My boy, Indy.

I am just going to post some pictures for now, I can’t type on my phone and I can’t access the pictures on my ipad. You gotta love technology!!

There will be a spread from across the years, a lot will include Indy’s late brother, Luca.

And a few selected solo pictures.

I will finish with a few of his childhood pictures.

The top one is Indy with his Mum, lis. The second and fourth include Beethoven who died 5 days after Indy.

I will do a better post when I can get some time on Julia’s laptop, there is a lot to say about the wonderful Indy.

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The Real Dog.

Today after a short illness we lost the most wonderful dog that ever lived. Indy commonly known as The Real Dog became ill about a month ago with what the vet thought to be a stomach bug, it turned out to be a tumour on his liver and spleen.

I will soon write a post about this remarkable dog but for now I have no words.

Indy was 13 1/2 years old.

Sad news… I have just learned that Indy’s last surviving sibling, Beethoven, died 5 days after Indy did. 😢

Beethoven (Baty) front right. 😘

A false start to spring.

We have just enjoyed about 3 weeks of lovely spring weather, it has gone chilly and wet now.

Hamish and I managed some lovely trips to the park where Hamish can run and explore to his hearts content.

We still have our portly lodger, Bella, she has lost a little weight and toned up some because of the long walks that she is now getting.

Bella’s human had to return to hospital for a week after her surgery when she picked up an infection. She is now recovering with family before returning home to be reunited with her Bella, I think they miss each other equally. 😊

While Julia was out shopping I was doing the pooch sitting duties. When I went to the bathroom they were all in their beds in the living room, when I returned ( all of two minutes later) I was met with this welcoming committee! 🤣😂

Our friend in Scotland who bred Indy sent me some pictures from when Indy was wee (almost 14 years ago)

Indy is on the left.

Indy laying down at the back.

And finally…….

Hopefully this will link to a video of Bella learning to tumble with Hamish.

https://youtu.be/rru9pjZX49o

Julia saves a life.

But first; it has been a very mundane start to the year with nothing of interest happening at all.

One of the women from our morning dog walking group has been unwell so we have looked after her dog a few times, she will be staying with us again next week when her human is in hospital for surgery.

This is Bella the rather portly Labrador.

Also, last month our friend, Peter sadly died. Peter was a member of our morning group along with his Love Underdog, Sunny. He will be greatly missed.

Now to Julia’s heroics.

2 days ago Julia was at the park with the walking group when it was noticed that one of the little pooches was missing! Archie is a miniature Schnauzer who likes to dawdle along at the back of the group exploring everything as he goes. The group split up with Julia and Hamish checking the stream that runs the length of the park. After searching a long stretch Hamish went part way down the steep bank, Julia went to where he was and found Archie almost completely under water! Only the top half of his head was above water and he was extremely panicked as he was stuck in the mud. Julia slid down the bank and into the stream and pulled him out. He was a very lucky boy, only the day before the water had been higher after some rain which would have probably drowned him. ☹️

Archie being tended at home by his canine brothers , Louis the Yorkshire Terrier and Buddy the Lhasa Apso.

Let’s hope that Archie is a little less adventurous in the future.

Health wise I am plodding on with no real changes since Christmas, maybe this year will be a better one. 😊

Back soon.

Christmas is back.

I waited and waited for something to happen worth blogging about, nothing did.

The only thing that came close to being worthy was when someone intended to rob me while I was out with Hamish, he soon changed his mind. I didn’t realise I was being robbed until it was over. 🤣

When Julia was away I had taken both of the woofers for a walk but Hamish needs more than Indy so I had taken him for some more. We were a couple of streets away from home when Hamish, who usually walks in front or at the side of my buggy, shot behind me snarling and barking! I turned to see a man quickly walking away and another rooted to the spot about 3 metres away, the immobile man started some nonsense about looking for a mobility scooter for his granny? ” do you want to sell it mate?” Of course I said no, but he kept trying to insist I take his number in case I change my mind? After being told it’s not for sale he gave the game away by saying “just put my number in your phone mate” the penny finally dropped, he was wanting me to get my phone out so he could snatch it! He wouldn’t have got far because at this point Hamish had had enough of him and was in the mood for a fight.

