Gizmo

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Little Black Spot

gizmo1

There’s a little black spot on the sun today.

We lost our handsome, beautiful, opinionated Cairn Terrier Gizmo this week, to cancer. He was only 7 years old. My wife cries, my daughter is withdrawn and my chatty, noisy son is silent. I have a Cairn sized hole in me. When his predecessors left us (Woody at 14 and his brother Homer at 16) there was time to prepare. Time had caught up with them. For Gizmo it was less than 7 days from diagnosis to gone. He was an absolute delight, and lest I ever forget:

  • He had a strong belief that (when he woke us up by standing on our chests, madly wagging his tail to go out for a pee at 2.30 a.m.) we would be as happy about that as he was,
  • The way he ran downstairs to greet us at the front door, earning the nickname Thunderhooves,
  • That he learned (with my daughter) to do the cowboy trick – she drew imaginary pistols and made shooting noises – he rolled over and raised his paws,
  • When let  off the lead he didn’t run, he galloped,
  • How he slept on the big bed on his back with his head to one side and all four legs pointed to the ceiling, AND made puppy noises when he was dreaming,
  • That chasing a small tennis ball was great, but chasing three at once was the BEST THING EVER,
  • He loved licking faces, and my son’s face was his favourite,
  • How he was my bacon sandwich, sausage, cheese, tuna and afternoon sleep buddy.

He could also subdue a rubber chicken, stand for hours in plant pots, drink pond water and generally be magnificent.

As a family we already know that we have unfinished Cairn business, but this one, this little furry one was special.

Oh and if you look carefully you will see that the little black spot on the sun is Cairn Terrier shaped.

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Seedbomb, seedbomb, you’re my seedbomb

“You can give it to me when I need to bomb along
Seedbomb seedbomb you’re my seedbomb
And baby you can grow me on”

Let’s sing along, all together now…. tee hee.

My lovely daughter Rhiannon Cara reminded me this weekend that I wanted to call her either “Fang” or “Blind lemon melon”, until sense and Fleetwood Mac prevailed.

Anyhoo we have just spent a pleasant afternoon throwing away her Christmas present to me, three hand grenade shaped clay seed bombs (see exhibit 1 below M’Lud):

Seed bombs

The clay bombs are filled with flower seeds and rye grass and are designed to be thrown into areas needing some colour – perfect guerilla gardening tools. They are deployed with aplomb:

Guerilla Gardener number 1

The result is shattered clay which will dissolve as soon as there is rain and a great spreading of seeds:

I’ll keep you posted as (hopefully) the seeds germinate and this little derelict spot gets lively! Gizmo looked on in disgust from a tree as this was all rather interrupting his afternoon gallop:

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Beware the Pump-Cairn

Halloween is great fun and we enjoy the trick or treat kids that come around for their pack of Haribos. This year we had spiders on wires that are triggered by the doorbell. They press the doorbell, the spiders drop and then start climbing back up their strings. We answer the door when the screaming stops.

Gizmo tries to join in – this amounts to looking glum in pictures – see the Pump-Cairn below and hurling himself at the front door to provide percussion to accompany the screaming – good dog.

This may turn into one of a series, Cairn on the Cob, Cairngorm-less etc.

Although my daughter had friends round to watch a movie, my son was away at a friends – not sure how much trick or treating occurred, I suspect more like 8 hours of unadulterated mind-numbing CoD4 online. In between teenies and screaming we watched Drag Me To Hell. Billed as “The scariest film of the decade”, it wasn’t.