Robin McKinley's Blog, page 82

The day after

 

I’m just back from bell ringing with Colin and Anthea and the gang at Glaciation.  Colin said, Did you get the book turned in?  And I said YESSSSSSSS.

            And everyone cheered.            

b_twin

Is it too much to hope that Mongo will take an instant dislike to Val and “take him down”? 

Unfortunately Mongo, who is brilliant, fabulous and amazing* in many ways, loves everybody.**  Even at the end, when mrrgllvgbllgg and jgfffrrggh!, believe it or not, although it’s true he was otherwise occupied ggrhhllxk and zgdnmmmm . . . still.  But he needs a few faults.           

EMoon

Also bells, whistles, cheers, balloons, garlands, and even the dreaded (though I’m not sure why dreaded) bunting.

You know you can knit***  bunting?  I keep tripping over patterns for it and stumbling away hastily.  It’s been a bad year for bunting with the multi-blasted Jubilee and all†.  And I’m thinking, you can’t possibly dread something you’ve knitted.  But why would you want to knit BUNTING?

And that snippet? That’s not the something you’re going to cut out. Uh-uh. 

Thank you.  No, that part stays.  

danceswithpahis

Yay! Hurray! Huzzah! Although I haven’t been able to bring myself to read the snippet yet, because then I would still have SEVERAL LONG MONTHS before I get to read the rest. I might still give in.

‘Several long months’?  Oh dear.  Try a year.  If you’re lucky.  The manuscript should have gone in months ago.  I’m once again up against publishing schedules.  I’m so late turning in the raw ms that the schedule for next autumn may already be full.  My editor has hauled me through the closing deadline gate more than once before, as long-term blog readers will recall, but this is not always the best choice even when it’s possible.

            Stay tuned.

            And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go exise a few paragraphs.  

* * *

* Sugoi in Japanese.  This will be one of your vocabulary words.  You can write it down now. 

* * *

** “Mom’s in the kitchen,” I said ungraciously, but he didn’t seem to notice the ungracious part.  His face lit up at the mention of Mom.  As he took another step forward he made a tiny bow and waved me to go ahead of him, which should have charmed me, but in this case it didn’t, maybe partly because there was something freaky about the shadow of his arm against the wall—there was a sudden sharp ragged line along the smooth (well, hairy-smooth) line of his forearm, and then just as suddenly it collapsed into the proper arm-shadow like it had realised I could see it.  I tried not to stare but by now I was totally creeped out and I couldn’t wait to get away from him—but getting away from him meant leading him farther into my house, farther away from the door.  My great-grandmom’s quilt hangs on the other, long wall by the front door, and I put my hand on it, either like I was dizzy or like it was going to protect me.  Protect us.  I actually had a moment when I thought, I’m not going to let this shadow-man near my family:  I’m going to tell him to go away.

            Too late.  The evil magician was already over the threshold.  And the quilt was just a quilt.

            I don’t guess all of this took more than a minute.  It was a long minute.  It was long enough for Mom to call, “Vaaaaaal?”  Yuck.  When we went into the kitchen Mom’s face was so bright I could hardly stand to look at it.  Even Mongo liked him, although Mongo likes everybody.  (Also Mongo was so thrilled with himself for staying in the dog bed till I’d released him that nothing was going to blow his mood.)  Then Ran found out that Val would listen to him about cars—cars were Ran’s biggest thing—and that was pretty much it for the rest of the evening.  Ran talked and Val and Mom made shiny electric eyes at each other. 

            Once we were all sitting down and eating (Mom had made her chicken, apples and cream which usually only came out on birthdays) I was busy watching the shadows on the wall behind Val’s chair.  They were too lively and there were way too many of them.  It wasn’t just the twinkle of the electric candles in the (fake) chandelier or Ran waving his hands around as he talked about this week’s favorite car.  One or another of the shadows always seemed to be about to turn into something I could recognise—a Komodo dragon or an alligator or a ninety-tentacled space alien.  No, I was imagining it (especially the space alien.  Sixty tentacles, tops).  I hoped I was imagining it.

            I looked at Mongo, who was fast asleep against the manic wall, paws twitching faintly and looking utterly relaxed.  That made one of us.  After this was over I was going to ask Mom to put normal light bulbs in the chandelier again. 

* * *

*** SPEAKING OF KNITTING.  Which I so often am.^  WHY IS IT SO HARD TO FIND A SIMPLE PATTERN?  Maybe it’s just sweaters.  Maybe it’s just that you’re supposed to have done your apprenticeship on scarves and hats and plain stockinette shawls and things^^ before you get to sweaters and so by then you’re BORED with simple and want cables and intarsia and stranding and fair isle and charts ALL AT ONCE.  And I do have a couple more simple cardis lined up for when I finish First Cardi.^^^  But I took it into my head to look out a simple straightforward pizzazz-free long sleeve crew neck sweater AND COULD I FIND ONE??

            In fact I have, finally,^^^^ but it’s been epic.  

^ Although what with one thing and another I haven’t done a knitting blog in a while.  A clear lapse in my responsibilities. 

^^ Possibly including socks, but I think socks are hard.  Which is why, as well as not wanting to spend all that time knitting something no one ever sees, I’ve never tried.+ 

+ My feet mostly get along fine in cotton-with-a-little-elastane~ shop socks. 

~Snork.  You know how Google tries to learn what you want?  I was just looking up cotton stretch socks to see if it is usually elastane, and Google presented me with sock knitting patterns and stretchy cotton sock yarn at the top of the list.  Farther down there were ordinary boring purveyors of shop socks.  

^^^ I am most of the way through the first sleeve.  Then there is only the second sleeve . . . and a lot of swearing when I try to figure out the frelling underexplained frelling collar.  I left both ‘fronts’ unfinished because of the collar thing, which grows, in some mysterious way, out of the folded-back drape of the front.  I should lay the bits out and figure it out NOW, but I’m . . . avoiding the issue while I knit the sleeves. 

^^^^ Details upon request. 

† http://www.knitrowan.com/designs-and-patterns/patterns/jubilee-bunting

Gaaaaaah.  And I like Rowan.

SHADOWS. YESSSSSSSS.

 

 

I did it. 

I got to the end this afternoon in a (relatively*) final way, made a copy** AND SENT IT TO MERRILEE AND MY EDITOR.

You’ll excuse me if I take the night off to have a nervous breakdown.***

* * *

* Athough I’m already looking at the beginning again and thinking, okay, wait, that can come out.

** Which involved putting all the pieces back together in one file.  The elderly mews laptop gets slightly less out of breath if the document I’m working on is shorter. 

*** Oh, all right.  Have a snippet.

* * * 

Ran and I didn’t think a lot about it at first when Mom said she was bringing this new guy home.  She did occasionally bring guys home—or, better, we’d all go to a restaurant:  neutral ground, and somebody else cleaned up after—although she hadn’t in nearly a year, so whoever he was was going to be a little bit interesting for the novelty.  But she was so matter-of-fact as the day got closer it was starting to make me twitchy.  By the day I wanted to hide the salad or lay the tablecloth (yes, a real tablecloth and in the real dining room) face down or something, just to break the circuit, as she went zinging around the kitchen like she was the most organised person in the world, which she isn’t.  We had a joke, Ran and Mom and me, that she used up all her organisation at work.  But the way Mom was behaving was the first clue that Val might be more important than the other (few) guys we’d met, so I was probably already on the wrong channel with him when the doorbell rang.

            Also I’d been thinking why were we having him over for dinner for this first meeting?  I like having someone else doing the cooking—someone other than Mom (or me.  Although quite sane people will come to dinner when I make my spaghetti sauce).  Val didn’t have much money—Mom didn’t quite say this, but I figured it out.  And she wanted to show him what a happy little family we were.  Well, he could have cooked us dinner, couldn’t he?  At his place.

            So I was already feeling kind of unplugged about Mom pretending we were supposed to believe it was no big deal about this Val person coming over.  And when she sang out—and I mean sang, it was disgusting—for me to answer the door when the bell went, I think I was going to dislike him even if he was a billionaire with a private island big enough for a wild animal sanctuary and a really cute son who was just my type.

