I’ve been after a dog for ages. I adore my cats, but they’re fairly antisocial and at 13 years old, they’re only going to get worse. Crowe likes to sit on my shoulder while I work, but mostly asleep. Bear likes to be on his own; it’s like working in a library. Add to that the fact that, working from home the last three years, I rarely leave the house because I’m not all that sociable myself, and I’ve turned into a bit of a recluse. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in itself, but my brain needs stimulation or it vegetates. Because of that I keep spending too much time on the computer and that really is bad for me. I need to get out into the world some and refill the creative well as it were.

With that in mind, I’ve been thinking for a while now of getting a dog. I even went as far as registering with two shelters and doing the home visits. Both shelters said the same; your garden isn’t big enough to have a dog, but you can have another house cat if you like.

I understand that this is to safeguard the interest of the animals, and I’m all for it. But really? I live on my own in a terraced house where the kitchen alone is 15ft square. It’s not the biggest house in the world, but people have two kids and pets in this type of house all the time. The people across the road have two large dogs  in the same space, and my friend has greyhounds at his smaller home. Yes, I have a small, not great garden. It’s maybe 20ft long and 6 ft wide at it’s widest point, 3 at the smallest. Even a small dog would get bored eventually and you certainly couldn’t play ball with a large dog. However, less than 10 minutes walk is a massive, dog friendly park. Literally across the main road and round the corner. It’s huge, with 5 football fields marked out and even when there’s a youth team game on, there’s enough room for a massive crowd; which we never get. 15 minutes bus ride in one direction is Westport Lake, which is, as you might suspect, a huge lake with a park area, again dog friendly provided you pick up. Half an hour the other way is Keele Woods and Lake up at the University; again, a lovely dog friendly two hour walk around.

And I like to walk. I may be over weight and unfit, but I walk every day without fail. I wanted to give a loving home to a cat-friendly dog, I was even willing to take an older one or foster. But no. No decent garden, no canine. So I’ve spent the last six months watching ads on a local internet pet rehoming site, hoping for a private adoption. I’ve missed about 7 through bad timing. Private adoptions go fast in a city where no one has much of a garden.

On Tuesday, I was online at 2am when I did a refresh and a new ad popped up. 8 month old German Shepherd cross needing a new home due to personal circumstances of the family involved. I texted immediately to have a look at her.  A little bigger than I’d imagined but at this point, everything was worth a look. I heard nothing back and assumed she’d gone already .

Then Thursday afternoon I got a text; she was still available, would I like to see her? They had been waiting on a another friend who had thought they might take her but heard nothing back. Two hours and a taxi ride later, I was sitting on a sofa with her looking up at me with the most adorable face and beautiful temperament. The family had genuine reasons for rehoming her and obviously didn’t really want to part with her but had no choice. He’s army, they already have kids and she’s expecting again soon. They just don’t have the room and felt it was unfair to keep her. She needed a loving new home.

They asked me as many questions of me as I asked of them and were obviously concerned that she would be going to a good home. I’m not one to um and ah about decisions. She was obviously in good health, well loved, well looked after, trained to within an inch of her life and so friendly and loving I couldn’t possibly say no. I brought her home with a promise to the family that once she’s settled in the New Year they can come see her and make sure they’re happy with her new home, and that, as long as she was OK with the cats, she had a new home for life.

I brought her home on the bus. Her first time on a bus, though they said she had traveled well in a car. She was good as gold. She was interested in her surroundings, wanted to meet everyone, but well behaved, didn’t fret and didn’t show any signs of fear or anxiety.

When we got home I kept her on her leash initially, waiting to see how the cats would react. Crowe immediately walked up to introduce herself, Maddie thought it was a game, and a bit of a stand off ensued. There was some hissing and spitting on Crowe’s part, but nothing aggressive and Maddie thought it was great fun. Bear disappeared upstairs as he usually does with new things.

