Too much information .

I sense we have overslept .

The dog and I , and a cat at the far corner are all heavily staking our respective claims to stay that way , but the area of the water bed in D's vicinity is heaving and listing and there is an " atmosphere " to it .

" Shall I bring you your coffee in bed " he says , pointedly .
" Ooh that would be nice " I say cheerily and probably irritatingly .

Twenty seven minutes later the coffee arrives , with a low carb snack and an announcement :
The dog has wee'd twice during the night , indoors , despite being taken out on at least one occasion during said night . Poor lamb she must have some kind of infection .
I want to say , Too much information when I am having my coffee but recognise this is not a good response when in order it was Nat who wanted the dog , then me , then D , a fair way behind . And he has both got up during the night ( twice ? ) and dealt with aforementioned problems .
Furthermore , in estimated numbers , he has perhaps dealt with three hundred and fifteen so called "settling in incontinence" problems to my forty-three and Nat's one ( ie wiping up with washing powder and cloths and special spray from Pets at Home .)

The car is iced over . My nose threatens to fall off .
I decide that once my visit to the bookshop and coffee shop to select Origami book , dog walk at the beach ( brrr! ) , a day keeping warm and catching up with the papers would be in order .
The dog agrees.

One of the "Little Bloggers"

Being one of the "Little Bloggers " ie not one of the Big Bloggers who are well known and get hundreds of hits a day and as many comments , I am happy with my small but select band of followers , loyal and true , shunning the limelight some of you but just as important nontheless . You know who you are . I was completely thrilled though this morning to receive e mail pictures as follows from Steve from Petaluma CA , who said my bloggings about my " sheep" had reminded him of his sheep . What do you think ?

He then added :

"These are by the gates going into what used to be a chicken ranch that now has sheep on the grounds and artists in the old coops. Our town (Petaluma CA) was/is famous for chickens. There is even an old movie about it "The Egg & I"Anyway, thought you might like them."

I can't begin to tell you how excited I was .

It was kind of how I felt last week when Wide Lawns ( how I love her blog, and I think of her as one of the Proper Big Bloggers ! ) left a Happy New Year message on my blog . Its kind of how I feel every time every single one of you leaves a message saying anything on the blog .

But this one kind of had that added element of synchronicity attached in that years ago when I was little and off school with flu , my mother gave me an old dusty copy of a book called "The Egg and I " by Betty McDonald and I read it through one week when I was nt well and so wasnt at school . And then we got hold of "the Plague and I " and then there was one about cooking and they were juts great books . Then recently my friend Michaela rediscovered them and we began ordering them really cheaply from ebay or Amazon and I think I may even have blogged about it at the time . They arrived and looked like they were going to fall to pieces but they cost about ten pence and smellt of dust and disease I think I read them when I had pneumonia or some such . And thanked my lucky stars I wasn't in a TB hospital , although I suppose there were days when not knowing my ribs were broken and wondering why it was so painful to cough that I wondered if TB was any the more painful . But that was a long time ago .

My friend Michaela who is not a Blogger cannot imagine how or why a man who lives on a ranch in Petaluma comes to be reading the blog of a cat minding woman in the northeast of England but that I am unable to answer .

That is part of the great inexplicable mystery of the blogging world .

This New Year thing again

I look out of my bedroom window in my dream state at 6 am and there is my first all black cocker spaniel , Josie , sitting on the back lawn on a rug . She looks about a year old , glossy and with long healthy ears , her back to me . I can see her quite clearly but with her back turned she cannot see me . It is Summer and the sunlight is against me so I have to squint against the sun . I tell D she is there and I want to go down to see her . I set off on a long journey but on the way I am distracted by a neighbour and I never make it to her . This is ok . She seemed happy enough there and was not alone though I did not know the woman who was with her .
I wake and we have all overslept .

Felt wierd .... had I somehow escaped a near death or something ?
I pick up The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy , presented to me by Chaela on the occasion of my recent landmark birthday . I have just started to read it but it is hard to out down . I wish I had read it before we went to the Carolinas .

My spirits were high making more paper this morning , dark reds in two shades and some pale yellow brown . Trying to work out how to thin the pulp for a lighter texture . I have an idea for some cards for two friends , one of whom left the area recently . It will include a map of the area and a heart .

My first card , made at the weekend , had arrived at its destination today , and a text arrived from J thanking me . This makes me smile . Somehow I had not thought of someone actually receiving the card .

Out of the blue the news that a colleague has died during the night , completely unexpectedly . The blood seems to drain from my fingers as I try to take in the news . A loud bang from the kitchen . Pearl has pushed the blender to the floor and there is pale coloured pulp everywhere .

I feel lucky to be alive and well and in good spirits as I make my paper and think my thoughts .

Is there something about this year ?
Are all years like this , in essence , but we forget ?

I wish I was here . Cafe Royal . Newcastle upon Tyne . Anytime soon . Tomorrow maybe ? Its possible . Not sure about the ricotta muffins though , are they strictly low carb ?

Glitched ?

It can become too easy to feel glitched , that the year is somehow fey , that bad things are on their way .

So , rather than tell you about the death of my colleague's mother this morning , I will say instead that it was easier than I thought to get myself back in gear for the DayJob . That the day passed in a flash , and that another workmate's dog survived when she thought he was dying of kidney failure .
That I'm still so pleased with my silly card making .
That I loved this clock above .
That for reasons completely unknown to me I suddenly have a rush of new people reading my blog . How amazing would it be if they left comments ?

That Alice was left home alone for a spell this afternoon and didn't have her teeth round the dates , or the cherry liquers , or my ankle boots . In fact , she lay asleep just like she does when she is not alone , flat on that back of hers with her legs pointing to the ceiling and her teeth showing .

The Christmas tree is down , dismantled , and because it was such a lovely specimen , is now planted in the garden , experimentally .

Hand Made Cards ...a half made sheep

One of my hand made papers happens ( quite by chance ) to resemble a sheep .
I decide that this will become my first handmade card . All I will have to do once the card is folded and glued and pressed and the semi-sheep added ( I make it sound so simple ) is draw on a face and legs and add my signature to the back and ....
I show it to D who has hung around the art shop whilst I perused the supplies and sniffed out glues .
Yes , he agrees , it looks like a sheep . Will you trim it so it looks more like a sheep .
No I say firmly , recalling my conversation with Liz about the greyhounds we made and how they simply present the shape , the hint , the echo of greyhounds.
"It is an impressionistic sheep . "

Oh says D
Right then .

He continues folding the laundry whilst I try to establish how the glue pot works . Finally he shows me how to break the seal .

I may add a caption , I say later
Oh he says .
Like This is a sheep .

I go back to my cards . He is making me nervous . I still have to draw the sheep's head and legs after all .

Ten minutes later , a cotton wool ball saves me the bother . There is always an answer .

Is there something doomed about this year ?

My sister reports that their friend and neighbour's greyhound , who has just given birth to a litter of puppies , has died very suddenly the night before last . When we were visiting on New Year's Eve we called to see her and revelled in the snub nosed babies and their soft coated mother and now she is no more . M is hopefully managing to feed them and it seems they are old enough to take milk from a bowl .

I could of course be detailing crises in the bigger wider world . Israel .

My cats are all unsettled .