On Safari?

Marie and I visited Longleat Safari Park during our honeymoon, 4 years ago. She has often mentioned revisiting it in the intervening years. However, organising a trip with an agoraphobia sufferer while accommodating your family requires some organising – especially when the weather is also a consideration. However, on Sunday all things were favourable and Marie, our two children Joseph and Orla, my grandson Reece, my adult daughter Colleen and I made the journey to Longleat. (What would I do without a car that seats up to 7 persons?)

One of the monkeys at Lonleat has contracted Simean Herpes B virus. How this happened is a mystery since it is a closed community; but the monkey park – arguably the most popular part of the safari park, particularly with children – was closed.

Despite missing the monkeys, we had an enjoyable drive through the park. We were lucky to have a lioness stroll right in front of our car. Normally all you can see are the prides lazing some distance away. Then 2 wolves observed us for a while from very close quarters – right beside our car!  Again, an unusual occurrence. We picnicked beside the wallabies and the warthogs. It wasn't the warmest of days, but bright sunshine and just the faintest of breezes made the weather acceptable for an al fresco lunch.

Afterwards, Colleen took the children to see all the other attractions in the Longleat estate except Longleat House itself, which, best example of Elizabethan architecture or not, would have been boring for the children. Meanwhile, Marie and I drove around the nearby picturesque villages and rested in a sunny forest glade until it was time to collect the tired and happy little ones.

For Marie, it was an extremely enjoyable day – a change from her normal diet of going from room to room at home! Every one else had a great time too...except that I would have preferred to have joined the children going around the other attractions... However, I was extremely grateful to Colleen. Without her, the children's day would have not been nearly so enjoyable – indeed, it is doubtful that we would have made the trip at all.

TV dog

Our dog, Blaze, arrived here in November 2008, so has been living with us for 15 months now. He has settled down (well, he should have by now, shouldn't he?) and this has allowed his unique personality to shine through.

And what a beautiful personality he has! He is the perfect family dog, obedient, uncomplaining, easy to train, sociable with both humans and other dogs and incredibly good with children. He's extremely good looking too (it turns out that he has an excellent show dog pedigree, but we're not interested in showing him). Everyone loves him. I didn't really want a dog, but he has won even me over!

One of his little idiosyncrasies is that he watches the tv.

He's got quite good taste. For example, he doesn't watch any soaps (ooops! - have I offended anybody?) or trashy movies. He prefers intellectually challenging nature programmes. He likes to watch dogs, of course, but also most other animals. When he hears animal noises, his ears prick up, he sits up and pays attention to the tv screen. If he hears distressed animals, he cries; with cross animals, he barks. It's quite amusing!

For some unknown reason, he has adopted me as the leader of the pack, and although he has got very affectionate towards me, he is not possessive.

At this time of year, we go walking on the beach more often than inland. The reason - Blaze always comes home from the beach clean. Additionally, he loves swimming. As soon as we get to the water, he runs straight in and splashes around. Afterwards he often swims in deeper water. Here he is during a short winter twilight walk.

I've posted pictures of the beaches near my house before, but never pictures I took during the short winter twilight. Following is a selection.

I love these walks on the deserted twilight beaches. Since Blaze came on the scene, I think I'm becoming a bit of a softie!

Children, dogs & beaches

I love living near the coast. As do the children. Here's why...

During the past week, the children and I visited three different beaches. They're all within a couple of miles from our home. None of them are signposted or accessible by car; so the vast majority of tourists holidaying in the area don't even know they exist.

Firstly, we have the 20m waterfall beach. The waterfall flow depends on the weather. The kids love to stand underneath it, usually naked, but I forgot to bring towels on the day we visited here.

Then we have the surfing beach. Only good on windy days - not a very frequent occurrence here. I haven't tried surfing yet, but if Joseph or Orla were to want to have a go, then I'd join them.

Dogs love our sparsely populated beaches too. Collette's dogs are boarding with us while she's off to Turkey (with big sister Carla and their husbands). Dog lovers might enjoy the video clip. Here the dogs are frolicking in and out of the waves. Btw, there's a lot of wind noise on the video.