I decided to keep her in the bedroom overnight and let the cats have the run of the house as they normally do. They’re not particularly snuggly cats unless it’s cold when they come and get under the duvet, so I figured it was the easiest solution that would let me have a nights sleep. In the morning I let her out in the garden but was so tired I ended up going back to bed for a while and left the door open without thinking.

When I woke up an hour later, Maddie was curled up at the bottom of the bed with Bear snuggled up between her paws and Crowe was sleeping in the pillow! Another spat with Maddie and Crowe when we got downstairs, a little spitting and hissing but it settled down and Crowe decided being in the room with the puppy was OK. One down, one to go.

Bear was still uneasy around Maddie when she was lively. As soon as she fell asleep he came down but when she woke up and started being hyper he disappeared upstairs. Until yesterday evening when this happened.

A short while later Bear got steamrolled onto the floor when this happened.

Today we’re all sitting having a sofa day. I’m sat at one end, Maddie’s sprawled out beside me, Crowe is sat on my shoulder as always and Bear is lying on top of Maddie where, it seems, it’s warm and comfy.

I think the new puppy has settled in just fine And did I mention she looks just like my last dog, Kassie? Yeah. It was meant to be.

Don’t forget…

Life Book, the incredible 1 year art and journaling workshop run by Willowing and including 15 other teachers, including myself, Starts in just one week! Time to spend that Christmas cash Santa brought you on a little treat for yourself, no? Click here to view more details

This is what it’s like working from home when you own a cat.

Anyways…

Yesterday I was one of the featured artists on The Pulse Chapter 9: Style File. I’ve taken part in this the last couple of years and it’s always fascinating reading about other artists you might never come across otherwise. A good hour or so’s reading on a Sunday afternoon and well worth checking out.

Yes, I’ve been absent. I’ve been on holiday and I don’t like telling everyone I’m going away and leaving my house empty for however long. I’ve been on the Isle of Wight on a regular group holiday, with like-minded souls that we do every year. We had a fabulous time and I even managed to get a bit of a tan for a change. Not much, but I don’t glow in the dark anymore.

Highlights of the trip (aside from seeing my friends for the first time in a year) included the Zoo & Tiger Sanctuary where we spent a whole day getting up close and personal with lion s and tigers and jaguars – oh my! We spent the entire day and I for one could have gone back for more. It’s probably the best value day out I’ve ever experienced.  This is how close we got to some of the animals. Most of these were taken without zoom and some were taken on my crappy iPhone 3G camera.

Chiquita - love the fluffy slippers!

Rajiv - an ex celebrity tiger from the US

Sultan - Lola's brother

Aysha - having a nap in the sun

Chandru - I think. All the names got confusing after a while

Aysha & Diamond - Twin hand-reared tigers

Zena (*white) & her big sister Zia getting treats from keeper Ben

Zena only has one eye, as it was removed because of an incurable infection. Her sister let her eat first and was obviously keeping an eye on her. The keepers said she was very protective of her baby sister who is a rare, natural -bred Indian white tiger.

Casper - a rare blonde African lion. His roar was really impressive.

And for those who want to see Lola, here she is in action. The keepers put a horse leg on a pole about 15ft up in the air as a treat, then let her have at it. It was incredible to watch live, you can’t even begin to get an idea of the incredible power in her from a video. The voice in the background of both these videos is photographer and big cat enthusiast Karen-Jane Dudley. Check out her website for some amazing up close big cat pictures.

We saw twins Aysha & Diamond getting their treats too and playing with their kitty toy (some metal beer barrels strapped to a wooden packing pallet with rope!) but the videos are really long, so here’s a short clip of them doing what any domestic cat brother and sister team would do after playtime – she pinned him down and gave him a bath!

I always find incessant posts and photo parades about someone else’s holiday really boring, so I’ll leave it at that. Journal pages to come soon though!

My Dreads, originally uploaded by Rhomany.

Thought I’d share a quick picture of my dreads from the back. They’re not a spiritual journey or anything, they’re the result of being too lazy to deal with my curly hair and too poor to spend lots of money on special products to get it to look half decent.

