2022 January – Frosty, Patient, Maybe Not, Hare Today…. , Back in the Wild Woods

And now we welcome the New Year. Full of things that have never been. 

(Rainer Maria Rilke)

 

Frosty

As long as the ‘things’ are ‘chicken things’, I s’pect I’ll be fine with that Mr Rilke.  Anyway, here’s a picture of me out walking in the frost and the sunshine.

Mum says it is just beautiful out today – a very good day to be alive, Saffron.  I’m more interested sniffing the sniffy things to be honest. I don’t know if it’s because it’s frosty or if it’s just a bit earlier than usual for our walk, but everything is crazy sniffy today.

We went for miles and miles.  I was quite tired at the end and a little bit ploddy. I will sleep well today.

Now I know why Mum took me for miles because she has gone out. There is always an agenda of some sort with her.  She did come back with dog food so I might consider forgiving her, but still.

I agreed with Mum that we were staying in for New Year this year.  There were lots of fireworks but luckily I am not fazed by them at all.  I expect it’s because in a noise / disruptive behaviour contest I know I would win so, frankly, what’s the point even bothering?

Also the fireworks stop after a while but if I put my mind to it, everyone knows I could keep barking for a very, very long time, even at my age.

 

Patient

This is me waiting patiently to go out on a walk.

Mum is messing around as usual.  It’s quite cold out so she seems to think she needs more layers.  On the basis that she rarely bothers with a coat even when it’s raining, it seems odd that she’s worried about a bit of cold.

I expect I will carry on waiting until she’s sorted herself out.

As you can see she hasn’t even got round to taking down the Christmas decorations.  It is way past 12th night which is when they are supposed to come down.

Mum says she is currently going ‘full Tudor’ because they had the right idea and carried on celebrating until 1st February.   Apparently it was the Victorians who created the ‘belief’ of taking Christmas decorations down after 12 days because they wanted everybody to go back to work.

 

 

Maybe not…

This is a picture of me changing my mind.

The water in the ditch is frozen solid so I can’t splash about in it.  I am not an ice skating dog so I am implementing a strategic retreat.

As part of my strategic retreat I caught my nose on some brambles and cut it.   It was quite sore and Mum had to bathe it and put some horrible cream on it when we got back home.  She was actually quite kind and relatively sympathetic, for her.

I expect I will make the most of my injury and look pathetic and sad for a few days.

 

Hare today, gone tomorrow.

This is  a picture of me sniffing at where a hare just was.

It ran off across the fields.  Hares are big actually.  There are quite a lot round here so we see them regularly.   Fun facts – hares are a type of rodent.  They are also some of the fastest small mammals in the word and can run at speeds of up to 45mph.

This is basically why I don’t really bother with hares.

I am pretty quick out of the blocks but frankly I reckon I’d be wasting my time.   And we wouldn’t want that now would we?

PS: Mum gets New Scientist every week.  This week it has stuff in like Covid: What’s next, Welcome to the Metaverse, The Power of Paradox, Follow the money (crypto), The James Webb Space Telescope and all sorts of other technical things.

I don’t understand much about it at all and to be honest I’m not sure that Mum does either.   Anyway, out of all of this, the bit that she likes best is:

Q: Why does toast always land butter side down?

A: Because you buttered the wrong side.

Please help me………………

 

 

Back in the Wild Woods

Up early today – no reason – and back in the wild woods.

We went for absolutely miles today.  Mum knows most of the off road tracks in these woods (so do I) and we saw a fox, a muntjac, loads of birds and heard a woodpecker.   We didn’t see any other humans or dogs.  This is the perfect sort of walk for me.

It was cold and Mum said her face was frozen when we got back to the car. She needs a fur face like me.  Mum said she wasn’t incredibly keen on that idea.

She can be quite impractical about some things.

 

 

Saffron’s Recommendations this month:

Music:

This month it has to be Meatloaf (RIP Jan 22). 

Mum says one of the first albums she ever bought (on vinyl, because she is so ancient) was Bat Out of Hell which was his debut album 1977.   Terrific artwork.  Terrific songs.  It’s sold 43 million copies worldwide and is one of the best selling albums of all time.  Mum’s faves (crazy good songs) are:

Bat out of Hell ….(of course)

Heaven can wait

Two out of three ain’t bad

You took the words right out of my mouth

 

Reading:

‘Letters to a Young Poet’ – correspondence from  Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), translated from German – Penguin Classics.

He was actually a poet but Mum prefers his prose (she says the poetry is a bit odd – or more likely she’s not clever enough to understand it). Mum says she finds the writing to be beautifully lyrical and (unexpectedly) she reckons it’s stuffed with references to Greek and Roman stoic philosophy. 

This isn’t about stoic stuff but Mum likes it anyway.  He wrote this. 

“A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”

“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.”

Mum reckons that ‘solitude’ isn’t a great translation – mebbe substitute the word ‘personality’ instead. Isn’t the whole point not to bend the other person out of shape?     

She also says these quotes just about sum up how we are together. Well, I am fine with an immense sky (it seems to be like that anyway in East Anglia) and very happy with my solitude especially if it involves other dogs not being around……

 

..and possibly in a slightly jolting change of atmosphere…..gotta keep you on your toes eh?

 

Film:   Deadpool 1 and 2 with Ryan Reynolds.  A marvel comic release and a spin of from X-Men.  Ryan is perfect as the anti-hero.  Soooo funny and actually a bit gross too.  Profane and deffo not family friendly.