Sadly, Marie has never seen these beaches since they are inaccessible to her. But maybe one day...

Animal Cruelty

I'm not much of a campaigner on animal rights issues.

I've always felt that caring about humans is much more important.

But when I came across this video footage, I couldn't ignore it.
It shows the horrors of fur farming in China.

And I mean horrors.

It contains scenes of animals being brutally beaten and skinned alive and then being tossed onto a heap of similarly unfortunate animals, some still alive.
This video is gross and I suggest that you don't watch it unless you have a very strong stomach.
I was unable to watch all of it - and I'm not easily sickened!

You don't have to watch it.
You can help to stop these barbaric practices by-

• not buying any fur products. Some fur is farmed in a much more acceptable way (although no fur farming is acceptable to some people) but there is no way of knowing how your fur made its way to your shop.
• passing on this information to others
• checking out this site where there are other suggestions on how you can help animals such as these.

You don't have to watch this video clip,
but if you want to...just click below.

The dog, the children and agoraphobia

Blaze is growing into a handsome dog. He's 7 months old (you can see what he looked like when he first arrived here), so he has some way to grow yet. He's found his self-confidence and loves to gambol about outside, play with children or other dogs and has started to fetch a ball on demand. He is terrific with the children and doesn't bark much. He is quite easy to train, is good at recall and doesn't strain at the lead. So he's no problem then...
...but Orla is. She has decided that he's a breathing toy. She wants him to go to sleep in her bed, hide in the wardrobe with her and steal biscuits together. Blaze is so good-natured that he goes along with most of this childish behaviour.
Joseph, on the other hand, is acting the responsible owner. It's Marie's dog, of course, but since she cannot do anything more than a basic toilet trip, Joseph has volunteered to help. As soon as he gets home from school, he gets the dog's lead and off they go on a short walk – even if it's raining. He helps with the feeding and grooming. He's really super with the dog.
Blaze hasn't helped Marie in her fight against agoraphobia. Her earlier gains after Blaze arrived have all disappeared. On the plus side, he's another source of enjoyment to her self-determined prison – on the minus side, there's more cleaning to be done. She tells me that in retrospect, she should have waited for a while to add a dog to our family. But he's here now and part of the family and there's no question of him leaving. Hopefully Marie will be able to make some progress walking with him in the spring, when the weather improves and lifts everyone's spirits.

Often Joseph, Orla & I go on a longer walk with Blaze. After a while, Orla wants carried on my shoulders and I acquiesce. I enjoy these walks. One or other of the children is chatting to me from the moment we leave the house until our return, how ever long that may be. It is a special time.

Today, Orla was unremitting in her torture for poor, patient Blaze. No amount of cajoling would stop her. I had to employ The Stern Voice and perform a Telling Off. Orla's almost permanent smile was erased, little rivers of tears issued from her eyes, and the pathos in her sobs would have melted even the hardest of hearts. A few moments later, I was sitting on the floor with the dog and Orla came up to me. Her head and mine were on about the same level. She looked me in the eyes with her big, saucer-shaped, bright blue eyes (still a little watery from crying) and said gently “I love you, Daddy.” A full embrace followed, accompanied with another “I love you.” There was no guile. It was genuine, trusting, childish love. The type that only a 3 year old girl can exhibit. It will disappear soon.

The magic of the moment was broken when Joseph called to me from the next room“Dad, can you help me with Mario Kart?” (The Nintendo Wii game.)

Orla doesn't know it, but when she gives me that special look - that trusting, loving look - there is nothing I wouldn't do for her.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Blaze has been begging me to let him write his own post. In the end I relented and let him. I had to help him, of course - like all dogs, his eyesight isn't that good and he found operating the keyboard a bit awkward. The result of our combined efforts can be found in the post before this one.