I don’t use any wax or special products just regular non-conditioning shampoo and a hairdryer. They were started with backcombing and a bit of crochet just around the roots to get them going. Now I just wash them regularly, pull apart the roots to keep them separated and sew in any long root hairs that refuse to dread.

The coloured wraps are thin baby ribbon and embroidery threads. I have 42 all together – I started with 37, but have no idea where the other 5 came from. They’re 26″ inches average from root to tip and mostly somewhere between pencil width and Sharpie size. I recently extended a few very short ones on top and around the front. The ones underneath are natural, but the shorter ones had shrunk to about 6-8 inches and were very annoying and meant I couldn’t put them up properly. I comb the ends to keep them loose because I don’t like the look of rounded ends.

I’ve worn dreads since 2005 but they used to be extensions. Now they’re all mine and firmly attached to my head. Going on 2 years for these and I love them more every day.

Something else I’ve been trying to get sorted out is my UStream now that I have a new camera. I seem to be having trouble getting the HD on my camera to translate to the stream itself, but I’ll keep at it. Here’s the link if you want to check out what’s there already. Just a couple of test videos while I get my lighting and sound sorted out, and get used to the dashboard, but feedback is appreciated.

In lieu of not having any artwork, I thought I’d share this video, which I found this morning. I dare you to watch it without smiling by the end.

Anything which happens that shouldn’t is entirely accidental, I assure you.

Normal service will resume shortly.

Lacking in ideas?

You need to take a few tips from my mate AJ. This is AJ.

4 yr old AJ (posted with his mum's permission)

AJ’s mum is an online friend of mine and is new to art journaling. She got interested in it through this blog and I pointed her to other places she could learn art journaling (mostly on YouTube) and then she wanted to learn to draw faces so I pointed her towards some other places as well like Willowing’s ning and Adriana Almanza’s YouTube. We also had a quick Skype video chat where I showed her some of my stuff, which is where me and my cat met AJ. The cat was incidental, she just wanted in on the action.

Anyway, AJs mum spent a whole weekend watching YouTube vids and playing in her brand new art journal and AJ played along side her, watching my videos and other videos and making his own pictures.

This is one of the pictures he drew. It’s entitled “A Black Plate with 16 Legs That Lives on Purple Pizza”.

"A Black Plate with 16 Legs That Lives on Purple Pizza" © AJ aged 4

AJ had his mum photograph it and send it to me because he wanted to show me what he’d learned.I think it’s awesome.

Four year olds have no fear. They have an imagination, they believe in their own work and they share it with the world.

We could all learn a thing or two from young AJ. I reckon he should have his own show. He’d get on so well with Blade.

Journal Pages © Klair Scattergood

Enjoying doodling in black, white and red this week, and my new tattoo which is my (slightly belated) birthday present to myself. It’s taken from a bracelet I own, by Keltie Colleen, though I used a different font.

I don’t know about you, but Monday is not now, nor has ever been, my day. Which is ironic considering it has ‘mon’ in it; French for ‘mine’.

Anyway, the shift in gears from ‘le weekend’ to ‘Monday’ is no better when you work from home than it is when you have to get up at the ass crack of dawn to ‘go to work’, trust me. I’ve tried it all; having a lie-in, having an extra weekend day, using it for running errands, it really doesn’t matter. I can not kid my brain that Monday is anything other than Monday, except on the few Bank Holiday Mondays where my brain actually understands that Monday = Sunday Part Deux.

So my Monday’s look like this;

1. Get up, shower and whatnot
2. Drink copious amounts of coffee while scanning through blog, Tumblr, Flickr & Twitter updates
3. Set up a few blog/Tumblr posts for the week in the various places I do blog posts
4. Grab a pen and my journal and start making lists of things I have to do, want to do or need to do; just as soon as it’s not Monday anymore.

Somehow, the week is much easier to start on Tuesday, armed with a list and knowing there’s only 4 days til the weekend.