A Life full of Animals - the final part

 

A Life full of Animals – the final part

I cannot leave this theme without paying tribute to the other animals in my life, the two-legged variety. I have chosen to use photographs of them as little beings, when they begin to resemble human beings, not the very smallest, newborn ones, when only the most besotted and closely-related  can truly say, 'Oh, how beautiful' and sound as though they mean it!

Naturally, my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were stunning from the moment they were born, but they were the exception.

First. always and forever, is my husband. Here he is, at three years old, in India, where he lived for three years, He came back to the UK on a troop ship when he was six, better able to converse in Urdu than English. 

I debated whether I should include a photograph of myself, but I am another animal in my life. As the youngest of three, the novelty had rather worn off for my parents, so there aren't many snaps of me. However, here I am at the Festival of Britain in 1951, aged seven. I'm the one sitting on the well-fed pony.

Gillian appears next. A blue-eyed, corn-gold blonde, after the Cooke fashion, she looked nothing like me, a hazel-brown-eyed brunette, and for a while I wondered if I had actually had anything to do with her as everybody remarked on how much she looked like Barry. She grew up to be a very pretty girl, but not particularly tall (the Cooke influence) and is now a loving mother to two blonde blue-eyed daughters and a brown-haired blue-eyed son, and a grandmother to 4, soon to be 5, all with blue eyes and blonde hair.

 

                                                            Gardening

So delighted were we with Gillian that we embarked on a second child and Gareth was born twenty months later. Some people marvelled that a brown-eyed boy should be born to a blue-eyed father. Once again, where was I in the equation? Gareth grew into a handsome strong young man of 6’3” (the Mayne genes asserting themselves here) and is now a devoted father to three, two sons taller than him and a beautiful daughter, taller than her mother. All of them have wonderful deep brown eyes, and very dark brown hair.

 

                                                            Purposeful

Third in line came Susannah, a striking green-eyed ash blonde. Like her brother, she grew tall and is a loving mother to a blue-eyed dark blond boy.

 
Dreaming

After a nine-year delay, when we had forgotten what caused it, Bethan was born, a quietly beautiful brown-eyed blonde. She has two dark-eyed brown-haired sons.

 

                                                           Hobby horse

Then we move onto the second generation. 

Marnie, Gillian’s eldest

                                                          Birthday cake  

Her sister, Shakira (Kiri)

                                                        In the garden

Their brother, Callum

 
On holiday

Elliot, Gareth’s eldest child

 
Full of mischief

His sister, Eve

                                                            Curious

Their brother, Louis

                                       
                                                            At the helm

Susannah’s son, Frankie

                                                             Reading

Bethan’s elder son, Charlie

 
On the'phone

His younger brother, Jack 

A life on the ocean wave

Then comes the beginning of the third generation.

 Isla, Marnie’s elder child

                                                          Aye,aye, Cap'n

Fergus, her younger brother

                                                        Steering a course

Then there are  Shakira’s daughter and son, Ariella and Luca, but we have no individual photographs of them.

Finally, for the moment, there is Callum's daughter, Melia, still incubating and due to join the world in March . . .  and there will be others in the future, no doubt. 

What sort of world will these little people grow up into? Each generation faces problems which seem insurmountable but thus far, we have overcome them or adapted to them. Perhaps there is a kernel of truth in the saw, 'Where there's life there's hope.'

I see the formatting has gone awry in parts. It's a good thing I'm not possessed of the demons that demand perfection.

Gilbert the coal merchant

 

Gilbert the coal merchant

Gilbert with his friend, Herschel

We think Gilbert may have been a coal merchant in a previous existence. He has a fondness for selecting lumps of coal (actually anthracite) from the scuttle and taking them to his bed, his crate, the kitchen, the conservatory.

He enjoys munching them, though it’s not something we encourage. If he were a human female we might think he was ‘in an interesting condition.’

Gilbert with Selene-the-vet (left) last week

Playtime 

We’ve told him that Saturday is going to be very exciting for him but he looks quizzically at us, wondering if it means food - hoping it means food. So far, he’s liked everything he’s tried. Carrots are a particular favourite, but he also likes bananas, apples, pears, peaches, scrambled egg . . . well, anything, really. He takes his lead from Roxy, who considers that if the humans are eating something, it must be good. However, Roxy doesn't realise that the humans don't always eat things that are good for them - or for her.

Falling asleep with toys

Gilbert has been trying his paw at creative paper crafts, though we shall have to wait to see if he displays the same talent as Gus. The following is a critique of Gus’s work when he was 14 months old. It was published on February 10^th, 2011.