A post from Blaze the Dog

It was a nice morning, a few days ago (the humans have names for days - why?) and Robert took me out in the car. A boy called Joseph and the little girl called Get off that dog!! (I think that's her name - Robert and Marie shout that at her all the time) came along too. I think they are Robert's and Marie's pups. Marie is my owner, but she doesn't go out with us much.
Robert and his pups stopped to talk to one of his older pups called Collette. I was just minding my own business, when I smelled a familiar smell.

I followed the smell and I saw a dog hiding behind some plants.

It was my friend, Collette's dog, Dee!
She might not have been hiding - there was nice-smelling fresh pee there... I had a good sniff at it.

So we played chasing for a while.
As you do...

And then we pretended to fight. But no biting allowed!!

Then we had a sniff around to see if any of our friends had visited here recently.
Or if there was more interesting pee to be sniffed.
Dee found a rather fragrant pee stain.
I took the opportunity to have a surreptitious sniff at her private area.

I had a quick lick of her bum, which startled her!
She's only a pup about the same age as me, but one day soon she'll be a goodlooking bitch.
Then we might be able to..........

She went home after a while, but the taste and smell of her bum was still on my tongue.
Mmmmmmmmm.

Ponies and hoar frost

My business operates from 8 sites in and around the incredibly beautiful Exmoor area. In the course of my "work" I regularly have to drive through this lovely scenery. I'm sure you all pity me...

If I'm not staying a long time at a site, or it's a site that she can get into. Marie will accompany me on my travels. I get quality company and she gets out of the house - it's mutually advantageous. Now that we have a dog and I have to exercise him, I often bring him along too. Then I can stop in some picturesque place or other and allow him to investigate the area. I don't do this for me, you understand, it's for the dog.

This morning was one of those times when I was accompanied by Marie and Blaze. It was quite early and we were driving over Winsford Hill. The road was extremely slippery since the previous night's hoar frost hadn't cleared. However, the frost added its own special beauty to the landscape. It was one of those magical winter mornings, when the air is still and so clear that you can feel its purity when you breathe it, and the sun gives everything a special vividness. I just had to stop atop a small hill on the moor to take the dog for a walk. We had been exploring some of the tracks which crisscross the moor when, out of the blue, we came across a small herd of Exmoor ponies.

These ponies roam wild throughout Exmoor but being shy, you can't normally get close to them. This morning was the exception. I got within 2 metres of the herd. Blaze, on the other hand, stopped about 5m from the herd. He was frightened of them!

Marie, unable to join Blaze & me for a walk, could only view the ponies from a distance in the safety of our car. Nevertheless, the sheer beauty of the surroundings this area and its environs meant that she really enjoyed our drive today.

Pre-Christmas rush

It's been a very, very busy time, this pre-Christmas period. I expect it is for most families-with-small-children in the western world. In the past 10 days, I have been to a Guides'/Brownies' Christingle service, Joseph's school's Christmas nativity play, Joseph's school's Christmas carols service, our town Christmas concert with the combined town brass bands (we have 2 brass bands in this tiny town) and Joseph's school choir, Orla's pre-school group's nativity play, Orla's pre-school group's Christmas party (featuring Father Christmas), the town's Christmas shopping festival with a seasonal performance by a group of children from Joseph's school (including Joseph)– and dress rehearsals for some of the aforementioned. Pre-Christmas events are nearly over, with only the Scouts'/Cubs' Christingle service this evening and Joseph's school party on Friday afternoon.

This is also the busiest period for my business.

It was a little unfortunate, therefore, that Marie had a “bad” spell at this time.

Despite all of the above, I still found a little time to go rock climbing with Joseph.


I had my nephew to visit. Orla likes him!


I walked Blaze and rescued him from Orla!


Marie's bad spell wasn't a major one. She was able to dress Orla as an angel for her nativity play.

She made a Christmas cake, and let Orla help...


However it was my mother-in-law who rescued me from almost certain burnout and terminal domestic chaos! Many, many thanks to her! She went back home again last night after spending 5 days with us. As well as rescuing me, she also helped to cheer up Marie, who appears to be back to her normal self. By the end of this weekend, my busiest business period will have ended and although still very busy, will be gradually be returning to normal. I'll be able to relax a little!