            But when I opened the door . . .

            It was like there was more than just Val there.  As if he was twice the size of a human person, or there were two of him, or something.  It was really dark out, in spite of the porch light, and at first I couldn’t see his face.  I was frightened.  I didn’t like being frightened.  I’d been frightened enough about almost everything since Dad died.

            And there was something wrong with Val being too big.  Something wrong with the dark—with the shadows.  In that first shock I don’t think I noticed there was something wrong with the darkness—it was February, it still got dark early, it was nearly seven p.m.—that it was shadows.  If I’d noticed they wiggled I might have just slammed the door on him.

            “I am Val,” he said in his funny voice, and stepped forward (and I got my first eyeful of his clothes sense, which was pretty frightening all by itself) and I stepped back like he was a big ugly cobey-unit goon with a zapper and I was a homeless loophead, and now in the light of the hall I could see him plainly, see that he was short and hairy as well as having a funny voice, and I’ve seen orang-utans that wore clothes better.  I didn’t recognise Val’s accent but that wasn’t surprising.  The Slav Commonwealth is like ninety countries, some of them no bigger than your front yard, and every one of them has its own language. 

            He was smiling at me.  It was a hopeful sort of smile and I didn’t like it, because it probably meant this dinner was important to him too, and I’d already decided I didn’t like him.  Or his big (wiggly) shadows.

            The darkness, or whatever it was, had seemed to retreat a little, or maybe press itself down nearer the floor where it wasn’t so obvious, as he stepped forward.  I actually peered over his shoulder as if I was looking for someone, or maybe something, but I couldn’t see anything, although the nearest streetlight seemed farther away than usual.  I looked back at him and I thought his smile had changed.  He was looking at me too hard behind the smile.  I thought of all those fairy tales where once you invite the evil magician over your threshold you’d had it.  But I hadn’t invited him.  He’d just come in, and I’d given way.  Did that count?

            Probably.

            Hey.  This is Newworld.  We don’t have magicians in Newworld, evil or otherwise. . . .           

 

KES, 43

FORTY THREE

 

The pear and ginger crumble was awesome.  Gus and I agreed.  “You could come back,” said Gus to me.  “Mom never cooks any more.  It’s all take-out and microwave.”

            “Children,” said Serena with feeling, putting tea mugs on the table.  “What was the moussaka last weekend?  Ground glass and arsenic?  The ham and pea soup two days ago?”

            “Well, you don’t cook often enough,” said Gus.  “You’re as good as Ryuu.  Your chocolate cake is better than Ryuu’s.”

            Serena peered at him suspiciously.  “Are you buttering me up—you should forgive the phrase—so I’ll say yes about the web site?”  She added spoons, a sugar bowl, a little jug of milk, and a large teapot covered by a knitted cosy.  The cosy was made of big fat round loops.  The overall effect might have been Ouroboros.  Perhaps after the boa constrictor I was a little turned on to snakes.    

            “Is it working?” said Gus. 

            “Serenart sounds like a drug for acid indigestion,” I said.  “Um.  The Art of the Impossible?  It would be nice to get the boa constrictor in though.” 

            “It might work as wallpaper,” said Gus.  “I’ll try it.  It might be cool to have it look like the photos of the stuff for sale are all stuck to the boa constrictor.”

            Serena started to laugh.  “All right,” she said.  “All right.  Whatever.  I will go to Godzilla tomorrow and lay in supplies because there are going to be additional teenage boys here this weekend.  But I doubt that I think it will look cool to have photos stuck all over my boa constrictor, so you’d better have a back-up plan.  Don’t you have to spend some time mowing?”

            “It’s still kind of early in the year,” said Gus.  “The grass isn’t growing really hard yet.  So yeah, but I have plenty of time to work on a web site—and get started cutting stuff down if you want,” he added to me.

            “Home —” began Serena.

            “I did most of my homework in study hall,” said Gus.  Serena looked at him.  He looked back.  She looked away first.

            “I can bring him over Sunday afternoon,” said Serena.  “If you bring him home I’ll feed you again.  I think I feel a coq au vin coming on.”

            “Awesome,” I said. 

            “And chocolate cake?” said Gus.  “With caramel frosting.”

            “I’ll think about it,” said Serena.  “Kes, unless you’d like some scrambled eggs since Gus seems to have eaten everything else, I really will take you back to the Friendly Campfire.”

            “I’ll load the dishwasher,” said Gus.

            “Why, thank you,” said Serena.  “We’ll tiptoe out of here before he regains his senses.  I’ll be about fifteen minutes.”

            The cold spot embraced me fondly on my way to the front door, but Serena was silent and I, aware that in fact I had only met her yesterday and couldn’t guess what she was thinking, didn’t say anything either.  We were turning out of the driveway when she said:  “You think this web site idea is a good idea.”

            “My world and the art world are two different things.  What I think has about as much relevance as what Robert Pattinson thinks of the school lunch program.  But yes.  I think it’s a good idea.  Do Gus and his friends know about—uh—search engine rankings and stuff?  How to get your site noticed?”

            Serena sighed.  “I have no clue.”  She was silent again and then said:  “I used to mess around with photography.  Every time Larry pissed me off I took up another art form.  I’ve probably tried every medium but beer can tabs and plastic yogurt pots.  Maybe I’ll like taking pictures of my own stuff.”

            “Good luck,” I said, a little helplessly.

             “You aren’t escaping that easily,” said Serena.  “I will expect critical and exacting input at every stage . . .”  she glanced at me.  “Well, as long as it amuses you.  I don’t usually adopt the Friendly Campfire’s clientele, you know.  I just so remember driving away from what had been home and future with everything I still owned in the back of a van, wearing that sort of stunned expression I keep thinking I see on your face.  You at least are spared the screaming two year old.  Fourteen years ago.  Sometimes it still seems like yesterday.  Until I look at the grocery bill.”

            She pulled into the Friendly Campfire lot, and I climbed out.  All you could see of cabin seven was a white van with a screaming skull arcing down the side panel—mercilessly vivid under a badly-placed streetlight—and Merry, looming over all.   “Good night,” I said to Serena.  “And thanks.  I like your kid.”

            “He’s pretty great, isn’t he?  Stubborn little tick though.  Can’t imagine where he gets it.”  She grinned.  “See you tomorrow, I guess, when you check out.”

            I walked slowly toward my cabin.  There was my rose-bush, peeking out from behind the van.  Tomorrow, I thought at her. 

            The streetlight that was so ruthlessly illuminating the van’s ornamentation was also casting a very odd shadow from my rose-bush onto the door of the cabin.  I was suddenly very tired, and I had already put my foot on the first step up to the porch when I realised that the rose-bush shadow was unfolding itself from where it had been lying on the doormat.

            It stood up.  It looked at me.

            It flattened silky black ears and gently, gracefully, waved a long fringed black tail. 

            “Oh,” I said.  “Hello.”

They let me near some bells, part one – guest post by Catherine

 

I wore a pretty grey top* with white lotus flowers that had been batiked or tie-dyed or bleached down the left side of it and has been in my wardrobe for months** because I’d been saving it for something special. It hadn’t made it to the theatre yet, but first bell ringing outing seemed absolutely special enough, so, that Thursday night I took it out and built an outfit. It included my amethyst earrings from my mum, she’s got so much encouraging, positive energy for me so I always wear them when I want a little boost of that, and my pink kate spade bangle. I didn’t realise until I put it on Friday morning how apt the choice was, the inscription inside is: COME FULL CIRCLE***

The day had been a mix of excitement and anticipation and slightly surreal moments**** and curiosities† and eeep because new people and finding out I was writing this blog post(!). So, after walking Chloe and having dinner†† I set off to the church:

Last week, on my where-is-it visit it was grey and grim and I was about 50/50 on the spiffy vs creepy factor. Friday evening, in sunshine, it’s definitely spiffy.†††

We shall call it St Square, as my brain isn’t feeling overly clever and it is rather square in shape. I picked St Square for two very practical reasons 1-accessible without car, as I don’t drive, and 2-a practise night I had free. Hurrah that there was a tower to meet these requirements! Anyone who followed the discussion of how I got this far on the forum will know I went for handbells (which are new for the group) and then tower bells as they were offered together.

