Having trouble trying to sleep tonight, so I was standing at my bedroom window for a while looking at the stars. Its a reasonably clear night and I recognised some of the constellations even though I can't remember their names and it made me think of another night when my son was about 8 years old, it must have been winter-time as we were walking home after Beavers and it was dark. On the way, we stopped to say hello to a lovely old gentleman who lived nearby, who was out walking his dog - we chatted to him for a while and "M" was asking him questions about the stars as he knew a lot more about them than we did; and then finally "M" asked him a question that I'm guessing had been troubling him for quite some time "Why does your dog only have three legs?"
"Well" said our companion, "it's actually a very sad story. There was once a time, a few years ago, I had no food in the cupboards and no money to be able to go out and buy some. It got to the stage where I was so hungry that I really had to eat something..." by this point in the tale my son, who'd been listening with great interest, had a look of complete horror on his face - while I was stood there biting my tongue to try and stop myself from laughing and spoiling the effect!
I'm pleased to say that the gentleman did go on and explain to my son that it had actually been an accident, when his dog had been a puppy, it had tried to follow his daughter's dog over a brick wall and his leg had been so badly broken that it couldn't be saved.
I don't know what made me think of that story tonight. The gentleman died some years ago, his three-legged dog went to live with his daughter and my son and I missed our little chats with the gentleman and tickles with his dog - a very friendly, scruffy looking, medium sized mongrel. We used to see him often when we were out walking, they were a much loved part of our community. Back then, we had a great little local shop/Post Office just around the corner that sold newspapers, sweets and groceries - our friends were such regulars and so popular that the shop owners used to keep a tin behind the counter with dog treats in especially our three-legged friend. I'm feeling very guilty at the moment because I can't remember the names of either the gentleman or his dog even though I can picture them in my mind. But hopefully they're happy that they still live on in our memories as I know my son still remembers them too.
Sorry that this post isn't a craft related one - unless you count the fact that I took these photos out of the same window I was stargazing through tonight. They were taken a couple of years ago on the night of a "super moon" which was so bright it cast shadows distinct enough to see clearly. Believe it or not but the photo below was taken of my bedroom wall opposite the window I took the top photo through on the same night! You can see the silhouette of my cat who was sitting on the window ledge, the pile of books I rested my camera on, and you can almost see the colours of the stained glass panel, I made years ago, that hangs in my window.
I'm sorry too, that it's been so long since I last wrote a blog post. I've been struggling with my health, have been finding it hard to do any crafting and also coming to terms with not going back to finish my university studies this year. I didn't want to walk away from my course and in fact I still have the option of going back if I want to, once I feel well enough. I think maybe I've been letting it all get me down lately so even on the days when my hands haven't been as painful, I haven't been able to persuade myself to pick up my needle and thread, or other crafting tools and get on with something creative unless its been at craft club, or more recently, a couple of printing workshops I've attended - but I'll blog about those another day (with the emphasis on day!).
Crafting is something that does generally make me feel better about myself and those workshops have thankfully given me some much needed inspiration. I've been catching up on a few of the blogs I usually follow recently too and I really like the idea that some of them follow - 52 weeks of happy - this means that they do one blog a week where they write about 3 things that have made them happy over the past 7 days and I think its something I'd like to try too. I had planned to start my 52 weeks with the start of 2014 but I don't suppose you really need to wait, its something you can do at anytime, so I'm thinking that I might just start looking for my 3 happy things from now.
But for moment, I think the most sensible thing I could do would be to go back to bed and try to get some sleep, so I wish you all a good night, a great weekend and fingers crossed that the hurricane thats been forecast for Sunday night/Monday morning, blows itself out before it reaches land!
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