My Dougal Dog

This is a photo of my lovely Dougal Dog. He was a West Highland Terrier or "Westie". He is about 12 in this photo. Quite old in dog years but he was still very much like a puppy. In fact it was only when he got really sick that he stopped acting like a pup!

Four years ago today we lost him. He was 14. He had got a tumour on one of his toes the year before which had been successfully amputated and we hoped all was well. However he started to get sick again and after some tests it was discovered he had loads of cancerous tumours on his spine. Treatment was looked into but there was no guarantees, and the vet felt considering his age the chemo could do more harm and would definitely make him suffer. So we decided to let fate decide. Instead he was given painkillers so he wouldn't suffer and continued to have a good quality of life without regular visits to the vets and being pulled about and operated on. When he started to show signs of deterioration we made sure we kept a close eye on him, and a few weeks later things escalated and we knew however hard it would be, it was time to say goodbye. It was a horrendous day and I still cannot think about it without getting very upset.

So today instead of remembering that horrible day 4 years ago, I will remember the 14 wonderful years that he was in our lives.

 I can still remember the excitement of when he arrived. Mum hadn't told me we were getting a puppy. Our dog Pepe (Cavalier King Charles Spaniel) was getting a bit old and grumpy but there had been no mention of a puppy. A few days earlier my Mum and I had been to our local pet shop and the owner had four Westie Puppies that he was trying to find homes for. We had been allowed to see them, and I fell in love with the only male puppy. Luckily so did my Mum! A few days later her and Ron had to go to the bank (opposite the pet shop!). When they arrived back I had the strangest feeling something was up and had a passing thought that they had got a puppy. Stupid idea! She called me to come downstairs, and as I did she was walking through the front door with a blanket in her arms with a little cute face with huge ears, peeking out of it! She looked at me with a smile on her face and said "Say hello to Dougal!". That was the name I said I wanted to call him!!! Dougal had become part of our family!

He and I didn't get on instantly. I loved him totally but I felt sorry for our old dog Pepe as I didn't want her to feel left out. She had been a loyal loving dog, and it wasn't her fault she was getting a bit moody in her old age. Dougal got a lot of attention because he was the new puppy, and poor Pepe would get ignored so I made sure I made an extra fuss of her to make up for it. He also liked trying to hang off her long ears and wanted to play. Pepe didn't really play any more and really didn't appreciate a nipping energetic puppy, so she got quite good at smacking him on the head with her paw when he got out of hand!

However I couldn't resist the bundle of fun, cuteness and cheeky little so and so that was Dougal. He made me laugh and he was very loving. He was my friend. When things were bad at home he was always there. When I was alone in my room crying and upset he would creep up stairs and into my room where he would leap on my bed and not give up until I was cuddling him. Pepe use to do the same thing. I always made sure they were never caught, I wouldn't have let Ron hurt them, he was so cruel at times to the dogs. He claimed it was discipline and "Dog and Master" but I just thought he was a bully like he was with everyone else.  Mum would often scream at him to leave them alone and that he was too heavy handed. Still makes my flesh crawl thinking about it. He did get better and did learn to be more gentle with them eventually.

Dougal and I had a connection. I know people who read this who have never loved/owned a dog will think thats ridiculous but its true. He was always there when I needed him. When I came home from school he was there to greet me. I would let him out, spend time playing with him and feed him. Then he would follow me round while I did all the chores and jobs I was expected to do before anyone got home. He would then sit upstairs with me while I started my homework, with one ear listening for the car in the driveway to fly downstairs and pretend he had been down there all along!

He witnessed how bad things were, and I am sure when I looked at him he understood. He gave me what he could which was love and loyalty and in returned I loved him back, looked after him and tried to protect him as best I could. I miss him so very much, and really wish he was still here to comfort me when I am sad and to make me laugh with his cheekiness. He was lovely to cuddle and made me laugh a lot.

My friend got a new puppy last year called Yoda. He isn't a Westie, he is a long haired chihuahua, but there is something about him that reminds me so much of Dougal. Maybe its because he is a cheeky little so and so himself and makes me laugh, or maybe because he knows when I am sad and insists on giving me cuddles. Whatever it is I do sometimes find myself going to call him Dougal Boy and have to quickly change it to Yoda Boy! Really hope Dougal doesn't mind and realises I still love him to bits.

                                                   My Dougal Dog. My gorgeous boy.