So I arrived and took some photos for you and the handbells teacher (and her daughter) arrived while I was trying to take nice pictures and not stand on any graves. I’m not going to give any one an alias because I am going to have enough trouble learning their names without giving them second ones, so we’ll use initials. G is the teacher and C is her daughter. She seemed very pleased with a new student and drafted me into setting up the bells. There were going to be enough of us to ring on twelve, so that’s what we took out.

Handbells are rung up near the altar, inside the rood screen, where there is space for all of us to line up in a row. By the time we’d finished setting up other people were arriving so I got to meet the tower captain, J, and a few other women. One of them was S‡ and they all seemed rather pleased to meet me. I’m not sure quite how much of it was genuine pleasure to meet someone who was interested in bells and how much was the maniacal glint at the prospect of fresh blood. There were definitely both in several people (who turned out to be the tower crowd). Handbells is all female, or at least it was tonight.

It was only the second lesson for everyone else, so I’m not far behind, as I am, obviously, in the tower. We’re not doing methods on handbells, it’s tunes. I’m not sure if this is because everyone is beginning and you have to start somewhere relatively easy or if it’s what G knows. I found I don’t care about the reason; it was fun and surprisingly straightforward. We wound up not doing all twelve because some weren’t up to two bells, which worked fine to start and then got very complicated later!

We warmed up with a bit of Queens (well rounds to start, then 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, repeat‡‡). I actually found myself struggling more with the foot-tapping (to keep the beat) G wanted us to do to keep time‡‡‡ than I did with the bells. I rang the three-four pair and cheerfully settled in. I will need to watch the weight of the bells I work with and the carpal tunnel in my left hand; there is a noticeable difference in what I can do between hands. To me anyway. But I did it, and we rang Happy Birthday and I did that, too. And enjoyed it! Then we swapped around and, somehow, I wound up with eight-nine. That was when it got complicated. I was glad to notice that swapping wrong-footed everyone a little but I felt like I was thinking backwards, especially in Queens, which I suppose I was. Still, we carried on and were sounding good by the end of practice. D, who had arrived for tower practise, said so. I have signed up to carry on every week.

The evening continues in part two, where we head into the tower!

* * * * *

* Yes, I’m a bit of a fashionista. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Costume Design and a Masters in Fashion Curation and, for me, the clothes really matter. They contribute significantly to how I experience life and are part of expressing not only who I am, but how I am who I am on any given day, so that’s why they’re here.

** Three, at least. Long enough for me to have bought it full price at Anthropologie and it to have then gone into the sale room, through further reductions and disappeared completely a month or two ago.

*** http://www.polyvore.com/kate_spade_new_york_come/thing?id=50104110 I have a slight… addiction to kate spade. But that’s a whole other topic. I didn’t wear it while ringing, it went in my pocket, but I wear several (see: slight addiction) on a daily basis and kept the one I don’t take off on, firmly wedged up my arm where it obligingly stays.

**** Like ordering Steve Coleman’s Bellringer’s Early and Bedside Companions, as CathyR had recommended to me, and when I phoned up having the man himself answer. He was lovely and pleased and I was slightly startled (you just don’t expect things like that), but I should have them in Saturday’s post.^

^ I’m now about halfway through the Early Companion and I am finding it interesting reading. The style is a bit too conversational for me and I wouldn’t mind more practical/technical geekery and less casual chat, but I am sifting useful things out of it. I do suspect some of it will make more sense when my ringing catches up with my reading.

† I finally picked up the Victorian gilt picture frame that is going to have some art woven into it and then be hung in my sitting room.

†† The Giant Chocolate Meringue is for after.

††† I’m still glad I’ll have time to get used to the place before I have to start turning up in the dark, though.

‡ And I can’t remember the rest, alas. I used to tell my students I can only learn so many names at once, wait your turn. Remembering six names in total is a record for me.

‡‡ While in handbells we’re using Queens as a warm up, like scales with other kinds of music, it is (as our esteemed hellgoddess has explained to me, and would like me to explain to you^) actually a call-change pattern used by method ringers in the tower. I have no idea why we’re doing it in handbells, other than in place of scales (and we’re not calling any changes to get into the pattern, we’re just doing it) to warm up, and I’m not far enough along to have rung it in the tower yet (where the calls into it will exist).

^ Perhaps to check I’ve understood? I think I have…

‡‡‡ This is directly related to the fact that I did colour guard^ in high school, the flag spinning (not twirling, twirling is a dirty word in colour guard) that goes along with the marching band. All of that counting (usually in sets of eight, according to the tempo of the music) is done by marking time (how you move your feet, with a slight rocking in the heels, to keep in time if you’re not marching) your left foot counts all the odd-numbered beats, so you start with the left as one, and the right foot on the even-numbered beats. If you’ve ever heard someone shouting left-right-left-right-left at a group of people marching it’s the same principle. I did guard for four years and could probably still mark time in my sleep. Marking time is easy; I don’t have to think about it. One foot tapping completely threw me off, because I’m used to using both.

^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_guard_%28flag_spinning%29

The Story of Chaos (and Darkness), Part Two

 

I don’t remember how that first conversation with Lucinda went.  What I remember is that there was a very high blither factor at my end and it is probably a credit to her faith in humanity—or in people who want sighthound puppies—that she didn’t suddenly remember that all eight [sic*] puppies already had homes to go to.

            I remember she told me they were seven-eighths whippet and one-eighth deerhound.  Their mom, her bitch, was one-quarter deerhound.  The dad was not only pure whippet, but a major doodah doodah pedigreed whippet with lots of red lettering** in his background.  The other thing I remember is that she asked me, sounding worried, if I wanted a bitch or a dog.  Preferably a bitch, I said.  There are only two bitches and they’re both already taken, she said.

            Whatever, I said.***  Then I’ll have a boy.

            And I made an appointment to visit them. †  The next day.  Well, puppies get older fast.

            Both girls and the two biggest boys†† were spoken for.  They were four or five weeks old when I first saw them—when she first advertised them†††— they were already fairly mobile and getting into things.  I was met by several of them after I’d toiled to the top of the hill‡ and stepped over the Puppy Proof Wall‡‡.  Fresh blood! they cried in one voice, and fell on me in a body. 

            Lucinda gave me a cup of tea and introduced me to the mom, Tarantara, and Doofus, an old Labrador who was moderately willing to put up with someone else’s puppies so long as it meant that all the extra visitors also paid attention to her.  Then Lucinda began pointing out the four that still needed homes, and I sat down at puppy level to await developments.

            Whereupon a little dark-steel-grey puppy with a few white toes and some white on his chest left the puppy-mob which was disembowelling an innocent terrycloth towel with a knot in it or similar, came pretty much straight up to me, threw himself on my All-Stars and began savaging my shoe-laces.  Well, said Lucinda.  That looks like a choice then.

            Yes, I said, tickling his tummy.  I’ll have this one. 

            Having got as far as deciding that apparently I was going to have a dog again, I still hadn’t made up my mind about whether I should have two dogs.  See:  control freak and obsessive.  Two dogs means they have each other for company and the burden of putting up with a control freak obsessive for an owner is halved.‡‡‡  Lucinda told me that there was some question about the future of one of the bitches, because her putative owner had just changed jobs/houses§ and she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to have her after all.  If she couldn’t, the little bitch would come available again—and Lucinda should know one way or the other by the end of the week. 

            This was now Thursday or Friday.  I arranged to ring Lucinda on Monday about the bitch.

            Darkness was mine.  He had already put in for me and I take this kind of thing seriously.§§  The question was only about a second dog.§§§  So I went home and laboured over the question of the second dog, and decided EMPHATICALLY AND ABSOLUTELY that if the bitch was available, I would take her.  AND IF SHE WAS NOT AVAILABLE I WOULD ONLY HAVE ONE DOG.

