I was busy all day yesterday, working, weeding and washing. Oh and walking, there is always a dog to walk! There seems to be so much to do all the time, I don't really mind as I do love to be busy but I can't help but miss that feeling at the caravan when we have nothing to do. I often set to cleaning it and polishing dogs nose marks off the windows but the hole van takes half an hour. There is a lot to be said for downsizing! In the afternoon I started a job I hadn't been looking forward to and if Cassie had an inkling of it she wouldn't have been looking forward to it either.
Last weekend when we were at the caravan I decided she must have another trim. It was so muddy when we were out walking and as she is so low to the ground she got covered. It was so hard to get the mud off her legs when we got back to the caravan with limited water and I had to brush the dried mud off later which she absolutely hated. Cassie always hated the groomers. I took her a few times and she did look lovely but the woman was very off with me and told me she had been very naughty, and wouldn't stand still. She developed a fear of my Mum's fan oven hating the noise as they used a hot air drying cage. I decided enough was enough, what was the point of scaring her like this. I bought some clippers and I trim her myself. She still doesn't like it much and she often looks a bit rough around the edges, but she is happy which is the most important thing.
It really reminded me of an incident that happened with my Mum in the 1970s. We had a lovely little Yorkshire Terrier, just like Cassie, called Dougal, who we got on my 11th birthday. In those days Yorkshire Terriers weren't really trimmed, they had long flowing hair and walked along like Dougal in the Magic Roundabout which is why we called him his name. We were watching an episode of The Generation Game and Bruce Forsyth brought his little Yorkie on at the end. It had had a short clip and looked lovely, My Mum was so taken with it she phoned the BBC to ask where he had got it clipped. A few hours later a man from the BBC phoned back and said "Mr Forsyth say's to tell you his Yorkie was trimmed at ..." and gave an address in London. Can you imagine that happening now! My Mum and Dad duly took him to be clipped and next to the groomers was a restaurant. They decided to have lunch there while he was being trimmed. After this every time they took Dougal they would go in for lunch. Years after Dougal was dead and gone they would still go to the restaurant all the time and built up a lifelong friendship with the head waiter and his family until his death a few years ago. He was such a special friend to them. Isn't life funny, I often think this, one chance phone call led to such a long friendship. I was going to post a photo of trimmed Cassie, but she is still sulking a bit and won't look at the camera so here is a photo of Dougal, one of the most special little dogs I have ever been lucky enough to have in my life.
