) so I wasn't too worried at first, thinking that good dental care and nutrition was all she needed. Then I noticed that she didn't have enough teeth. Some frantic Googling (George was driving), checking out when a dog's adult teeth came through, I realised that she was probably about six months old. This was only a worry because she was at the uppermost of the size of dog we had wanted and we were not sure how much she would grow. However, Sirius had only been six months old when we adopted her, and she had reached her adult size.
After a peaceful long ride home, our first new thing with Cleo was to take her to a polling station and share a Democracy Sausage with her. She met some dogs. She behaved herself. Then it was off to the vet for a thorough check up. The shelter had had her spayed and vaccinated but we always like our own vets to check a new dog over. She'd only been vaccinated six days previously and unfortunately had kennel cough, which has a longer incubation period than that. I learned how to administer Benedryl via syringe to a dog with very large teeth. They also guessed she was five months old, Greyhound rather than Whippet, and likely to double in size.
Um, they were right. The photos in this post are of her first few weeks with us, She did double in size, as you will see in later posts. I can't walk her because she likes to RUN and is incredibly strong. I had a doggy DNA test done on her to check. Approximately 45% Greyhound, 25% Rhodesian Ridgeback, 5% Kelpie, 5% German Shepherd, and 20% Unknown. We're still not quite sure what that means.
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