            Right.

            So on Monday I rang Lucinda.  The bitch is going to her original person, said Lucinda.

            Oh, okay, I said.  Oh well.

            But, she added.  One of the boys is still available.

            I am so pathetic.  I didn’t even think about it.  I said IMMEDIATELY, May I come see him?

            Of course, she said.

            I leaped in Wolfgang and we tore off toward East Persnickety.  It was a cold wet day and the puppies were all indoors.  There was my Darkness.  Hey, good news, you’re going to have a friend.  Lucinda ferreted around for a moment and then picked up one of the fawn-coloured ones.  This one, she said.

            I’ll have him, I said.

            You don’t have to, she said, as I reached for my second puppy.  There are several people on the list I haven’t rung yet.#

            Mine, I said.  Mine, mine.  I then sat down on the floor and played Lapful of Two Puppies games for . . . kind of a lot of the afternoon.  Lucinda didn’t seem to mind.##  Darkness quickly showed Chaos what to do with shoe-laces.  Lucinda gave me another cup of tea. 

            She had given me kind of a lot of cups of tea by the time I took them away at eight weeks.###

            The rest is history.% 

* * *

* Sighthounds and lurchers run to large litters.  Twelve is not uncommon.  Twelve. 

** Which in British pedigrees seems to mean Kennel Club champions.  Don’t remember what they do in the States.  It’s been a very long time since I tangled with a pedigreed American dog. 

*** LOCAL SIGHTHOUND PUPPIES.  I CAN VISIT THEM.  SIGHTHOUND PUPPIES. 

† VISIT.  LOCAL SIGHTHOUND PUPPIES.  VISIT. 

†† This litter had a Big Boy instead of a Big Girl, and he was big.  I totally don’t want any big bruiser types, so this was fine with me. 

††† She and her husband were both vets, although they work on the admin side.  But they weren’t doing the ‘oh, we have a bitch, let’s breed her’ la-la-la thing.  They had three people who wanted a puppy, and they wanted one themselves.  If Tarantara had had a nice sensible-sized litter like Olivia’s Lavvy, Lucinda wouldn’t have had to advertise at all. 

‡ They live a little outside East Persnickety, where I started trying to learn to ring bells the first time.

‡‡ Which got a good deal higher in the three or so weeks that I was visiting regularly. 

‡‡‡ I was not a gentle, relaxed personality before I got Rowan, but Rowan had major separation anxiety which didn’t help the balance of my mind either, plus in those days the  ‘treatment’ for separation anxiety was basically to ignore your dog all the time.  What’s the point of having a dog if you can’t talk to it, pet it, or have it on the sofa with you? 

§ I may very well be remembering this wrong, but what I think I remember is that the woman worked in the horse world, her housing came with her new job, and there was some question whether another dog would be welcome in her new yard.

§§ If Olivia is right about the personality swappage going on in Lavvy’s litter, if we tried this with them we’d have to try it four times, to ensure that I was chosen once by each puppy.^ 

^ If Southdowner is reading this blog, she’s probably shouting at her screen:  THAT’S NOT THE WAY TO DO IT.  THAT’S TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE.

            There, there.  The hellhounds and I have been very happy together (mostly) and you have Olivia firmly under your thumb. 

§§§ And these were not valuable potential show dogs.  I would be assuming that one of them would be neutered, probably the girl after her first season. 

# I met one of them while out hurtling half-grown hellhounds.  Oh, she said, those aren’t the whippet lurchers^ from East Persnickety are they?  Yes, I said.  You bought two of them? she said.  You are so lucky.  I was too late. 

^ As I said last night, almost no one uses ‘longdog’ unless you’re in the biz.  

## It’s a big kitchen. 

### They threw up in the car.  Of course.  I was amazed to discover that not everyone’s puppies throw up in the car.  I thought that was just what puppies did, like crap on the floor and destroy shoe-laces. 

% I told Southdowner, the dog behaviourist, this story and she said nonsense, they handled him differently after they knew he had a home.  Well . . . she’s the professional.  But I like the amateur version.  Lucinda said that Chaos had a complete personality change from that afternoon:  that he’d been the shy retiring one^, and that after that he became all jolly and bold and . . . a pain in the neck.  As if he knew.  And maybe they did handle him differently.  But a lot of the handling and socialisation was being performed by Lucinda’s teenage daughter and her friends^^, who were (said Lucinda) being very careful to handle all the puppies—and didn’t want to know who was buying whom because she/they couldn’t bear the idea they were leaving.  

^ CHAOS.  SHY AND RETIRING.  SHY.  AND RETIRING.  I NEED A STIFF DRINK. 

^^ Lucinda did the clean-up.  The kids did the fun stuff.

The Story of Chaos (and Darkness), Part One

 

After the whippets died, and we had never really got over the loss of the first one and then the second two died quite close together three years later, I fell into the slough of despond and wondered if I should even have dogs again.  We’d moved into town by then because the big ramshackle house in the country was getting beyond Peter (and I am NO use at DIY, that’s NO USE) and he felt that having passed his three-quarter-century mark he’d like to work a little less hard.  The next dogs, if there were going to be next dogs, were going to be my problem and my responsibility . . . and one or two of you regular readers out there may have noticed that I possess certain aspects of control freakery and obsessiveness.*  Maybe I should limit myself to rose-bushes.

            Anyone who has ever lost a companion animal knows that it takes you a while to get over that individual loss because it’s not some generic companion animal thing, it’s your friend, it’s your Fuzzy or your Flossie or your Fang.  So while part of me was saying ‘I can’t go through this again’** part of me was also keeping an eye on ads in the local papers and curly notecards pinned to the bulletin boards inside the front door of the local library and the local Tesco’s.  And there were puppies, but there weren’t any sighthounds.  There were never any sighthounds.  Oh, well, fine, I thought, I’m not sure I want another dog.

            Six months later I was tired of hurtling by myself.  That summer I dragged poor Peter to several big summer shows and fairs with lurcherworld*** classes and also began compulsively reading the puppy ads in the back of Countryman’s Weekly†.  There are plenty of sighthounds, lurchers and longdogs†† out there but none of them are around here.  And I wanted to visit my puppies—I didn’t want to show up at the train station or whatever and take possession of some terrified unknown scrap cowering in the back of a carrier.†††

            I still wasn’t sure I was getting another dog.‡  But I was starting to become a trifle cranky that the getting, supposing getting moved into the ‘active’ column, was proving so difficult. 

            At this interesting juncture I met another of those The Most Beautiful Dog I Have Ever Seen, out hurtling one day.  I was aware that the greyhound-rescue system is lively and extensive‡‡ but I hadn’t really got my head around it:  I’ve always had puppies, so I think in terms of puppies.‡‡‡  This Most Beautiful Dog had a nice owner too, who was more than happy to chat about his fabulous dog§ . . . and (having established that I was a sighthound owner without a current sighthound) offered to introduce me personally to TMBD’s breeder, who always took her own dogs back when they came off the track so that she could see they went to good homes.

            And I had just about settled it in my own mind that this was what I was going to do.  I was going to adopt a rescued greyhound§§.  As I like to tell the story, I had my hand poised over the phone to ring Mr TMBD and ask him to make the appointment when . . .

            . . . there was an ad in the local paper for sighthound puppies:  Whippet crosses, it said, gentle pets§§§.  And (as I also usually tell the story), I made a little hole in the floor diving for the phone. . . . 

TO BE CONTINUED

* * * 

* Of course this will come as a surprise to most of you.^ 

^ Right?   

** Which is why when I brought two hellhound puppies home I swore I was going to bring another puppy home before they got old.^  You’re going to lose some of your friends to death before death comes for you, but when you lose a human friend you don’t decide never to have human friends again.  Most companion animals live traumatically short lives from the perspective of the humans that mourn them but my own feeling about it is that the shock of ‘I’m not doing this again’ is less about life expectancy than it is about the either/or of having critter of choice underfoot or . . . not. 