Gus is an artist who displays distinction and diversity as he practises in different media. Still young, he has nonetheless shown great imagination and skill in his works to date and the art world expects great things of him as he matures. Below are two examples he intends to enter for the 2011 Turner Prize. As in previous years the Turner Prize Exhibition will be held at the Tate Britain in October. 

Gus's first exhibit is a wood carving he finished in the autumn of last year. Note the delicacy of the work and the contrast between the apparently random shapes and sizes. Some elements are so small as to be almost unnoticeable were it not for the strong background colour of the mount he chose for his work.

For his second piece Gus chose to work with found materials and selected a small tea carton on which to work his magic. He had intended to attempt an origami structure but discovered that the different textures he achieved made a more pleasing display. Note how some elements are roughly, almost crudely, torn, while others retain approximately their original form. Yet other components have been subtly punched to give an embossed texture. Again, the background has been cleverly selected to show the work to its best advantage. The dust and hairs are an integral part of the whole oeuvre.

Be sure to look out for Gus's name in the shortlist for the Turner Prize - we have high hopes for him.

 Sadly, Gus’s genius went unrecognised and he focused his attention elsewhere.

Yesterday, Gilbert tried gardening but then decided that playing with the empty pot was more fun, tossing it in the air and pouncing on it, rather like a cat. Bit confused, Gilbert?

Random thoughts

 

Random thoughts

Random thoughts flit in and out of my brain. It’s not always possible to know what prompts them and sometimes they take me on ‘voyages of discovery and other clichés.’

Recently, I have been thinking about sailors, that is, Royal Navy sailors. Obviously the trigger for that was my recent blog about sailing. I wondered why sailors were referred to as matelots.

Why would a French name be assigned to a naval rating? Maybe it was a hangover from when Calais belonged to England, in the sixteenth century. The English King Edward III captured Calais in 1347. It was returned to France in 1558.

I looked it up. Matelot is a Middle French slang word meaning sailor. Middle French covers the period from the 14^th to 16^th centuries. It came into use in the Royal Navy about 1847, so, nothing to do with the possession of Calais!

Another common term for a naval rating is Tar, or Jack Tar. It seemed logical to suppose that this name was applied because of the necessity of tarring a ship to waterproof it. Anyone involved in this messy task would soon be covered in the sticky, pungent coating.

I looked it up. I was wrong again. Apparently, it is thought to refer to the tarpaulins sailors wore. Tarpaulins were a type of strong canvas containing tar to make them waterproof. ‘Jack Tar’ to describe a sailor was first used in 1781 by George Parker, possibly Admiral Sir George Parker.

People born in Swansea in the UK have often been called Jacks or Swansea Jacks. Swansea people had a reputation for being skilled sailors and were much sought after for recruitment to the navy.

The official march of the Royal Navy, ‘Heart of Oak’, has a line which says, ‘Heart of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men’.

John was the commonest boy’s name in England in the 16^th century.  Jack is a diminutive of John. An interesting article from ‘Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources’describes how the nickname for John developed.

Jack was a common name applied to any man and is still in use in many phrases today, as in Jack of all trades, every man Jack, Jack of both sides, Jack the lad, Before you can say Jack Robinson, All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, I’m all right, Jack (pull up the ladder)

The infamous Whitechapel murders of the 1880s were not committed by a man called Jack the Ripper. In the twenty-first century a more accurate name for him would have been ‘Anyman the Ripper’.

From this point, I started thinking about Jack in children’s literature, in particular nursery rhymes. Jack and Jill, Jack be nimble, Jack Sprat, Little Jack Horner are all rhymes that have been sung and recited to small children, who respond to the rhymes with delight, in the process building a sense of rhythm and rhyming and developing their vocabulary in a most pleasurable way.

Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack Frost are well-loved children’s stories. This is the house that Jack built is a wonderful cumulative story that children love to join in with great enthusiasm.

 

Another visit to the vet

 

Another visit to the vet 

Last Thursday, Gilbert was fourteen weeks old and visited the vet again for his final vaccinations. As he was not allowed to put paw to ground until fully immunised, he had to be carried. He now weighs 12 kilograms, the average weight of a three-year-old child, but he doesn’t cling on in the same way!

Most three-year old children are competent walkers and climbers and puppies would love to have the same freedom to tackle stairs and steps. The difference between them, though, is that children don’t generally fling themselves up and down stairs with gay abandon. Given the opportunity, puppies will.

However, there are dangers in allowing them to go full pelt because of the potential damage to their growth plates.

This is an x-ray of a two-week old puppy, showing how far the bones have to grow before forming a joint. 