I was telling this story to Julia’s friend earlier and she said what I had been thinking, if this had happened when I had Mack it would have been over in seconds, it would have been man appears, Mack bites man, man screams then runs. 🤣😂

It has given me a bit more confidence going out now that I know that Hamish has got my back. 🐕

Christmas photo time was a pleasure this year,, none of the chaos of last year because I didn’t try to force myself into the boy’s pictures.

Hamish was still posing last thing at night, just as I was turning off the light at bed time.

A belated extra Indy picture.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good afternoon. 🎅🏻🎄🤶🏻

Another whole load of nothing.

Autumn has arrived now. The days are chillier, though the sun is still shining most days. Hamish loves autumn in the park because he likes to roll on the ground and the crunchy leaves appear to please him. 😊

We have been enjoying the time in the park before the ground gets too wet for my buggy and we are consigned to the paths.

Once home I put my proper camera on a tripod and connected it to my phone by wifi so I could get some pictures without Hamish knowing. I didn’t expect him to look right down the lense each time he heard the zoom motor. 😆

Hamish is a handsome bloke, he looks so different from one picture to the next?

I had a slight mishap last month. I took a tumble just outside the back door! I bashed myself up a bit but like always I didn’t go to hospital. One of these days my luck will run out and I will get a proper injury. I still remember the bathroom fall from last year! That left me on the floor unable to move for several hours and feeling rough for quite a few weeks.

I had an MS clinic appointment a couple of weeks later so my nurse checked me over, she thought I possibly had a small fracture under my eye but it was stable so nothing would have been done at hospital anyway.

As I had no idea of how I fell and was confused for a while after, she advised me not to drive until I next see her in case it was a seizure. Had I shown other post seizure signs like bitten tongue loss of bladder control etc she would have had to tell me to surrender my licence again for 12 months.

Had I known at the time I was diagnosed with MS (and Epilepsy for that matter) being ill was going to be a career I would have given it a miss! 🤪 Who would have thought that some strange sensations in my leg and a very short lived numb arm in my early 20s would turn into this?

Thoughts are now turning to Christmas. Julia will be going to Spain for a week at the end of November (I hope her return isn’t delayed by snow like last year) and then the decorations go up!! I had better start thinking of things to get her. 🤔 I gave up receiving presents a few years ago, I told people there was nothing I need. It makes Christmas a more relaxed time as I am not engulfed in that dreadful giving/ getting cycle that becomes a chore, I just try to get people things I think they would like without any concerns about if it is expensive enough or too expensive.

Hopefully I won’t be lazy and there will be at least one post on here before Christmas? It is a bit early to be throwing seasons greetings around. 🎅🏻🎄

Back soon.

I almost forgot this; Julia asked me to retrieve a picture she had taken a few years ago from my online storage. We went to lay flowers at her mum’s grave, there was nobody there but when we looked at the picture we saw a white figure in the background!! She went back to check if there was a snowman but there wasn’t?!

A ghost for halloween 👻

A new symptom.

I started this blog 6 years ago when my brother died on the advice of a blogger. He said writing things down makes you feel better even if nobody reads it, it did so I will try it again.

if you want to skip the “pity party” it’s not very long and there will be dogs further down.

This new symptom took me by surprise it is not exclusive to either MS or Epilepsy but I have heard of it being associated with both! What is it? Loneliness!!  I have always been happy spending time alone, my hobbies are solitary and I can spend days reading books without speaking to anybody but lately I have been feeling lonely? I still have Julia and my pooches but I have nobody else, I rarely hear from my brothers and since my son moved further away I only see him once every 2 or 3 weeks. I thought I had a couple of friends left but after a few unanswered emails and texts it became obvious I haven’t. I have tried to engage with MS and Epilepsy support groups but have been unable due to access and distance issues. ☹️

As always I will expect the future to be rosier and once over my self pity I will plod on. 😊

We have had a beautiful summer so far, two months of dry, warm and mostly sunny weather only ending a few days ago with a slight drop in temperatures and some rain. It is still warm but a little grey.

I always love the summer as the sunshine and heat despite worsening a couple of my symptoms always makes me feel better.