^ If not quite so long before they got old as this frelling October. 

*** http://www.lurcherworld.info/ 

† http://www.countrymansweekly.com/

I’m afraid I still read it, for Penny Taylor’s weekly lurcher articles.  I usually read the working ferret^ and falconry stuff too. 

^  Yup.  Working.  It’s legal here. 

†† A lurcher is a sighthound^ crossed with something that isn’t a sighthound.  A longdog is a sighthound crossed with some other kind of sighthound.  My hellhounds, being whippet/deerhound, are technically longdogs, but everybody’s heard of lurchers and no one’s heard of longdogs.  Usually I call them lurchers because it’s easier. 

^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sighthound

††† Or biting the wire door and screaming. 

‡ I wasn’t even sure the dog I might not be getting was a sighthound.  I did think about other breeds.  I rejected border collies because they need stuff to do.  They need stuff to do all the time.^  If I led a simple life with a lot of free time in it I’d get a border collie and teach it to dance.  But I don’t.  I need something that wants to hurtle a couple of hours a day and will spend the rest of the time happily holding down pieces of floor/sofa.^^  I discarded bullies and Staffies because of the fighting-dog thing, and Dobermanns and Alsatians because of the guard dog thing.^^^  If Southdowner or Fiona# bred Staffies or Dobermanns I’d probably be getting a Staffie or a Dobermann.  I believe that a lot of the Perfect Dog situation derives from a breeder who knows what she’s doing and the breed in question is almost secondary.  I feel I’ve lucked out that I have a friend who breeds fabulous something-that-appeared-on-my-short-list.  The something happens to be bull terriers but hey.## 

^ Ask b_twin. 

^^ Yes.  I know.  I have an interesting feat of negotiation coming with Pavlova/Crumpet/Scone/Fruitcake.  

^^^ No, I discarded Alsatians because of the hair.  According to friends who have them—so I had good breeder recommendations available—the good-natured healthy Alsatians any more are the ones that look like bears.  I like bears fine, but I don’t want the upkeep of a medium-sized Grizzly. 

# No, Fiona is supposed to be opening a yarn shop.~ 

~ Speaking of the mouse opening the cheese shop, the junkie opening a pharmacy, etc  

## I am very grateful they are mini bull terriers—however with reference to the fact that mini-bull breeders keep adding in some standard blood—if Pavlova/Crumpet/Scone/Fruitcake grows large, there will be language.^ 

^ By the time it’s galloping around the house with the kitchen table on its back because it’s grown too large to go under, it will be too late, it will be MINE.  

‡‡ A friend who knows I knit and has a somewhat flattering idea of both my skill and my speed, told me that she’s knitting rescued sighthound jackets for these people and that I might like to too: http://www.erinhounds.co.uk/   Sigh.  There are a million knit-for-charities out there but yeah, if I were going to knit for a critter charity, this is probably what I’d go for.  I might even go for a dog.  

‡‡‡ Puppies mean you can make your own dog-rearing mistakes.  However as I was telling Southdowner as she deposited me—trembling and wild-eyed^—back at the Birmingham train station last Saturday, when it’s time for the generational roll-over with Fruitcake/Scone/Crumpet/Pavlova, I will be OLD, and a nice rescue that has its mad youth behind it sounds very appealing. 

^ But not biting the door or screaming

§ Who had a pedigree to die for, and who had full siblings who won everything, said his owner fondly.  Not him.  He couldn’t bothered.  He had the family turn of speed but used it only often enough to make the humans involved shriek and rend their garments.  

§§ Although I was not looking forward to housebreaking something that produced 80-pound-dog sized excrement.   Holly, from the previous generation, was a rescue, but she was five months old when we got her and weighed twenty-two pounds full grown.

§§§ ::semi-suppressed hilarity::

KES, 42

 

FORTY TWO

 

“—I should write it down or I’ll forget,” said Serena.  She pulled a small sketchbook from the pile on the end of the table and opened it.  There was something that looked rather like one of Edward Gorey’s unknown-to-biological-science creatures on the first page.  “And . . . Albertine—?”

            “Aldetruda,” I said.  “Her most recent is BLOOD WHITE MOON.  Not that I wish to take business away from a live bookstore with a door and shelves and human fingerprints on the stock and everything, but if you wait a few weeks I can give you copies of anything you like.  I’ve got most of my backlist in a friend’s storage space, back in the city.  I promised to reclaim it as soon as I had a place to put it.  Not having realised I’m going to need it to build furniture out of.  Fifteen book boxes and a tablecloth and I’ve got a sofa.”

            “I don’t wish to diminish the possibilities of furniture-building,” said Serena.  “And Bookfolly should be encouraged to respond to the needs of its community.”

            “Okay,” I said.  “On your wallet be it.  I’ll warn you about the cover art later.  Or maybe I’ll just let it be an education in the ways of genre, and a dreadful awakening to the fact that there may be worse things than Schnauzers in dresses.  And Gus, let me know the minute your mom’s web site goes live,” I added.  “I plan to be one of your first paying customers.”  

            “That shouldn’t be hard,” said Serena, “supposing that I agree to this, which I haven’t yet.”

            “We’re learning about market economy in Mr Friedman’s class,” said Gus.  “This house is way full of supply and we’ve just demonstrated a demand.  I’ll get Jin over here tomorrow.  We might have a basic working model up by Monday.”

            “It needs a name,” I said.  “The web site.  Since my names run to—well—you’ve heard examples of what they run to, I disqualify myself for this discussion.  Except to draw your attention to the fact that you should have it.”

            “Wicked awesome mom art,” said Gus, grinning.  “With boa constrictors.”

            “There’s only one boa constrictor and he’s not for sale,” said Serena.  “I learned everything I know about knitting in the eighteen months it took me to make him, as you will immediately see if you examine him.  A lot of his more exotic markings are a virtue of necessity.  And may I please remind you, preferably without raising my voice in an unattractive manner, that I still haven’t agreed to this?”

            “You just stipulated an item that is not for sale,” I said.  “That clearly implies there are other items that are for sale.”

            “Of course there are other items for sale!” said Serena.  “If I had a real live three-dimensional gallery with—with a door and shelves and human fingerprints on the stock, I’d finish a lot more and lots and lots of it would be for sale!”

            “I think she’s raising her voice,” I said to Gus.  “Does this count as raising her voice?”

            “Pretty much,” Gus said judiciously.  “Although she can get a lot louder.”

            “Exceptions are made for mothers who come home to flames shooting out the living-room window because someone had set a hot pan of just-made popcorn on the sofa and then wandered away.  At which point, after beating out the flames, I bought a plug-in air popper, which I had to ask for at Moriarty’s Department Store in a small hoarse voice.” 

            “That was years ago,” said Gus.  “I don’t do stuff like that any more.”

            I’d had enough experience with Norah and her kids to know to insert hastily:  “What happened to the sofa?”

            Serena, eyeing her son with disfavor, said, “Oh, it’s still there.  I patched the worst of the burns, turned the cushions over, and bought a throw.”

            “Maybe Rhys can come over too,” said Gus, unconcerned.  “Then we could have something really awesome by Monday.”

            Serena put her head in her hands.  “Why did I think it was a good idea to invite a poor lost lonely new person in town to dinner?  It seemed like a kindly, welcoming act.  I am punished for my hubris.”

            “I’m sorry,” I said, genuinely feeling rather guilty.  “The gremlin made me do it.  Er—do you want to take me back to the motel?”

            Serena turned the same dour look on me she had been using on her son.  “Do you mean is this the moment when I turn you out the door and tell you to find your own way, and then tomorrow report you missing?  No.  You are required to stay long enough to eat some pear and ginger crumble and tell me, with some semblance of enthusiasm, how good it is.  The convincingness of your enthusiasm will determine whether I take you all the way back to the Friendly Campfire or if I stop at the edge of town and let you walk the final half mile.  I should perhaps add that there are sidewalks for only the last three blocks.” 

