and ponders on "friendliness"

Dog friendliness to be exact. You may have noticed a certain doggycentric slant to my posts. Since Dogstarke came to live with us back in 2012 she has become a very important part of our lives.

Who could resist this smile?

And so she comes with us when we travel. I heard a piece on the radio recently reporting how hotels were responding to the demand for pet friendly holidays. I know I've been on my soapbox about this before but it didn't really chime with my idea of what  dog friendly means. High up on the list of things were special dog menus and beds. Now I don't know whether we are exceptional but DogStarke fares best when she eats her regular diet, which we always take with us and her own blanket and bed to make her feel at ease. Dog spa treatments got a mention too...DogStarke likes to seek out her mud and seaweed fixes herself and hates grooming, so not much appeal there.

Zzzzzzzz

So what do I look for?

1) Friendliness, to people and pets. I think if you can't be friendly to customers then really you shouldn't  be in the business.

2) Somewhere to walk. It doesn't need to be a massive garden but that is a plus. It's good when rooms have suggestions for local walks too.

3) A bin for the inevitable waste. One very nice inn we've visited several times not only has no bins on site, there  are no waste bins in the village. But if you do fail to find a bin that is no excuse for leaving little bags around the place. Take it away!

4) Having an eating area and some public space accessible to dogs and their owners. It's not really friendly if poor dog has to be locked in the car when their people leave the room, and very unwelcoming to non drivers.

5) A sensible supplement for cleaning, because, well rooms should be thoroughly cleaned after every guest, dog or human.

Everything else is just window dressing.

DogStarke on her travels

And for our part we dog owners should abide by certain minimum standards of behaviour.

1) Always pick up your dog's waste.

2) Clean your dog, wipe their paws etc after those lovely muddy walks and...

3) Don't bath your dog in the hotel bathroom, that just spoils things for future guests, I know of a least one formerly dog friendly hotel that throw refuses dogs because of this. Many hotels/inns in country areas offer outside taps/towels. Use them.

4) Don't allow your dog on the beds/furniture even if they are allowed at home.

5) Keep your dog under control and don't let it wander about, not everyone is a dog lover.

6) Have fun with your dog, go for walks, play.  A happily tired dog after a great day out with its people will be more likely to settle down for a snooze under your chair.

have ball, happy dog

Well I've just finished booking a short break  at various dog friendly places, I'll let you know how we all get along.

Marina x

and looks back, not through the looking glass

I got a jolt recently.  Channel 4 is trailing the Rio Paralympics. Olympics time? Already? How can that be? Surely it's no time at all since London 2012?

It seems like yesterday.
It seems a lifetime away.

The summer of 2012.

My first blog.
My first tweet.

A latecomer to social media, (I only joined Facebook last year) my first blog was private, a way to share my holiday with family and a very limited number of friends. And I had a brand new shiny iPad, an early birthday present, to write it on; my old laptop was too heavy to take away with me.

The Olympics are important to the story because they seem to epitomise a time of innocence. Is that silly? Everyone was happy; there was that amazing opening ceremony,  so many wonderful performances, so many happy tears.

The fairy dust  even seemed to follow me across the world, there was a welcoming party when we arrived in Brisbane.  Ah no, that would be for  Queensland's returning heroine Sally Pearson who came in on the same flight.

We had a lovely holiday and saw some amazing sights.

 And then?

Well in the Autumn, prompted by the imminent arrival of......

DogStarke aka @southfieldchat

.........I started this public blog.

But something else had changed. Sometime between the euphoria of the Olympics and the end of my holiday, my mother had got sick. By Spring, she was gone.

The end if not of innocence but of being a child. Not completely because my father is still here, but the death of a parent shifts the generational perspective.

2012

        2013

               2014

                      2015

                             2016

                                   So much has happened.

                                                        MrS retired,  DogS arrived,

                                                                                   we lost our mothers,

                                                                             we travelled

                                    we sold a house, MasterS moved out,

                we sold a flat, we bought a house, we rented a flat,

       I had a landmark birthday, I resigned from my job,

 we made a permanent move.

And so to the present. We have a new home, a new business,  we are making new friends. I spend a fair bit of time using social media. I've taken up new things - yoga, and revisited some for the for time in thirty years - drama. I still have that iPad but write mostly on my Macbook. In May we'll vote for our next Scottish Government, in June on our future in Europe. August will bring the XXXI Olympiad, or  Rio 2016.


73 blog posts
6,204 tweets  

Not quite Spring 2016

It seems a lifetime away
It seems like yesterday

                       
Still travelling

Marina X






                             

                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                             

and enjoys the fruit of the vine

Bergerac. Not the 1980s Jersey based crime drama featuring Jim B. tootling about in his wine coloured Triumph roadster solving crimes committed by his father in law; the wine producing region of the Dordogne, south-east and inland of the better known Bordeaux. Possibly most associated with this chap, son of Abel de Cyrano, Lord of Bergerac in the 17th Century, full name Hercule-Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac. He seems to have lived an exciting life,  fighting in battles and duels and was also a writer,  though he's probably more famous for his fictionalised self in the works of Edmond Rostand.

Apparently he did have a big nose

                                                      

Bergerac's old town

Once upon a time Bergerac produced two of the most popular human vices, tobacco and wine. The  tobacco industry remains only in the Musee du Tabac but wine still grows in the fields.  A generic "Bergerac" red wine used to be sold here in Britain, though the region has 13 Appellations d'origine controlees, but I hadn't seen even that for years and then on our drive south we stopped of for a coffee at Weston Park  http://www.weston-park.com/about/history/and spotted this on sale.

Synchronicity?

                 

We stayed at the lovely Chateau les Merles http://www.lesmerles.com which was surrounded by its own vineyards,  so it would have been churlish not to have raised a glass or two.....

the chateau

 wine to be

One of the better known wines of the region is Monbazillac. Now this is a sweet wine and so presented me with a bit of a dilemma. I've given up puddings and chocolates, I do this every year during Lent (and often manage to end up in France surrounded by patisserie), so was I allowed any? I decided the answer was "yes", it was ok if I drank it as an aperitif so removing any pudding connotations, then I managed to convince MrS to start his meal the same way. A good outcome all round I thought.

 Chateau de Montbazillac is open to visitors and Dogstarke was allowed in, but I had to carry her. I didn't mind that at all, she's not that heavy and she's warm which the chateau even on a brilliantly sunny day most definitely was not; I could even see the appeal of long skirts and petticoats. Afterwards we warmed up with a scrumptious (wine free, we were driving) lunch at La Tour des Vents, just down the road http://www.tourdesvents.com. Dogstarke  was welcomed there too. 

Chateau de Montbazillac

After a hard days sightseeing and wine buying what could be nicer than a good soak in the bath? Well how about a bath in wine? Not really, that would be a waste but being a great believer in the health giving properties of red wine, I'd stocked up on some grape based toiletries and this scrub was excellent.  

The problem is now I'm hankering after a visit to the actual Caudalie spa near Bordeaux. I'd like to visit Bordeaux too. and then there's the wine....MrS would be keen and I'm  sure GlamourPuss and The Prof. could be persuaded to join us again.  All the best ingredients, good company, good food and wine, sightseeing, a spa.
 And a chauffeur perhaps?