I had to let Julia walk Indy in the afternoons as now he is old he can’t walk as far or as fast as Hamish. Walks had to be planned in order to keep Hamish on grass verges and off the pavement on the way to the park as the pavement would very quickly burn his paws. We took plenty of water and stopped often under big shady trees to cool off. The park was deserted almost every day as it was too hot for most people (its not true that mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day sun 🐕🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿). There was one week when the carnival was on that made Hamish cautious with the strange noises coming from the fairground rides, he survived it though.

It was a good summer. 😊

A few pictures of Hamish enjoying the lush yellow/beige grass.

Recovering at home in the cool.

Not forgetting Indy, out and about and at home in his lush watered garden.

Indy was far from happy being “furminated” mid summer to combat the heat but he was glad of it once it was done.

Now that the rain has returned it looks like it will soon be Autumn which is Julia’s favourite season, hopefully she will provide me with some good pooch pictures.

Back soon.

Reasons to be cheerful…

My friend lives on his family farm (3 conjoined farms to be more accurate) in the borders of Scotland. Recently he made a video to send to his daughter who is away at university, he shared it with me to cheer me up. It features some of Indy’s brothers going for their evening walk in a forested area of the farm, they are joined by the ginger tom, Topcat and a kitten, Bluebell. I can’t think of a nicer way to spend 10 minutes than to watch this video.

cats and dogs exploring. 

Maybe I will return to normal service soon?

My Mum.

Last night, 8 weeks after having surgery for a hip fracture my Mum died from a hospital acquired infection.

I will be absent from here for some time now as I feel empty and lost with nothing else to say.

Eileen Gorman 27/7/38 – 1/4/18

Happy anniversary to me…

and Julia I suppose. 😀

 

36 years ago today I married the wonderful Julia. Almost everyone I knew said I had been rash marrying so quickly and that it wouldn’t last!! I think they may have had a point, we only met on December 20th 1981, got engaged on January 8th, moved in together on valentines day and married on March 20th. 3 months to the day after we met, We must have been mad?! I think we did the right thing. I think our success has been because we put raising a family first. Early on we had little money but what we had was spent on activities with the kids. We didn’t spend nights down the pub or put any outside activities ahead of the family and we only bought what we could afford. Our motorhomes were always older than all the others in our motorhome club group but ours wasn’t on credit so we weren’t stressed about paying for it. (we always knew we would have the nice vans like our friends only they would be 10 years older when we got them 😀  ) There have been ups and downs, Julia has had to put up with a lot more than I have but she has been patient and waited for me to become an adult, when I was about 45. 😀 All in all we have done okay so far. Let’s see how the next 36 years pan out.

We have had a few false starts with spring this year only for snow to return and spoil it. As usual the country ground to a halt as soon as a snowflake hit the ground! How is it that other countries manage just fine with snow and we don’t? When I lived in Indiana we would regularly get 6 to 12 inches of snow in a day and still go about our business without any problems, here we get 5 cms and planes, trains, and automobiles cease running. 😀 We had a night at the weekend that was a bit bad. Temperatures were -5 but with the wind chill was -17 I really felt that in my bones but I think that is just my age. One Christmas in Indianapolis it was windchill of -40 and the main water supply line under my house froze but my Father in-law and I spent the day outside replacing it with nothing more than the soldering blowtorch to keep us warm.

My boys don’t let the weather spoil their day.

 

The boys in the snow, Indy laying down waiting for a ball and Hamish being a snow plough.

 

Now to my health again. I probably won’t mention it a great deal from now on otherwise the blog becomes a constant stream of complaining. I haven’t been great but I think I have expected that since I was told I now have secondary progressive MS. Once I get my head around the fact that I won’t improve I will be fine. The decline isn’t terrible, it is still slow, so I have plenty of time to find things that I can still enjoy doing. My Epilepsy has been okay so I have nothing to worry about with that. All in all life still ain’t bad. 🙂

 

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A gorgeous little girl called Nina looking for a home via Irish Retriever Rescue.

If you can’t adopt a lovely dog like Nina there are many more ways to help rescued dogs, you can donate money or time or even just spread the word about dogs that may be in need of a home.