If I was ever in a position to have a dog again, it would definitely be a Westie. At the moment I live in a flat with my dad and I am unemployed and a student. It would be very irresponsible to have a dog at the moment not to mention Dad wouldn't allow it in his flat. I would love to have a dog but I guess I will just have to wait. No matter what though, I will never forget my lovely Dougal Dog. Miss you Dougal!!

P.s: have just noticed my Daily Puppy for today is Pluto the West Highland Terrier! There has got to be something in that!

I made it through the wilderness.....!

Well I think I have finally done it. Hopefully I think I have found the light at the end of the tunnel. Or if not the light, the cats eyes on the path that leads to the light at the end of the tunnel!

The last few weeks and months have been very tough. I have had a lot of personal and family stuff going on that I have been juggling as well as the ongoing dissertation. For the last few weeks in particular I have been finding the writing of my dissertation very difficult. The main reason was because I had hit a wall, and got completely lost with what I was writing.

I can only describe it as similar to being trapped in quick sand and the more you struggle, fight and try to get out the quicker you sink and the worse your situation gets. The more I tried to write the more I got lost and overwhelmed with theory and writers block. I got more and more confused. Then the self-doubt started to arrive, and the "I can't do this" and the "I am so going to fail" and finally came avoidance. It was awful and I felt as miserable as hell. I wanted to enjoy doing my study, and this was not enjoyable! Then I decided to do something about it and fight back. However this was easier said than done. I couldn't figure out what to do to put it right, to get back on track. I found myself in a sort of dissertation wilderness.

I spent days going through my notes, re-reading chapters and even a bit of brainstorming. Nothing was making any sense or showed any sign of being a way forward. Then I asked for some support and help from my lovely friend Liz. She was on my MA course and had had to have an extension for her dissertation too due to health and personal problems so she could totally relate. She is also an absolute genius with cultural memory theory so I thought and hoped she would be able to help straighten out my confused brain! As I had been there for her while she was doing hers, she didn't hesitate to help me and was really supportive. We had a great chat and she gave me a few suggestions and helped me unravel some of my thoughts about what I was writing and where it could be taken. She even talked through a few examples of structure and content. I felt so much more positive after talking to her. I am very grateful to her.

However, despite this positive chat I still didn't have a way forward. I had a much stronger idea on what to do when I got there, but it was still a bit of a grey area on how to get there! While I continued to wander this metaphorical wilderness, I remembered we had been advised to keep a dissertation diary to record every stage of the process, thoughts, decisions, tutorials etc. I decided to have a read through mine as I had kept it going and regularly wrote in, but hardly ever looked back on previous entries. This was a crucial turning point. As I had filled it in regularly, made notes immediately after tutorials, comments on chapters I had read etc, it was actually incredibly useful. I was reminded of a lot of decisions I had made and why, as well as reminding myself on where I wanted to take my dissertation. I even had a chapter plan! Very soon I realised what I had to do.

Sometimes when your so involved and entrenched in something you can't see where you are going, and that's what happened to me. I realised through reading the diary that in order to move forward I had to take a step back. I had to go back to basics and remind myself of all the foundation stuff that I do know but couldn't recall. Very quickly I had a plan of action. Despite being up against it time wise I knew I needed to take a few days to retrace my steps. So I am returning to the key texts. I am setting out the two different theories that I am looking at, going back over collective memory, sites of memory, agents of memory etc etc. Then when I have reminded myself of these foundations I can then build the complex stuff on top. This will stop me from being confused and from losing my way. In fact its such an obvious solution I don't know why I didn't see it before! I now have a plan of action, a way forward and more importantly a good idea on how I am going to do it. Hopefully I will be able to bring you a more positive progress update soon.

For now I have made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through.........!

30 Years of CITV!

On the 3rd January 1983 CITV hit British television screens for the first time hosted by Matthew Kelly in a strange spaceship set. This means this week it is celebrating 30 years! To mark the occasion this weekend Freeview channel CITV have been hosting an Old Skool Weekend where they have screened a variety of classic children's shows from the last 30 years. These have included Dangermouse, Count Duckula, Button Moon, Funhouse, Knightmare, Press Gang, Children's Ward, Woof, Puddle Lane, How 2, The Tomorrow People and Fraggle Rock! I have been watching quite a lot of these, and have loved reliving my childhood and childhood memories.

 It did make me feel slightly old and some of the shows like Woof! and Press Gang looked so dated. It really demonstrates how the quality of filming has improved, as well as reminding how quickly fashion dates!