 

Bullie bullie bullie continued continued continued

 

Stardancer

I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT! You loved those puppies far too much to wait all the way until next year. It’s Destiny, or Fate, or just The Way It Had To Be. 

glinda

Is there anyone reading the blog who didn’t see this coming? ::grin:: 

Well, hindsight is a wonderful thing.   You do need to remember however that this isn’t a box of kittens/puppies with a FREE TO GOOD HOME label.  There did have to be a puppy available. 

            And then I could be a totally powerless and besotted wuss. 

EMoon

I KNEW IT! I KNEW that would happen!! (Puts big mark on scoreboard of “Guessing Right” We will ignore all the blank squares.) 

Snork.  Oh, how I know this feeling.  Conversation over the supper table at the old house about fifteen years ago:  Hey, I’ve had a great idea for a short story about a pegasus.  I know it’s going to go, because I know the first line:  Because she was a princess she had a pegasus.  —Well, I did have a good idea for a story about a pegasus.  So I was a little wrong about the ‘short’. 

I knew it because people who complicate their lives continue to complicate their lives (you don’t have to ask me how I know: I’ll tell you. It’s how come I have two unrideable horses and one nearly unrideable mountain bike and managed to fall off a non-moving non-mountain bike in a shop yesterday, almost-nearly taking down a standing display with four bikes hanging off it.) 

And you KNIT.  Don’t forget the KNITTING.  (Knitting is good.  You can knit while resting your bruises on the sofa.)

You were doomed when you first posted about those pups–probably the moment when you first agreed to go see those pups. Ditto knitting, writing, gardening… 

And singing.  Which is your fault.*  And I probably was doomed from meeting Hazel, whom Southdowner brought to that first London signing, um, four years ago?  I think.  I think it was about a year after this blog first rumbled underway.  I’ve spent the last four years hoping that Southdowner would breed Hazel.  Hey, maybe Olivia and Lavvy will inspire her and next year . . . wait a minute.  A litter from Hazel?  My original crush?  NOOOOOOOOO.  I don’t need two bull terriers.  The hellhounds and I, trampled and broken, would have to leave the country.

             But there’s something very attractive about having a complicated life.  Attractive:  you know, like black and fawn dog hair and your pale grey skirt.  Like beet juice and your white t shirt.

Lucky puppy. Lucky hellhounds (though they won’t realize it yet.) 

I have a vision of hellhounds wedged into the gap between the kitchen cupboards and the ceiling, doing the canine equivalent of the bottlebrush tail and the hissing. 

shalea

Yaay, vicarious puppy adventures! 

::trembles::  Um.  Yes.  ::trembles more::  This may be the moment when I really do cut back on blog time.  I may declare a Weekly Puppy Photo Post Day. 

jmeadows

They’re ALL so cute! I can’t wait to see which one you get!  

Me too.  The suspense is killing me.  Not to mention making the compilation of long lists of potential names more arduous (and sillier). 

Diane in MN

Sympathetic congratulations.   

Snork.  Yes, how old is Teddy?  Younger than the hellhounds.  You are remembering puppyhood even more acutely than I am.  BUT BULL TERRIERS EAT.  UNLIKE HELLHOUNDS AND (SOME) GREAT DANES.  THIS WILL BE WORTH QUITE A LOT OF MANIA AND MAYHEM.  Unless of course my bullie turns out to be the only bullie who was ever born who doesn’t adore food with a single minded and passionate infatuation.  In which case I will leave the country.  And take up raising snow leopards in the Hindu Kush. 

Hopefully the hellhounds will be used to you coming home smelling like bullie puppies by the time you bring one home, and won’t think their new little sister is a stranger. 

I should stop washing my post-puppy jeans the moment I come through the door and let the hellhounds sleep on them.

I quite like the look in Pavlova’s eye. 

Yes, so do I!  I think Pavlova was the original Big Girl in which case I probably don’t want her or I’ll be joining the hellhounds on the top of the kitchen cabinets, but Olivia says that their personalities keep swapping around in a dizzying way, and I can attest that the size differential has pretty much disappeared.  Although Fruitcake may still be technically the smallest he has the biggest tummy.  The biggest tummy.  Southdowner calls him The Bulge On Legs.  

Horsehair Braider

Do you just go around grinning uncontrollably at the mere thought? Puppy bliss… 

Yes, except for when a bolt of pure terror runs through me and I think I WHAT?  And it’s too late now.  I can’t change my mind.  I’ve already told the BLOG. 

Fiona

I’m definitely not laughing over here, honest!!!

And when can I come and snuggle puppy?  

ANY TIME.  You can be part of the SOCIALISATION PROCESS.  This is EVEN MORE IMPORTANT IN BULLIES than in most . . . um, normal . . . dogs, because they’re so . . . um.  They would take over the universe if they were not brainwashed from birth to believe that humans are brighter/stronger/know how to open the dog food containers better than they do.  I’ve been wondering if I might take it bell ringing.  I don’t think the hellhounds would have appreciated this much, but their socialisation was also a bit curtailed by the whole digestive thing.  But I keep thinking about Nemo trotting briskly and interestedly through the Birmingham train station—or Hazel, wearing a pink feather boa, looking grandly and calmly around Soho, and accepting the tribute of the passers-by as merely her due. 

nickithomas

I too like the look of Pavlova but it could be that she’s just the most photogenic! I do know that we will all love whichever one it turns out to be. 

Yes, good, thank you, my attitude exactly!  Once it is mine it will be MIIIIINE!!!!  And photoing critters is such a . . . um . . . crap shoot.  When I looked at that photo afterward I thought, oh, wow, lucky with that one!  One of the things that was interesting about this visit is that Southdowner was trying to teach me to recognise what is a good head in a bull terrier puppy—you know they will grow up to have those extraordinary, unique egg-shaped bull terrier heads—and I can see it at once in the white ones, but was totally confused by the colouring on the two tricolours.  It took holding each of them with her head in the crook of my elbow so the little wedge shape showed to begin to see what Southdowner was talking about.  And this photo does that too. 

Mockorange

OOh! Exciting! Since Croissant was the only one we didn’t get a full picture of in that batch, I’m suspecting she may be the one you end up with.  

LOL!  Yes, that thought also occurred to me!  I’m going to look through the photos again and see if I may have overlooked a reasonably good one of Croissant. 

Melissa Mead

What’s the reason for not getting a boy? You seem quite fond of Fruitcake.  

I am fond of Fruitcake.  I slithered into this thinking if I was going to get a bullie, which of course I’m not, I wanted a girl—when I’ve been talking carelessly about a puppy next year I’ve been talking about a girl—despite the complications of mixed genders as described yesterday.  And this litter is three to one, so having a girl left over is a much better bet. 

              But when I met Fruitcake the first time, only because this was a litter from a bitch that Southdowner bred and I was already in love with two of her dogs, and besides, you know, puppeeeeeez, I thought well actually I wouldn’t mind another boy, BUT I’M NOT GETTING A BULL TERRIER PUPPY (at least not this year), THIS IS ALL FANTASY, SO I CAN THINK ANYTHING I LIKE, INCLUDING THAT THE ONE MALE PUPPY HERE IS DARLING.  (But then so are the girls.)  And so long as I could avoid hierarchical difficulties with the hellhounds, why not a third boy?**, and DID I MENTION THIS IS ONLY FANTASY SO I DON’T REALLY HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT?  Southdowner kept saying firmly that it’s all about socialisation and having a male bullie wouldn’t be a problem with two male hellhounds.  But now that I’m actually on the firing line here for a puppy Southdowner and Olivia have suddenly gone all po-faced and say that bullie boys usually make bullie girls look tame and quiet and that I’d be better off with a girl.  Feh.  As I keep saying, I’ll love whoever I end up with . . . but it would amuse me a lot if all three girls are sold and there is only one leftover . . . boy. 

AJLR

All I will say – apart from Puppeeeeez! – is, I am not one bit surprised. 

