War stories or home guard?

I was just getting nicely settled in at Human Granny's when it became obvious that she and Gail were going out for the day, and, you know how us pups can sense these things, it was also clear they were not planning to take me along.

I tried barricading the front door, but to no avail.

When they returned several hours later Gail showed me this photo.

Human Granny, Janet and 'Fossy'

It turns out Gail had taken Human Granny to a school reunion in York. HGY attended a Church of England convent boarding school in Yorkshire and the whole school was evacuated to Canada during the World War Two. The two ladies with HGY are her school friends Janet and 'Fossy'. They all been together in Toronto, away from their families, between the ages of nine and thirteen.

Gosh, how I wish I could have attended the reunion too, and heard all their stories.

So many questions I would like to have asked.

So not fair that I was forced to stay behind, guarding HGY's back lawn against further badger damage.

In Praise of Human Granny

I am worried now that in my last post I left you with the impression that Human Granny is a rather alarming looking person.

Oh I would hate for you to have that idea. It is true that she doesn't too much like being photographed, but I think she won't mind me showing again this picture of her (and Human Grandad), to set the record straight.

Now I've told you quite a lot on this blog about HGD, so today I want to redress the balance and say some things about HGY.

Gail tells me that her mother had an unusual upbringing, being sent to boarding school, on account of her own mother's ill health, from the age of five. Yes, you read that right, five years old. Four years later, at the onset of World War Two, she and her fellow pupils at St Hilda's School, Whitby, boarded a ship at Liverpool docks, and were evacuated across the Atlantic, braving U boats and a hurricane, finally to reach the safe haven of Toronto in Canada. Brave little Maureen was the only person aboard who was not seasick during the hurricane. After four years in Canada, now a teenager, skilled in ice-skating, cross-country skiing and canoeing, and fattened up on the Canadian diet which included a quart of whole milk per day, HGY returned to the UK, was reunited with her parents and became acquainted with the trials of wartime food rationing in England. She was an able, diligent student, and her father had a fervent desire that his only child be well-educated. Following success at school she took a degree in 'Social Studies' at Leeds University and only narrowly missed out on first class honours. Soon after came a job as Personnel Officer at the Boots factory in Nottingham, marriage to a quiet, handsome Boots scientist nine years her senior, then two children, boy + girl, and a family life altogether more conventional than that she experienced in her own childhood, although she clearly found her later part-time job as a social worker in the City Hospital more stimulating than mundane domestic duties.

You know, I have noticed that HGY is a stoical character, not prone to self pity. Just like for us dogs, I guess it is those early experiences that are most important in shaping humans too.

It was fifty-six years ago that Human Granny vowed to look after her husband "in sickness and in health". I don't suppose she ever then envisaged that one day she would have to remind him of the way to the bedroom and to tell him not to put the butter in the dishwasher. But she doesn't complain, compelled by both love and duty to expend her remaining energies in caring for her ailing and increasingly hard to manage life partner, unable to contemplate the notion that anyone else might tend to him while she is still able.

Oh and I have to tell you that she is always most welcoming when I come to stay, despite her claiming not to be a 'dog person', and that I feel more comfortable and relaxed when I visit her than I do anywhere else in the world.

Gail shows me her holiday snaps

So Gail asked me if I would like to see some photos from her Newfoundland holiday.

To be honest, I was in two minds. I mean, why not rub it in Gail, that you were over the other side of the Pond, gallivanting with your friends, while I was stuck in prison 'my special vacation residence'.

Then she told me that she saw some statues of dogs, and I decided I was at least a teeny bit interested after all.

But first I was anxious to find out more about her travel companions, Marse, David and Jody, and most relieved to learn that they are all dog owners too, so must be a good influence. 

Marse, pictured below, lives in Tacoma, Washington State with Liddy, a part-corgi part-Tibetan spaniel, and Boo, a border collie who, as a tiny puppy, was rescued from a locked mail box by Marse and her Cuban sister-in-law (hence Boo, from buzón, Spanish for mail box). 

Marse in the cloud on top of Gros Morne

And David (Marse's youngest brother) and his wife Jody share their life in Austin Texas with a mellow Australian Shepherd, Jessy. 

David and Jody by Bakers Brook Waterfall

I can see from the pictures that there were lots of interesting places in Newfoundland where Liddy, Boo, Jessy and I could have thoroughly enjoyed exploring, had we not all been left at home. Or in our 'special vacation residences'. 

I would not have minded at all that the ground was so swampy the trails through the forest were mostly on boardwalks.

The houses in St Johns looked so colourful on the outside

And dog-friendly, surely, on the inside.

It would also have been nice to have met all Marse and David's relatives (their mother came from Newfoundland).  Here are Aunt Frieda and Uncle Dan in Corner Brook. 

Aunt Frieda won this year's local downhill ski race (over eighties category) and is president of the Scottish Country Dancing Club!

Oh and if only I had been there to appreciate Gail's lecture on the Table Lands Ophiolite Zone, where the serpentinised peridotite rock from the earth's mantle is exposed at the surface. It is not clear from the photo that Gail's American friends were all that enraptured by this rare geological occurrence.

I learn that in Newfoundland you are never far from water (which I, as a terrier, have mixed feelings about.)

You are never far from a moose either.

Gail says it wasn't like 'The Shipping News' after all. Apart from the fact that the local radio station did spend a lot of time talking about car wrecks...

Finally friends, can you help me with this one, please? Supposedly there is something amusing about the changing uses of this building on George Street, St Johns. Beats me though. Perhaps if you biggify it you will be able to tell me the joke?