The cartoons however still seemed to have their charm, and it was lovely to see hand drawn cartoons again instead of the computer generated digital cartoons children get shown today. Don't get me wrong I think some of the modern cartoons are very good and well done, but there is just something beautiful about the hand drawn cartoons of my childhood. As I was watching them I also noticed a lot of double-entendre in the humour which I had never noticed as a child. I do wonder if its just my now adult brain taking phrases and comments the wrong way, or whether the cartoonist and writers really did mean these shows to have moments which adults would find amusing too? There are also a lot of details especially in the backgrounds of Dangermouse which would surely be lost on a child but yet appreciated by the parents who were watching with their kids. I would even go as far as to say some of these programmes are wasted on kids! Tee hee!

Those of you who know me well, will remember I did my undergraduate dissertation on old children's television programmes, looking in particular at nostalgia and childhood. I chose The Clangers, Bagpuss, Rainbow and Dangermouse as my four examples to look at and to apply the various theories to. It was very enjoyable getting to watch these old shows and some of the theories were quite fascinating. However I do still feel it was a bit light for a dissertation topic, yet then again as I went on to work in museums with social history and popular culture as my specialist areas, not to mention working in a toy museum and then at another museum producing a childhood and toys exhibition, my dissertation did prove helpful! What did come through loud and clear when I was doing this study was the level of sentiment and importance adults still put on their childhood and programmes they watched, whatever generation they were and however good or bad their childhoods had actually been. They even still remembered the theme tunes word for word. But then again I surprised myself with how many I knew and could remember this weekend! There are some you just never forget like "He's the greatest, He's Fantastic, Wherever there is danger he'll be there"... or "Up above the streets and houses, Rainbow climbing high" and "In the heart of Transylvan-ia, In the Vampire Hall of Fame-yeah, There's not a vampire zanier than, Duckula!". It's amazing how much love we have for these sort of things!

I had lots of television shows that I liked as a child and quite a few of them have been on this weekend. My absolute favourites were Dangermouse, Count Duckula and Fraggle Rock. I also had a thing for Raggy Dolls and I can remember really enjoying The Tomorrow People but that could be because I had a crush on Kristian Schmid (Todd from Neighbours) who starred in it! I also remember enjoying others such as Postman Pat, Paddington and embarrassingly My Little Pony and Carebears!! Oh dear! Although my childhood was not always the happiest or easiest, and school life which I enjoyed and excelled at was also punctuated with bullying, I can still look back on certain things in my childhood with love and sentiment. These programmes are one of those things.

This weekend has been very enjoyable reliving my childhood. I also found myself remembering some of the innocence and naivety that I had as a child, and the thoughts I use to have when watching some of these shows. The way I use to look at the world or understand what was going on around me is so totally different to now. I look back on that time now with adult understanding, as well as the benefit of hindsight (as I am sure everyone does), and its easy to forget that you didn't always see things the same.  The hopes I had for the future seem so childish now and so naive! I really didn't have a clue! I also remember thinking my life would be so together by the time I was 30. I envisaged I would be married, with children of my own, in my own home with a job I enjoyed. How was I to know that by the time I was 30 I wouldn't have achieved any of this! Plus 30 seemed so old! But I am not going to get bogged down in the things that didn't work out as my childhood-self expected. Instead I am going to enjoy the rest of the 30 years celebrations and the television programmes I loved as a child! Happy 30th Birthday CITV!

Better be off, Fraggle Rock starts soon!

Hot Cross Buns in January!!

Today I went food shopping at our new local (sort of) Morrisons. Nothing special there, as we have been a few times now and its very nice. However I was a little bit surprised when in the Bakery section I found Hot Cross Buns! Now despite appearances I am not a cake eater. However Hot Cross Buns without disgusting Peel are a different story completely. I love them. In fact I have been know to make myself sick of them by Easter! Tee hee! So you can imagine when I found them I was pretty excited as they looked really nice. It was only as I was putting them in my trolley that my brain reminded me it was the 3rd. Of JANUARY!! We still have a few foods things left over from Christmas to be eaten up yet Hot Cross Buns are on sale! I couldn't believe it!