Finally, here is a short video clip of my precocious 3 year old with her big brother. It ends with her picking her nose! Please forgive the quality of the clip.

The golden retriever, the children and the beach

Shhhh! Don't tell Marie, but I'm getting as much enjoyment from our puppy as she is. Maybe more, in fact. The children are enjoying having him, too.


Blaze, our 5 month old Golden Retriever puppy, has been with us for less than 2 weeks, but he's already housetrained, sits on demand, fetches (indoors only) and only chases the cats occasionally. He's got used to his new environment and his self confidence has grown. Both cats have dismissed him as a threat to their safety and wander around our home as if he's not there. If Orla would stop pestering him some of the time, everything would be perfect.

What I most enjoy about having a dog around the place again is walking him. I had forgotten how enjoyable that could be. I live in a particularly beautiful area. My little town is surrounded by gentle hills, each of which offers panoramas of both countryside and the sea. We have open moors and dense woods right beside us. When, some days, it is misty, the countryside takes on a mantle of mystery. When it is windy, the coast with its crashing waves and sea-spray is the place to go. A walk this close to Nature never fails to lift my spirit. I've tried to pass this fact on to Marie, but she simply cannot conceive going for even the simplest walk. She gets to see a lot of scenery while we are out driving, of course, but much of the countryside and the vast majority of the coast is inaccessible by car.

It is an interesting fact, unknown to the majority of the many tourists who visit us, that we have coastal erosion all around us. The headlands on either side of our town with their cliffs between 20 and 40 metres high are disappearing into the sea at a rate of about 1m per year. As they collapse, fossils become exposed. Ammonites predominate. And when one of these becomes exposed, it is the first time it's seen light for 400 million years! We regularly get busloads of university students here looking for them. I try to imagine what the coast would have been like when my house was built about 400 years ago. The headlands would have stretched out into the sea about 400m further than today. That's the length of 4 football fields! A nearby town lost an entire row of houses complete with all their gardens the sea side of the road. If you were to walk there now, you wouldn't find any evidence that they had ever existed, but you might notice the high wall subsequently built there to defend the houses on the land side of the road from suffering the same fate.

Back to the present day - and the children, the dog and I could be found today at a nearby beach enjoying the calm and relatively mild weather and beautiful sunshine. (Apparently some parts of England are suffering from freezing weather, snow and the like. The weather is kinder to us here.) Blaze was dashing around in and out of the shallow sea water and digging pointlessly in the wet sand while the children were having a ball getting thoroughly soaked (see short video). Fortunately I had taken the precaution of bringing towels and blankets. Life can be very good here. We are all so lucky.

Marie continues to take the dog to the grassy area 20m from our home (in daylight only) but hasn't progressed beyond that. However, she is currently victim to a stomach bug and is unsurprisingly disinclined to be adventurous.

New Dog Cures Agoraphobia!

New dog cures agoraphobia! Nice headline, isn't it? It hasn't happened yet...but it might! I'll clutch at any straw! However, I've skipped the rest of the story, so let me go back to the beginning.

For some time, Marie has been craving for some canine company. She wanted a Golden Retriever. I said "NO" in no uncertain terms. At that time I was in single parent mode, and the notion of adding morning and bedtime "walkies" to my overloaded schedule was completely unsufferable. The answer was to get a toy breed, the type I usually call "rats", but if it was going to make Marie happy... So Marie looked at Bichon Frises, Chihuahuas, Maltese Terriers, and Papillons, but nothing seemed to "click" for her. After a few weeks, we decided to postpone dog hunting until after Christmas.

Things change, don't they? The medication side effects which had made Marie a sleepy and lethargic shadow of her former self diminished and subsequently disappeared. She began to help out around the home and I was able to gradually relinquish my single parent mode. I started to think that, now I had a bit of spare time, having a "real" dog might not be such a bad thing. I could do with the exercise, couldn't I, I mused while observing in the mirror that I had become rather rotund.