Well I admit I’m not really surprised either.  You know how when you are in the process of making a big decision—or maybe you aren’t like this because you are a sane, mature grown up who, for example, doesn’t knit, and therefore hasn’t developed a yarn stash that needs its own house in only a little over a year—there’s both that sense of NOOOOOOO LIFE IS TOO COMPLICATED ALREADY followed by and all tangled up with the sense of OH NEVER MIND I’VE DECIDED AND THEREFORE I WANT IT NOW.   So.  Yeah.  If there was a puppy available now . . . MINE.  IT’S MINE. 

I hope you, the Hellhounds, and the soon-to-be Hellpuppy, have long and happy years together. 

Thank you!

* * *

* It’s a good time to be surviving a new puppy while Nadia’s on maternity leave 

** Except of course it would be nice to have a full length of tummy to rub again.  Male tummies are unduly short due to complications at the farther end.

Bullie puppy bullie puppy bullie puppy. And a few bells.

 

Having a terrifying new nightmare* adventure rolling toward me like Boadicea’s spiked chariot . . . I mean, having the immediate** prospect of a delightful bull terrier puppy is obviously good for me. 

             I rang what passes in my case for not at all badly at the abbey this afternoon.***

             AND I FOUND MY LENS CAP.  It’s been missing for months.  I find it the day after my FIRST OFFICIAL VISIT to see MY puppy†?  This is clearly a sign. 

Melissa Mead

Do the boys get along with puppies in their space? 

I have no idea.  But they’re going to have to learn.  They adore puppies met out hurtling, but what they’ll do when they find out this one’s permanent and here may need to be negotiated tactfully.  I’m sure it’ll be okay eventually, I just don’t know how long eventually is going to take.  But to start with the New Member will be crated away from hellhounds, and all meetings will take place under my tyrannical eye. 

skating librarian

I am trying to imagine you taking them all for a hurtle. Can a bullie hurtle? 

Bullies are small square hurtle machines on little short legs that move in a blur.  They don’t have the hellhound capacity to be in Kent before I’ve taken a breath for the recall, but they certainly hurtle.  And I’m trying to imagine taking all of them for a hurtle too.  I asked Southdowner, pathetically, about hurtling three dogs, when the possibility of getting a puppy next year first came up and she said oh, you get used to it.  That’s really helpful, thanks.

            One of the things both Southdowner and Olivia keep trying to impress on me is that bullies have no off switch.  You do not want to wind a bullie up, because it will shortly enter orbit, wearing your roof as a hat.  One of my favourite memories of Southdowner coming here with attendant bullie (not Nemo, whom you met on this blog, another one, Southdowner has several) was watching her trying to get its harness put on before it BURST out of the back of the van.  First there was the frenzied scrabbling and mad barking as Southdowner opened the door, and then there was the rear view of Southdowner with bits of bullie shooting out first one side and then the other.  Ear.  Tail.  Head.  Foot.  Another foot.  Oh, there’s the head again . . .

            Yesterday Southdowner dropped me off at Olivia’s while she went to find a parking space.  Olivia was doing the washing-up and she said, you can go on into the puppy room but ignore Lavvy till she calms down a little.  Yes.  Well.  This was a little like ignoring a heat-seeking missile with your name on it, but I took the point.

            Speaking of Nemo . . . you may remember that the last time I took the train to Birmingham to look at bull terrier puppies I found an exit so obscure nobody, including station staff Southdowner asked for directions, knew it.  This time I was going to make a prodigious effort to come out some, you know, normal exit.  I was just about to get horribly lost again when . . . THERE WAS A BULL TERRIER.  A FAMILIAR BULL TERRIER.  I stopped in my tracks and yelled, Nemo!  Southdowner said smugly, I knew you’d see a bull terrier.  She was right—I would have walked straight past her. 

            But this is also the good side of the maniac outgoingness of the bull terrier.  Nemo wasn’t the least bit fazed by Birmingham frelling train station.  He was a lot less fazed that I was.  Granted he has been very very very well socialised but . . . he also has the personality.  Even very very very well socialised hellhounds would be miserable in a mob like that.  

Judith

Congratulations! I’m sure it will be a blast! (As well as the usual hell of puppyhood, with which we are all familiar, of course!)

Yes.  It’s too soon.  It’s only been six years—in, in fact, October—since the hellhounds arrived and I remember it all too clearly.  Noooooooooo. . . . And they were only hellhounds.  This is a bull terrier puppy.  Southdowner’s standard line about bull terriers is that they’re just like dogs, only more so. 

I got a Mastiff pup in April, and he’s the best, quietest, most well-behaved puppy I’ve ever had — housebreaking was a cinch, no separation anxiety, etc. — and I STILL was counting the weeks until those sharp puppy teeth fell out, and I’m STILL counting the months until he’s not a wild and crazy play monster and settles down… Yup — it’s all worth it. 

Well . . . your adolescent probably weighs four or five times what my mini bull terrier will weigh.  The gene pool for mini bullies is still fairly small so (as I understand it) they breed in a few standards to keep the lines strong.  One of Southdowner’s foundation bitches—from whom I believe Lavvy descends—is a standard.  I’ve met her.  She’s old and mellow and a sweetie, but she’s HUGE.  The first bullie I ever met, many years ago, and loved instantly, was also a standard and also HUGE.  They are built like tanks, or bulldozers.  The earth shakes when they gambol, and being bullies, they will gambol. 

            After the whippets died and I went into a Grey Fog of Dogless Despair, and which is why I was determined to do overlapping generations this time although I wasn’t planning on getting the next generation in quite so soon, I had a list of dog breeds or dog types I was considering.  I’ve told you before that I had my hand poised over the phone to ring up the greyhound rescue when I saw the ad in the paper for hellhound puppies††, and sighthounds/lurchers of some ilk were in first place.  But both bullies and Staffies were on my short list, both of them regretfully rejected because I wasn’t going to deal with a fighting breed. I’m thrilled I’m going to indulge the bullie fantasy after all, but I wouldn’t be if I didn’t know Southdowner, didn’t know that she or Olivia will answer questions and back me up if I need it, and hadn’t met several of Southdowner’s mad/charming bullies and have some sense of what they, or at least that branch of bulliedom, are like. 

            I also had thought the hellhounds might be my last puppies because puppies are labour intensive and I’m getting old.  So, right, this makes sense, I’m getting a puppy for my sixtieth birthday of a breed known to be extra labour intensive.  Never mind.  I can still do the rescue greyhound/ couch potato thing later.   

jjmcgaffey

Um. On the subject of “you do not want a male for your first bullie” – have they considered the fact that you have two entire males in your household (have you?)? Not a problem _this_ year, but unless you’re going to get her fixed (which I doubt, given her pedigree)… trouble down the line? 

Please.  I’m nuts, I’m not stupid.  She—supposing my first bullie is a she—will probably board with Southdowner while she’s in season.  No matter what the gender and personality mix I end up with however, hellhounds and bullie will not be left alone together at least till the bullie is past adolescence . . . which on conservative estimate will be two years or so, by which time if it’s a bitch, she’ll have come into season once or twice, and we’ll have the opportunity to find out how hot and come-hither she is, and whether the hellhounds notice, since some dogs and some bitches aren’t big into sex and procreation.  Although this is more a sighthound/lurcher thing and a bullie bitch probably will be swinging her hips and suggesting that they come up and see her some time. †††

            I think the deal is going to be that if I end up with a bitch that either Southdowner or Olivia would like to get a litter out of, I’ll keep her entire—do you say entire with girls?—till this feat is accomplished.  If she’s not worth breeding and she’s a problem when she’s on heat I’ll get her fixed after she’s had a season or two.  My default position is that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it—which is why the hellhounds are entire—so if she has nice tactful seasons she can keep her insides.  I realise this is how accidents happen but . . . well, actually bull terrier is a popular lurcher cross.  I met a quarter-bull three-quarters sighthound when I was casting around for lurchers that was about the most gorgeous animal I’d ever seen.  If he’d had puppies out of a plausible bitch available I’d’ve had one.  Or two.

             More tomorrow.  Yes, it’s true, the only reason I’m getting a puppy is for the blog material.  