Now I know that supermarkets have to order their stock in advance and plan when various seasonal decorations and posters are going to be put up in their stores. I also appreciate that now Christmas and New Year is over they need to refill their seasonal sections with something. However Easter stuff..... in January! Tesco were even worst as Easter chocolates started to appear on their shelves the day after Boxing Day! The worst offender though was a non-food store who during the week BEFORE Christmas were taking down all their Christmas stuff to put up their "barbecue and gardening" stuff! Hello! Did I miss something? Okay some people will soon be thinking about their gardens and putting in bulbs etc, but barbecues? Patio furniture? Picnic sets? Who thinks about this stuff at Christmas? Hell, in Britain we will be lucky if we need to start thinking about this stuff in May and June!

I accept supermarkets need to get stock in and on the shelves in advance of when they are needed. It would be impossible to have everyone descend on the shop on the same day of the year to get the same items. Plus in these skint times people might need to spread the cost over a few weeks. Christmas is an example of this. However what is the point of having these items on sale months in advance, if they have use by dates which run out long before the event itself? Clearly they are expecting everyone to buy the stuff months in advance, eat the lot and have to buy more. Perhaps even using "its goes off soon" as an excuse! This makes it nothing more than a marketing scam. They know we are going to buy the stuff, eat it and need to buy more. Its terrible! As a result, I refuse to buy stuff like this out of season. Easter Eggs (if I am buying them for anyone) are bought perhaps a week maybe two maximum in advance. Christmas we don't start buying stuff until after my Dad's birthday in early December. Fireworks we don't buy any more as we don't have a garden and local displays are far superior, likewise the lack of garden makes barbecues and patio furniture unnecessary (although I suppose we could have a couple of chairs on our new balcony with some flowers in pots) and Halloween is not really something we celebrate.

Aside from the obvious consumerism irritation, I also feel its sad as it makes the year go so quickly. We are all looking forward to Christmas, and then while we are still eating our way through selection boxes, tins of Quality Street and endless boxes of Mince Pies and enjoying images of reindeer  penguins and snowmen, BANG its all fluffy chicks, bunny rabbits and Easter Eggs! Even in the summer, I feel dreadfully sorry for school kids in Britain as within days of them breaking up for summer holidays there are Back to School stuff in the shops! New uniforms, pencil cases, folders, school shoes, lunch boxes, etc. Poor kids have only just got use to not going to school on a weekday! Let them have some holiday for flips sake, before you start reminding them they have to go back to school! Then as soon as the kids have gone back to school and sometimes even before that during the August Bank Holiday what do we see fighting for space on the seasonal shelves with the last of the barbecues, picnic sets and new pencil cases? Christmas Cards and wrapping paper! Aaaarrrggghhhh!

Why do we have to have these things so early? Please Mr Tesco, Mrs Morrison, Ms Asda, Mr Sainsburys, Madam Waitrose and all the other supermarkets, can we please be left to enjoy the last days of summer without being reminded that Christmas is on it way? Can we please enjoy the gluttony of Christmas and hang overs of New Year before you blind us with fluffy bright yellow things for Easter? Can we wait until we have some actual "sunshine" and no frost on our car windows before you start tempting us with barbecues and picnic sets? (Although some years that would mean we would never see any barbecue stuff! LOL!). Can the kids actually get some sun on their faces, wear flip flops and shorts and go swimming for a few days before you make them start worrying if they have outgrown their school uniforms or need a new pencil case? Is that possible? Let us enjoy the time of year it is, without worrying about what's coming up in three months time?

I still bought the hot cross buns though!

I wonder what 2013 will bring.........!

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and an even better New Years Eve!! Hopefully you will have all recovered from your exploits by now and settling back into the "normal" routine. I celebrated New Year with my friend http://sutleress.blogspot.co.uk/ and many other lovely friends including http://curiositything.blogspot.co.uk/ and http://seamstress-waffle.blogspot.co.uk/. It was a great evening and a nice way to see out the old year and welcome in the new.

As is tradition at this time of year people start talking about New Years resolutions and what they are going to attempt to do, or usually give up! The big ones are usually quitting smoking, losing weight and cutting back on alcohol (especially after the indulgences of Christmas and New Year!). Another tradition for this time of year is breaking your resolutions, sometime within hours of making them! I have already met someone who vowed to give up drinking and detox, only to be tucking into a bottle of wine over dinner less than 24 hours later! Bless!

I don't generally make resolutions. I find them pointless and they are never treated seriously and are often made up on a whim, usually when you are put on the spot by someone asking you what your New Years resolution is going to be! However this is not to say I don't see New Year as an opportunity for a fresh start, new beginnings, clean slate, etc. In fact I think one of the best things about January is that is does feel like a fresh start (lets face it, January has nothing else going for it. The weather is rubbish, everyone is skint and everything seems dull after the colour of Christmas). So instead of making resolutions, I like to set myself aims for 2013. These are specific things I want to achieve. Not empty wishes on a superstition hoping that someone else is going to do all the work and you magically get what you want, but real targets that I want to work towards. Obviously some things do have an element of luck, such as finding a job; you can do the best application and best interview, but its luck as to whether you get the job or not.