From the Internet: ‘Growth plates are soft areas of developing cartilage tissue found by the ends of the dog's long bones. They are made of cartilage when the puppy is born, but gradually calcify and harden into solid bone; prior to that, the growth plates are vulnerable to being injured and possibly fractured because they are the last portion of the bones to harden.

Generally, most growth takes place between the ages of 4 to 8 months. After 8 months, there is minimal longitudinal growth of bones. By 12 months most growth plates are fused or closed and no longer show on x-rays. In some large/giant dog breeds the growth plates may remain open up to 18–20 months of age.’

We have always used the rule of thumb of 5 minutes of exercise per puppy month. When Gilbert sets paw in the outside world later on this week, he will be on a carefully controlled extending lead, so that he can explore and sniff the information left by other dogs. It will be an exciting time for him – and for us.

In the past two weeks Gilbert has learnt to climb stairs, under close supervision and control. At first he zig-zagged from side to side as he climbed, stopping every now and then to discover that Roxy, Herschel and Jellicoe had been there before him. 

Coming downstairs he always wants to go faster than he is allowed, usually because he wants to get into the garden. He has been a very reliable puppy, only having had one or two ‘mistakes’ in the house when he first joined us.

He seems to be in a hurry to grow up. It’s always amazing that puppies grow so quickly but Gilbert appears to grow visibly by the day. In the last week his adult coat has started to come through. The soft plush of his puppy coat now has a coarser strip along his spine.

He loves playing with Arthur and doesn’t grab his ears as frequently as he did, probably because he is now taller than him. Roxy plays with Gilbert, too, but not as much or as frequently as he would like. I think that will change as they start going out together for walks.

Herschel continues to strengthen his bond with Gilbert but Jellicoe usually ignores him in the supercilious way only cats demonstrate. Gilbert is grateful for any attention, even that of being positively ignored.

He saw Selene-the-Vet this time. She confirmed Patrycja-the-Vet’s discovery that one of his testicles hasn’t descended. We have to wait now to see whether the second testicle will descend by the time he is six months old. Life as a stud dog was never envisioned for Gilbert, nor a career in the show ring - just as well, really.

From the Internet: ‘Dogs with cryptorchidism can develop torsion, an extremely painful condition where the testicle twists upon itself, inhibiting blood flow. The testicle swells as it becomes engorged with blood. This condition typically presents with abdominal pain and evidence of a firm mass in the stomach. The pain can be so severe it causes the dog to go into shock. Immediate removal of the testicle is required to provide relief.’

Dogs with cryptorchidism are at a higher risk of developing testicular cancer later in life. Testicular cancer is the second most common cancer in older male dogs, and the risk among dogs with cryptorchidism increases by about 13 percent.’

It was all going so swimmingly! Hopefully, the problem will resolve itself. Meanwhile, we shall be keeping a closer eye on Gilbert’s nether regions than we had anticipated. I was going to say ‘watch this space’ but that hardly seems appropriate!  

Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main

Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main

My family enjoys sailing and we have a boat on the Solent, in the South of England. 

Appaloosa, named after the kennel name of Cariadd

The Solent is a 20-mile-long narrow strait between the Isle of Wight and mainland Britain.

The Isle of Wight is marked red

 Isle of Wight , showing the Solent

The Isle of Wight was a favourite haunt of Queen Victoria and it is where she died, in 1901, at Osborne House, her summer holiday home. Her patronage of the island made it a popular destination for wealthy Victorians.

In addition to being a major shipping lane for commercial and military vessels, the Solent is a recreational area for water sports, in particular, sailing. The annual Cowes Week series of races attracts competitors from around the world. The week culminates in a splendid fireworks display.

There are a number of webcams situated on the island, which we enjoy watching. There is also a live map which enables watchers to identify different craft, from huge cruise and container ships, to local ferries to busy little tugs and pilot boats. 

USS Gerald R. Ford was moored in the Solent, near Portsmouth in November 2022. The world’s largest warship, it had been engaged in training exercises in the Atlantic with other NATO partners.

USS Gerald R. Ford

Watching one day, we saw our boat sail past, with one of its fenders hanging over the side. (Our boat is chartered when we’re not using it, which is most of the time!)

Both my parents were born and brought up in the area, my father in Gosport, my mother in Southsea. My father joined the Royal Navy and in those days, the 1920s, commissions were long. He left on a commission in 1928 not long after my sister was born and didn’t return for three years. The men made their own entertainment, Uckers, a form of Ludo, being one favourite occupation. Sometimes it was played on deck, on an oversized board, using a bucket to throw the large dice.

