Jane Wheeler's Blog - Just another WordPress weblog

greyness, blossoms and buds

Posted jane -->on 18th Mar 2012

one weekend of sunshine and you start to get optimistic about spring – then it’s grey for seven days running.

the daffodils are out, the primroses line the lanes, the blackthorn is white in all the hedges, but it’s really been feeling quite wintery.

the blackthorn in my garden has been quite slow, one bush is just out. the japonica has been in flower all week.

the beauty of bath apple tree has buds swelling into pale green pompoms and studding its branches. this needs drawing, for next spring’s knit collection, but it’s been too cold to stand out there for long. soon I will have to start growing vegetables in the new beds.

the wild daffodils are nicely out in the wildflower garden, and cowslips are beginning to stand up and be counted. today I sowed woodland wildflower seeds under the trees, and reseeded grass and wildflowers, old meadow mixture, where the grass has been dug up. under the apple trees I planted four plum-coloured baby hellebores.

I have been making big pots with the black clay, undiluted this time. there is a risk of dunting (cracking after firing) but I am fairly confident of success. if I glaze inside and outside, and stand them in sand, I shouldn’t have a problem.

these two are enormous, the one on the left will have to be bisque fired on it’s side, and I will go a little higher than usual to try to get them to shrink a bit.

this is a new shape. the main body is made of two tapered pieces, in order to get the tapered shape, larger at the top.

the next bisque firing will be just a few large pots.

twirling it round with the spike to make the horizontal lines is enjoyable, the final touch.

I am making one of these a day, which allows the clay to mature enough to work with. I don’t need to heat the workshop for this, and I can get on with other tasks, gardening, and drawing.

life death and an old friend

Posted jane -->on 15th Mar 2012

Sal on a Norfolk beach 2008, aged 12. handsome sandy boy.

2005, being very patient with baby Tilda, who is biting his ear.

“In the big sheep meadow Sal plays in the snow, shoving his nose into it, eating it and leaping about, you wouldn’t think he is fourteen this year.”

I wrote this two years ago, and this winter was optimistic about having another year, but it was not to be, Sal suffered a stroke on the last day of February, and did not recover. he was helped out of this world two days later. only two days before his stroke he was cavorting about and happily walking out for an hour.

we first met in a park in Newcastle when I was looking after a dog called Raider whose family had taken Lucy to Umbria. a shaggy dishevelled creature appeared to have no owner, and I lured him back to the house with kind words. unfortunately Raider didn’t share my attitude, so I took him to the police the next day. when Lucy returned we went to the pound and reclaimed him. he was only six months old, and cried when the pound handler abandoned him to strangers.

he was very thin and very nervous, barking at strangers in the house and out in the park. in fact he was a bit of a menace with people, jumping up at them and barking.

his german shepherd heritage was very obvious, but what about the rest? his neat paws and light bones, and speed made me think whippet.

the new bed, his own bed, his own bone, his collar, his house, his people were all very important to him. he would not be left out, and virtually screamed if his pack was split up. we took him to obedience class and he was angelic, apart from being too vocal, as long as some other dog didn’t have a squeaky toy. in more advanced classes he learnt so quickly; I really should have done some agility with him, he would have been amazing.

after some setbacks with kennel cough, and then his “op”  he started to grow up into a very handsome dog, and being walked with a group by the dog-walker helped him calm down.

he was very serious about food, and about the tennis balls which we kicked all over the park for him. but he was always car sick, especially after the beach trips when he would bring up buckets of sand, picked up with the tennis ball …..

we tried children’s cough mixture. that just made him drool, poor chap. eventually a really long trip cured him.

but the beach was such fun, it was always worth it. the back of my car got a little stinky …

and there was always someone who would throw the ball into the sea just to see poor Sal get wet.

he filled out, and got his confidence. the poor postman had his bag bitten but he was friends with the parcel force guy.

then we moved to the country, back to Norfolk. he seemed a bit bored without his dog walking friends so we got Sooz from whippet rescue.

then a very lively and cheeky Tilda

she loved him, but she bossed him completely, specialising in ambush, and when she was grown never allowing him a bone or a toy unless she was kept away by force.

but on the whole, putting up with a puppy at the age of nine gave him a new lease of life.

now we remember him on our  walks, an invisible presence. when I get up in the morning there’s no Sal desperate to get out to the garden, then to come in and get his hug, and his morning warm drink … but he had a very good life, and will always be with me, in my head.