So my aims for 2013 are:

1. Find paid employment in something I enjoy doing (museums, research, craft, First World War Centenary etc).
2. Continue to fight my eating disorder and make some positive moves forward.
3. Improve my health, and ideally as a direct result lose some weight.
4. Finish my MA dissertation and therefore complete my Masters!
5. Make more time to do things I enjoy and find relaxing such as reading, craft and writing.
6. Improve my sleeping habits. More sleep is urgently needed and a better routine would help matters greatly.
7. Continue ticking more things off my to do list (Museums, galleries, places, shows, etc).
8. Find out what things make me happy and do more of them, while moving away from the stuff and people who make me unhappy.
9. Spend more time with people who genuinely like me and care about me who want to spend time with me and less time spent on people who are selfish, self-serving and two faced. I don't want to be the "useful" or "convenient" friend any more. I believe when you care about someone it works both ways. You don't "use" people.
10. Be myself and be comfortable with who I am. If someone doesn't like it, tough!

So thats 10 aims for 2013. Lets see how I get on. I wonder what 2013  will bring................

Blenheim Palace - 9th Dec 2012

Firstly apologises for being very slack on the blogging front over the last two months. Hopefully I will be able to catch you up on what has been going on!

On the 9th December I was given an early Christmas present; a day out at Blenheim Palace! My Dad had visited the Palace in the summer when he was on holiday up in Oxford and knew it was somewhere I would love to go. So when he found out they were doing a special Christmas decoration exhibition/festival, we had to go! The only slight problem is Blenheim Palace is a very long way from the South Coast so it meant a very early start and a very long day in order to make the most of it!

The weather leading up to the 9th had been terrible. Very windy, cold and wet. However on the Sunday we went to Blenheim Palace we were blessed with dry, winter sunshine weather. There was a short down pour of rain during the day, but immediately after the sun came out and gave us a beautiful rainbow over the Palace.

It was a fascinating place to visit. The history of the Spencer-Churchill families was really interesting and ranged across some very important periods of British history. It was also of course the birth place and childhood home of Winston Churchill. They currently have an exhibition about Churchill at the Palace which I have to confess I spent rather a long time looking at! It was so interesting and included lots of letters written by Winston from a young child, through to his life in the armed forces and even serving in the trenches during World War One (something I had not known!). There were also letters between him and his wife, as well as examples of the many books he wrote. It really was a brilliant exhibition and explained a lot about the man he became and the achievements he made. 

The Christmas decorations were also quite impressive. To carry on the festive feel there were also a brass band playing Christmas songs in the library and they were joined in the late afternoon by a local school choir. Very festive. 

Upstairs was a new audio visual tour, complete with moving dummies and time operated doors, that only opened when it was time for your part of the tour to go through. There were about 7 rooms to go through and they charted the history of the Palace from the first Duke being caught having an affair with the King's mistress Barbara Villiers, to the different eras at the Palace. The tour was led by the ghost of the first Duchesses lady's maid, who worked her way through the different time periods, using her own ignorance of the new technologies and changes to the Palace to ask the questions which allowed the other "characters" to tell their stories and explain how they fit into the history of the Palace. I don't usually like this sort of gimmicky history. It often feels like they are making an exhibition out of nothing and is more like a theme park that a heritage site. However I absolutely loved it! I thought it was really well done, and the idea of a ghost leading you through the history of the Palace was a very interesting concept which played well and captured the imagination. The dummies that moved were also very good, especially as a lot of them were looking into mirrors, you saw the back of the dummy moving, yet in the reflection you saw the human face of the actor playing that character. Very well done. Even tiny movements when the dummy wasn't talking which made it looked like it was breathing or shifting slightly where it stood were just brilliant touches. Really really really enjoyed this tour. Very informative and very enjoyable. 

It was a very enjoyable day and I would love to visit Blenheim Palace again in the future. It was really interesting and the Palace itself is stunning. I would highly recommend a visit to everyone! Its your national heritage. So it should be law that everyone must visit Blenheim Palace at least once in their life! 

For the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving; a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall now not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

By Laurence Binyon