We learned that a small-time breeder in our area had two 4½ months old Golden Retriever puppies for sale. They had been the last of a litter of ten (!), and hadn't been re-advertised due to the breeder's inertia. Of course, we weren't going to get a dog - any dog - before Christmas, but when the breeder told us that if we wanted the mutt she would keep it until the festive season had run its course, Marie persuaded me to go and see them. When we viewed them, it was love at first sight - not only for Marie but also for Joe & Orla. Both puppies, a boy and a girl, had the "aaahhh" factor. There was no question about it; one of them was going to live at our house. The only question was "Which one?" The male puppy was chosen on purely aesthetic grounds.

All of a sudden, three sets of doe-eyes looked at me and I knew why. Softie that I am, I totally gave in to the pleading looks of these three and within minutes we had a new addition to our family.

The puppy, now named Blaze, had been residing in an outdoor kennel with a decent-sized grassy run so I was pleased, but not altogether surprised, to find out that he looked for a grassy area to relieve himself. There is a grassy area about 20m from our home and as long as we kept taking him there on a regular basis, he was, de facto, house-trained. Yea!! Lucky us! But here's the best bit - next day Marie, whose comfort zone only extended to about 5m from our front door, walked the dog all the way to the grassy area. All by herself. And has continued to do so.

So, you see, "New Dog Cures Agoraphobia" isn't a total fabrication - it's merely an exaggeration.

[fanfare] And here he is .... BLAZE!

Doggy diversion

Marie has been wanting to have a dog for quite some time now. Having had the company of man's best friend for most of my life, I am content to do without now. However, during the last few weeks Marie's quest for canine company has almost become an obsession.

She started out wanting a medium-to-large dog - something along the lines of a labrador or some variety of retriever. All these dogs require copious amounts of exercise and Marie, of course, would be unable to look after the dog's needs in this area. Additionally our "garden" is just a small patio area. I feel unable to take on additional time-consuming activities, so I was dead set against having any dog requiring much in the way of "walkies". However, in the (as it turns out, forlorn) hope that Marie would be motivated enough to put some serious effort into walking outdoors, I agreed to getting a dog the moment she was able to walk around the (small) block in which we live.

Since Marie was unwilling and/or unable to progress to this level, she began to accept that her dream retriever would be just a dream. She began to peruse doggie websites for smaller breeds. As a result, I reduced the distance she would have to be able to walk before getting a dog. After a few weeks of almost non-stop internet browsing (in between her extended sleeping sessions), Marie decided to go for a toy dog (also known as companion dogs and occasionally lap dogs, for obvious reasons). Many of these breeds require little or no exercise, so you can see why they would be attractive to Marie. She also considered teacup dogs, the type promoted by Paris Hilton who carries one around in her bag (purse) and eagerly copied by other brain-dead "celebs"; but this idea was discarded when she learned that teacup dogs are really freak animals who cannot usually breed.

Eventually Marie settled on getting a chihuahua. The aforementioned Paris Hilton has 17 of these, both toy and teacup size (see video clip of Paris' dogs), but this had no effect on Marie's choice....I think!

We've already viewed some chihuahua puppies, but Marie intends not to get one until she sees one that she falls in love with. It is also my opinion that Marie should delay having any dog until her medication side effects wear off.

This whole canine caper is a diversion for Marie - a way to take her mind off more worrysome matters. But we all need an escape from time to time, don't we? And if you are an agoraphobic, your choice of escape is more limited.

Btw, the children can't wait to get the new puppy!

The New Dog

Collette & her fiancé Neil have just got a new dog. It's a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. She's called Dee and is 10 weeks old.
















Click on the pictures if you want to see her up close.

The children were enthralled by the puppy.




















Marie, who has been pleading for a dog since Collette took her Border Collie away with her, renewed her pleas. I've had dogs since I was 16 and I don't miss the cleaning, feeding, grooming, walking, toilet breaks and expensive vet bills that dog ownership entails. However, I've told Marie that she can have any dog she wants (and her present favourite is an Irish Red Setter) as soon as she can walk it herself. I'm not being hard on her, am I?