* * *

* Friday night I kept dreaming about bull terrier puppies charging around a big sitting room with cream coloured carpeting.  Guess what happened to the cream coloured carpeting.  Last night I simply didn’t sleep.  

** IMMEDIATELY.  AAAAAAUGH.  Although even if I’d had a year’s run at it I’d probably still be melting down three weeks before the event. 

*** Warning:  ringing geekspeak follows.  I’m increasingly short of sleep due to a variety of stresses.  And while I had somewhat recovered myself at practice last Wednesday after ringing like a three-legged goat last Sunday^ I still went in today with a large sense of doom following like a balloon on a string.  And then there were ten or eleven of us^^ and I thought maybe I can just sit out and knit.

            But no, here was Scary Man, saying in a tired and resigned voice, Robin, come ring Grandsire triples.  And I did.  Scary Man did that encouraging/alarming teacher thing of not standing beside me Because I Could Do It Myself.  It was not a thing of beauty, as I usually say of my best ringing efforts, but it wasn’t embarrassing.  My impression is that Scary Man cheered up slightly at this point, gave me the treble for bob major and asked me what else I had been looking at, ie what other method I might like to try.  Blither blither, I said, um, bob triples or bob major?^^^  And he said, Stedman triples?#  Oh, yes please! I said, fool that I am, and I did go wrong, but I had help##, and it still wasn’t dreadful, and he’ll probably let me ring it again.  

^ An intellectually challenged three-legged goat.  

^^ Including a visitor I found on the doorstep.  Unless you’re St Paul’s or York Minster towers are usually pretty friendly . . . and the abbey lets me keep coming, after all.  So I brought him up, indicating which dark mullioned+ path led through the accumulated maze of twelve hundred years of history at which point, feeling a complete fraud, and turned him over at once to Albert.   

            It is perhaps worth noting that he was unusual in that he didn’t have to stop every 300 (vertical) feet, lean on a triforium or a reredos, and gasp.  I almost asked him if he had hellhounds he hurtled regularly. 

+ Well all right maybe not mullioned exactly 

^^^ Any ‘plain bob’ method is the shallow end of whatever follows:  so plain bob doubles is the first method you (usually) learn, five working bells and tenor behind;  bob minor is six working bells and likely the first minor method you learn.  Grandsire triples is usually considered more musical than bob triples and a lot of towers don’t bother teaching you bob triples at all, although Grandsire is harder.  Bob major is eight working bells, and so on.  The point is I was trying not to ask too much. 

# Which is a lot harder.  In theory I can ring a plain course.  In theory.  

## It’s easier to ignore someone going wrong when he’s not going wrong in your vicinity.  

† Whoever s/he is 

†† And I know I’ve told you that.  I really thought I’d told you about how I got Chaos as well as Darkness, but apparently not.  Okay.  I will.   Just not tonight.

††† Olivia says Lavvy really enjoyed getting it on

 

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

 

 

I went to Birmingham on the train again today.*  Southdowner picked me up at the station and took me off to Tiptoe on Cludge to play with Lavvy and her puppies . . .  again.  I’m spending kind of a lot of money and travel time on some random litter of puppies, aren’t I?  Even if they are southdowner’s grandpuppies** and as cute as a box of Green & Black’s.*** 

            Well. 

            Um.

            So . . . Olivia rang me up out of the blue this week.  Oh hi, I said, puzzled, since even if she were coming to Hampshire again with a load of the small, furry and four-legged, New Arcadia isn’t that much on her way, and it’s not like I’m one of her . . .

            Um.

            Olivia believes in cutting to the chase.  One of my buyers has dropped out, she said, and I might be able to talk her into changing her mind, but I don’t want to.  I want my puppies to go to people who really want them.

            Oh? I said, my mind instantly leaping off its flywheel and spinning till it smoked. 

            And I wondered if you might be interested, she went on.

            My mouth fell open.  I may have said ‘aaaaugh’.

            You don’t have to decide immediately, she said hastily.  But—well—you seemed fairly serious about wanting to be put on the list for next year, and I just thought . . . if you wanted to think about it and get back to me. . . .

            I don’t have to think about it, I said.  I want one. 

            Olivia laughed.  Southdowner seemed to think you might say that, she said.  But you really can take some time to think about it.  Talk to your husband or whatever.

            My husband will be delighted when he gets over the shock, I said.  He’s worrying about what to give me for my sixtieth birthday this autumn.  He can give me a puppy.

            So of course I had to go look at them again.  Olivia works insane hours, and pretty much my only opportunity to see them before they get much older was this afternoon.

            So I went this afternoon.

            Oh my gods I’m about to have a BULL TERRIER PUPPY.†

           

Upside down puppy. He looks pretty chilled. No, no! said Olivia. You don’t want a male for your first bullie!

I can’t go on calling them ‘white girl’, ‘coloured girl with broad blaze’, ‘coloured girl with narrow blaze’, and Little Prince Charming.  So in keeping with the food theme in this family . . .  Scone is the white girl, Croissant has the narrow blaze, Pavlova has the wide blaze, and the boy is . . . Fruitcake.

Scone. Plotting.

 

Fruitcake, getting on with his nap. Yes, he’s out cold. Are you sure he’s not truly and beautifully chilled? I said. NO, said Olivia and Southdowner in unison. YOU DO NOT WANT A MALE FOR YOUR FIRST BULLIE.

 

I nearly did a complete Photo Essay on Fruitcake Having a Nap because I find this so hilarious. (And I don’t care what the experienced bullie owners are saying, he is demonstrating a splendid natural floppiness.)

Pavlova keeping an eye an eye on you.

 

Scone, ready for some trouble. Yo, honey, I suggest you take out Mr Sausage Man behind you. I’m sure he’s up to no good.

 

I am AMAZED Lavvy is still putting up with them. They have TEETH. Ask me how I know this.

 

That level look again from a not-quite-so-tiny puppy as at Third House a fortnight ago.

Pavlova having a go at the sofa throw. Puppies may have 1,000,000 toys, but they still want to chew on you, your jeans, or the sofa.

 

Fruitcake, who is really excellent at sleeping.

I do have some puppies-in-action photos, but they’re mostly blurry:  this was indoors in poor lighting.  But I might post a few more anyway . . .

             PUPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ.  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

* * *

* Which was amazingly fine for a Saturday, until a bunch of drunk out of their gourds football hooligans got on at Barnstorming on the way back to Mauncester.  I hate Barnstorming.  Barnstorming is where the famous occasion when Peter and I nearly never made it home at all happened.  . . . Train staff?  Are you kidding?  They didn’t want to stick around to deal with this lot either.  Arrrrgh.  At least they were the friendly end of drunk. 

** In Fiona’s admirable phrase 

*** Anybody here not know that G&B makes my FAVOURITE DARK MINT CHOCOLATE, without which I CANNOT LIVE? 

† And no, I don’t even know which one!!!^  I don’t hang out with show dog quality much.  I’m used to the see-which-puppy-comes-up-to-you-I’ll-have-that-one school of choosing, plus performing a few probably bogus tests to help you avoid the pushy thug and the cringing neurotic.  Darkness came up to me immediately and started untying my shoes, and Chaos . . . you’ve heard the story of how I ended up with Chaos, haven’t you?  So as I’ve told both Olivia and Southdowner, I’ll love whoever I end up with, and two or three years from now I won’t be able to imagine anything else, like I can’t imagine life without Chaos (so to speak).  But apparently this is an unusually nice litter—Southdowner says that if you’re looking for breeding/showing quality you usually choose by discarding, and there are no obvious discards here.  So the head of the puppy-acquisition queue hasn’t quite made up their minds yet—and Olivia and Southdowner are both a little anxious about me as a first-time bullie owner, so of whatever’s left they’re going to give me the quieter one.  

^ Where am I going to PUT IT in my miniature book- and yarn-stuffed cottage?  I can’t move around in the kitchen now, because of the hellhound crate.  And what will the hellhounds think? 

             The puppies will be ready to go to their new homes the beginning of October.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH