Tag Archives: dogs

Jan 25 2013

30 Before 30: #10 Go Sledging

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If you’re daft enough to follow me on Twitter (and if you don’t, you should. I’m really very good at Twittering), you’ll know that on Friday and Saturday I was sulking because even though it was snowing in the UK, it hadn’t snowed enough for me to go sledging. To be more accurate – it had snowed enough to facilitate sledging almost everywhere else, but not where I live.

Sledging is one of my 30 before 30. It’s not that I haven’t been sledging before, I have – I did lots of sledging when I was a kid and when it used to snow lots. But that’s exactly the point. Maybe, when I was younger, I assumed that it would snow every year, and every year I could go sledging. Maybe I never quite realised that sometimes, it wouldn’t snow at all. And maybe I failed to realise that as I grew up, sledging would become much less of a priority and that there would even come a time where I might be considered “too old” to go sledging. Somehow, I’d never factored any of this in.

The last time I remember going sledging was with my brother in a nearby field. We built ramps out of the snow and even though I was so cold I felt like my fingers were going to drop off (despite the gigantic mittens my mum had sent me outside with), it was the most fun ever and it’s one of my fondest childhood memories.

After that, there was a bit of a snow lull for quite a few years. I mean it would get cold, it would get icy, it might even snow but it was only ever an icing-sugar dusting and would be gone again within a day or so.

Childhood disappeared, quickly followed by my teens and as I hit my twenties I realised I was growing up and there wouldn’t be another opportunity to go sledging, y’know because, I was becoming an “adult”. Worse still, I wouldn’t be able to go sledging with my brother in the field near our house because he was already an adult. A proper one. With a job and everything. Also, my parents had moved house so we didn’t live near that field anymore. And also the sledge went to a charity shop when my parents moved house. All things considered, it didn’t look I was going to go sledging ever again.

So I just got on with being a grown up. Soon, I had a job and paid taxes and went to the supermarket for my weekly shop and did things like report the faulty boiler to the landlord. Maturity brings a certain amount of responsibility. The older you get, the more responsibilities you get. The more responsibility you get, the less childish amazing fun stuff you can do. That’s just science.

Responsibility graph

Then, when I was in my mid-twenties, we had two really snowy winters. It was so snowy in both of those years, that I landed a WHOLE DAY off work in each year.

But I did not go sledging.

Perhaps, by this point, I’d admitted defeat. I must have waited twenty years for it to snow enough to go sledging with my brother and now we were adults and it wasn’t going to happen. So I just stayed home and watched DVDs.

Then we had a couple snow-free winters, and I kept catching myself looking out of the window and hoping it would snow enough to go sledging. So when I wrote my 30 before 30 list, I decided that ‘going sledging’ should definitely go on there. If it snowed again before I was 30, I would definitely go sledging and just get it out of my system.

So, fast-forward to Sunday. The light spattering of snow we’d had here was already disolving into a grey, icy mush. It looked very much like another sledge-free winter was going to pass me by.

Then my friend (also called Jo)and I arranged to take our dogs for a walk in a small town near the pennines… Where there was substantially more snow. “Shall I bring the sledge?” she asked.

This is all very mathmatical and complicated, so please consult the equation below:

Snow equation

Finally, I went sledging.

And I was chased my puppy Izzy (the one wearing a high-visibility dog coat) and my friend Jo’s dog, Dillon (the dog shaped one).

Sledging with dogs

Jan 3 2013

It’s Never Too Late to Surprise Yourself.

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In my previous post I talked about the ways in which I I might try to move forward with my life. I wrote a list of 30 things that I wanted to do before I turn 30, giving myself just over a year to complete all of those things. This was to inspire change: to do things I’ve been meaning to do but haven’t, and generally saying ‘yes’ to… well… doing more things outside of sitting around eating pizza.

A few days after I (finally) posted my list of 30 before 30 post, I came home with this:

ABC

An 8-week-old border collie puppy. A very cute 8-week-old border collie puppy… that needs toilet training, constant attention and an endless amount of expensive safe-for-puppy toys to chew on.