 He was a good pianist, so was a prominent member of any Naval band. He saw action in the Second World War, notably in the Arctic convoys. When he took my mother to Russia and it was discovered that he had been on the Arctic convoys he was treated as an honoured guest.

A favourite pastime with children on our boat was to hoist them up the mast in the bosun’s chair, where they could swing to their heart’s content. The bosun's chair is intended for repairing rigging - no ladders available!

Another pleasure for them was to sit in the boat’s tender or dinghy, attached to the boat and use the paddles. They also used to dive into the water for a swim, always attached to the boat by a line. 

Safety lines and life jackets were de rigeur and none of the foregoing activities were carried out unless the boat was safely moored. So the children became familiar with the boat and the sea, later learning to fish, then gut and cook the catch.

Nights were spent in peaceful moorings, like the Beaulieu river. Watching a wonderful sunset or waking to a glorious sunrise and enjoying the varied birdlife all enhanced the experience.

Of course, the weather was often inclement, sometimes foggy, frequently raining or blowing a howling gale. Then the dress of the day was oilies and sou’westers, often bright yellow or red, for, after all, if you have the misfortune to be swept overboard, you want to be easy to spot in the boiling sea..

Note the opening phrase of this post, ’My family enjoys sailing.’ The sad fact is that they do and I do not. A peaceful day on the mooring is lovely but my anxiety levels rise alarmingly if Barry should suggest that we ‘go for a little sail’. He has tried so hard over the years - more than fifty! – to encourage me but has finally accepted that I am not going to experience an epiphany. 

I find it sometimes boring – a wide expanse of sea with nothing in sight, unless it's crowded with small craft racing, or big vessels travelling – and, more often, worrying. I do not enjoy standing at right angles to the waves - it can hardly be called ‘sitting’ when one is braced against the opposite side of the cockpit, watching the water streaming past one’s feet at a great rate of knots. My family, however, find it exhilarating when the boat is over on its ear, and do everything they can to get the greatest possible speed out of her.

Then there are the ferries, cruisers, tankers and vast container ships and I know they have every safety device known to man, but I fear being mown down into a watery grave. I have every confidence in my husband, an experienced sailor since his youth, who can look at calm water and tell if a breeze is coming, and I know he is a cautious man, up to date with all the latest safety gizmos, but still I cannot help calculating the distance to the nearest shore and wondering if I am capable of swimming to it. I am sure Davy Jones has me in his sights to join his locker.

In short, I regard myself as a Jonah, destined to bring death and disaster on board. Not for nothing do suspicious, superstitious sailors fear that a woman on board presages bad luck.

Anyway, someone’s got to stay at home to look after the animals!

A Life Full of Animals - part two

 

 

A Life Full of Animals – part two

 

Dominie and Jenna. Jenna could barely step over the threshold!

We have always been available to look after our adult children’s dogs. Taking care of Foxy, Gillian’s fox-red working Labrador puppy, made us realise how much we liked and missed Labradors, and so Jenna came into our lives from Shropshire. We asked for the biggest black bitch in the litter, as she would be living with Dalmatians, which are quite big dogs. Well, she had big paws and that’s as far as it went. She remained a little dog with big paws throughout her sixteen years.

 Playtime with Frodo

We didn’t know there were pheasant in the forest where we walk, until Jenna flushed them. She also chased deer and would disappear into the distance, so we put a cow bell on her, to hear when she was near and an electronic tracker, so that we could discover where she’d been. We think it was because she had Dalmatian companions, who don’t generally retrieve, although they can, and are built for long distance running, which she wasn’t. Once she had Labrador friends and relations she never disappeared again.

 Jenna with tracker 

Jenna was a very sociable dog. Whenever we were out walking and saw people in the distance she would always go to greet them, even if she had never seen them before. Once she had done that, she would be content to come back to us. She maintained that endearing habit almost to the end of her life.

Jenna and Gus

Her half-brother, Gus, four years her junior, pointed out to us the difference between dogs and bitches. We had always assumed that bitches were easier, even though we had had dogs as well as bitches. They are smaller than dogs, generally, Dominie being something of an exception. The Jack Russell and Dalmatian bitches were biddable and faithful, but Jenna, our first Labrador for nearly forty years, reminded us that this particular breed is different.

Gus

We had forgotten how independent they are. Jenna was friendly and loyal but inclined to follow her own path, which was actually never far from ours. Gus stayed close to heel and like Buddy Liver-Spots before him, spent much time and energy trying to keep his pack together. His most worrying times came when we had an extended family walk with several dogs. As the line of people lengthened, so he rushed back and forth from end to end, trying, so we thought, to chivvy the laggards to increase their pace, and the leaders to slow down.

Buster, left, and Bertie 

An exception to this rule was Buster, Bertie’s brother, who went to live with Gillian and her family in Dorset. They were beautiful fox-red working Labradors. While Bertie was a sensible, sober dog who never wanted to be found wanting in the behaviour stakes, or anywhere else, Buster was capricious. He enjoyed charging off in all directions. Bertie enjoyed greeting other dogs, but once introductions had been made, he was happy to return to us. He was a perfect gentleman with a wonderful smile. Gus’s smile showed just his front teeth but Bertie’s was full and wide and accompanied by snorts of pleasure.

Roxy 

Three days after Frodo died, Roxy was born in Shropshire, (all our Labradors have come from the same kennels in Shropshire, where the dogs are bred for temperament first and foremost) and it’s fanciful to think that some of his spirit was reborn in her, mainly because she is a counter-surfer, the only Labrador we’ve known to do this, although Gilbert is showing signs of following in her paw-steps. In every other respect, she’s her own dog, friend to all, human, canine or feline.

Jenna, Gus and Bertie all died within eleven months, which was heart-breaking. Gus and Bertie died in August and October last year so Roxy rapidly went from being the youngest to the only dog and she was really depressed. She had never known life without another dog and although the cats were company it wasn’t the same. So, in January this year, Gilbert came to live with us.

Gilbert soon after he arrived. He was smaller - that is, shorter than the cats

Now he is thirteen weeks old and growing apace. Herschel is gaining the ascendant, as cats do

At the time of writing, both cats have taken refuge from Gilbert inside the fire guard and are about to start taking lumps out of each other. A stern ‘No squabbling’ from me usually stops them in their tracks. Although they’re litter brothers, they are very different. Herschel is a standard Ocicat, spotted and striped and a third bigger than Jellicoe. Jellicoe is a classic tabby-patterned Ocicat, now known, bizarrely to my ears, as an Aztec. They are extremely affectionate and always in our company. Their brother, Isambard, died when he was seven.

Isambard, Jellicoe and Herschel

Our first two Ocicats, Winston and Monty, also died young. Monty was only three and Winston was six. Our vets did their best, but were puzzled. As one set of medications sorted out one problem it revealed another and it became a roundabout of symptoms and decline. They were stunning animals.

Winston and Monty  

We then had a couple of years without any cats until one day we were startled by a house mouse. I like mice, the pet variety, but didn’t want to encourage wild mice, so we did our research and acquired the three brothers ten years ago. Barry says they were his best ever birthday present.

Herschel

Cat in a basket - Jellicoe

We haven’t had house mice since and Herschel regularly patrols the integral garage. I don’t think they’ve ever caught anything indoors but have certainly captured rats and mice in the garden. A foolhardy young squirrel met its end from Herschel and Jellicoe has killed a wood pigeon, which he dragged through the cat flap and deposited at the foot of the stairs. Happily, birds do not figure largely in the death statistics and, unlike the Burmese, they don’t trap frogs. They are not avid hunters and prefer to spend their time in the garden lounging in high places and looking beautiful.

A busy weekend

 

A busy weekend

It was Barry’s birthday on February 3^rd, a significant decade marker. He was born on the day Stalingrad fell during the Second World War, though some authorities have it as February 2^nd.

We had a gathering of the clan on Saturday and were only missing a few members. The oldest was, of course, Barry, and the youngest, Luca, four months. There were seven under elevens, eight in their twenties, eight forty to mid-fifties and two over seventy. We also had three visiting dogs to add to our two. If everyone had brought their dogs there would have been twelve in the house, rather too many and too much of a trip hazard!

Since Jellicoe is now an honorary Labrador, we had to shut him and his brother away in our bedroom, otherwise he would have wrought havoc in the dining room, where food was laid out on the table. Ariella, nearly two, and Jack, four, both love cats so had a special trip to the bedroom to see Jellicoe and Herschel. The cats were worried and wide-eyed at being shut out from proceedings.

We had opened the double doors from the sitting room into the dining room so that people could wander in and out at will, helping themselves to whatever took their fancy. Susannah took control of feeding people and Callum was in charge of drinks. Barry and I relaxed and enjoyed catching up with our extended family.

It was lovely to have such a crowd of young people in the house, and so many of them very tall!  The young adults were as amusing and entertaining as ever and the little children were each caught in their own egocentric worlds, and equally entertaining.

It is rare for us all to get together and each time we say we must do it more often, but life is busy. The next organised occasion will be Susannah and James’ wedding later this year, in November. We are all looking forward to that.