Did I mention that this decision came three-weeks before Christmas?

And that various family members would be staying with me over the festive season?

And that (with the exception of my SIL) no one in my family actually likes dogs?

Did I mention that I was very much a ‘cat person’?

Until recently, I didn’t like dogs. I wouldn’t say that I hated dogs, but at times I felt like I strongly disliked them.  I don’t like it when they bark for ages for no reason. It annoys me that every time you eat near a dog they beg or weep or pester you. I don’t like visiting people who have dogs that attack you the second you walk through the door, especially if its owner is all “DON’T WORRY HE’S JUST BEING FRIENDLY” and the dog is midway through chewing your hand off or something.

It’s probably the dog-owners I have a problem with – especially if their dogs are badly trained. I’ve always found dog-owners a little bit insane detached from reality smelly eccentric. The main offenders are the ones who treat their dogs like people. Or the ones who wear jumpers with pictures of dogs on them. Or the ones who have dog ornaments or pictures of dogs in every room of their house… Especially if every room in their house smells of dog… Especially, if they smell of dog and don’t realise… And ESPECIALLY , if you smell of dog after spending any time with that person.

Dog-owners whose lives revolve around their dogs can sometimes end up a little bit bonkers.

Because dog owners can be a bit bonkers, it goes without saying that their dogs are also slightly bonkers.

And bonkers dogs are unpredictable. If a bonkers dog is the apple of its owner’s eye, then it can do no wrong. So if you’re a small, unsuspecting child happily playing in the park and out of nowhere a dog bites your trouser leg and refuses to let go, chances are, its owner will take no responsibility  for the dog’s actions and, instead, blame you – a small, innocent child (called Jo) playing on the swings.

It is the attitude of so many unhinged dog owners that led to my extreme dislike of dogs.

And then a month ago, out of nowhere, I decided that I should really own a dog. I don’t know how this thought even entered my head – I can only assume that some kind of Derren Brown mind-trickery took place. Anyway, once the spontaneous thought had taken hold, it started to snowball… Rapidly.

The next day, I arranged to go see some puppies that were for sale.

By the end of that day, I had bought a puppy.

Four days later, I was living with a puppy.

And the weirdest part was, no part of me thought that what I was doing was weird. Even though it directly contradicted everything I thought I knew about myself.

Last July I wrote a list of things I wanted to do before I was 30. It took me nearly six months to commit to the idea and actually write about it. Yet committing to the responsibility that is owning, raising and taking care of a dog on a daily basis for the next twelve (ish) years (from someone who has spent their whole life disliking dogs) was totally not a problem.

Owning a dog wasn’t one of the things on the 30 before 30 list. In no way was owning a dog part of my life plans. I never, ever thought I would want (let alone actually get) a dog.

Despite all that, I’m quietly confident that this was most definitely a brilliant idea.

Don’t get me wrong, raising a puppy is hard work. It’s pretty much non-stop, never-ending, wall-to-wall responsibility. She’s cute, but she needs the toilet every 25 seconds, wants to chew everything, be best-friends with everyone and sniff ALL THE THINGS.

I’m beginning to look constantly dishevelled and harassed. My hair is even more of a disaster than it normally is, and I no longer bother wearing make-up or nice clothes because there really isn’t any point. I’m beginning to realise that being a dog-owner doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be eccentric. It’s just that living with a puppy makes you appear a little bit like you’ve totally lost your mind.

I suspect that by this time next year, I’ll be sporting knitwear with a dog’s face on it. And not in an ironic, hipster way.

While I’ll admit to being slightly more bedraggled and chaotic than I usually am,  I’m actually very happy in my new role as dog-owner. Strangely, it’s given me a sense of purpose.

So going from disliking dogs to owning one (within a couple of days) has been a pretty strange  turn of events. On reflection, it makes me wonder what other surprises life might have in store for me. Or, more to the point, I wonder in what other ways I might surprise myself.