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Good grief, this appears to be my first blog entry since April. In my defence, I’ve had a few things to deal with.

As you may know if you’ve been following me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, there have been yet more shenanigans with my stupid spine. Some problems I’d been having with my neck turned out to be more serious than they first appeared, and I ended up having urgent surgery to free my squished spinal cord.

Of course, given that the NHS is underfunded to the point of collapse, ‘urgent’ doesn’t necessarily mean next week, next month or even this year. When I spoke to the surgeon in April, he said, “this should be done before the end of the summer”; I immediately asked, “which summer?”. Thankfully things did move quickly, and I had the surgery in July.

I won’t go into detail (although I’m very happy to chat to anyone who is interested or going through something similar) but I ended up having a multi-level laminoplasty and foraminotomy, which was… not fun. In fact, it was spectacularly painful and I was stuck in a neck brace until my ‘six week’ post op appointment at the hospital, which actually happened after seven weeks just for the sheer fun of it. I am now sporting a new neck-length Frankenstein’s monster scar right on time for Halloween. Should have just gone all out and given me bolts.

Yes, I was properly grumpy but look at the actual state of me:

On the bright side, I’m glad it’s over and everybody at the RJAH in Oswestry was lovely as usual. Recovering from this one has been tough and frustratingly slow, but I can confirm that I am now able to put on my own socks, drink coffee (or, let’s be honest, wine) without a straw and sit at my desk long enough to type a few paragraphs at a time. Sketching comfortably is a little way off, but I’m confident I’ll get there soon.

Obviously, I haven’t been having many other adventures lately. Before my neck intervened, Luce and I had been hard at work on our somewhat neglected garden. We managed to sort out the weed covered patio, clear the paths and flower beds nearest the house and do some replanting, which was quite the achievement! My mum bought me a small greenhouse for my birthday last year, so I was able to grow (or attempt to grow) pretty much everything from seed this spring. Some experiments were more successful than others, but I really enjoyed myself and I’m already planning for next year.

As a joint birthday present/reward, we decided to upgrade our outdoor drinking experience a little… 

Yep, that’s me on my birthday in June sipping rum cocktails at our ACTUAL TIKI BAR! What could possibly go wrong? We’ve acquired solar disco lights and several flamingos since then, which has rendered the whole thing approximately 35% more hilarious. And that’s two photos of me, which is more selfies than I’ve shared in ages (February 2020. I checked).

Speaking of hilarity, we finally had to have our ancient gas boiler replaced in June. We’d been putting it off for ages, mostly because of the expense but also the upheaval. Our crumbling Victorian house never makes anything like this straightforward. Sure enough, leaks sprung up all over the ancient pipework and it became obvious that we were also going to have to replace most of the ancient radiators, so the upheaval extended through the whole place, and we now have an efficient new central heating system with six-inch sections of peeling 1970s wallpaper above several of the radiators because the new ones were a different size. Goodness only knows when I’ll be able to get up a ladder to hang wallpaper. I might just have to style it out for now and call it a feature. Old wallpaper is ‘retro chic’, right? Maybe I’ll start a trend. Also, although we now have a working thermostat for the first time in twenty-odd years, we still feel the dog’s ears to decide whether it’s cold enough to turn the heating on. Because nobody wants cold ears, especially not this dog:

Now you know why I’m skint, perhaps you’d like to have a look at all the lovely t-shirts, posters, mugs etc. in my shiny new online shop? After the customary amount of coffee and swearing, I’ve added a spooky seasonal section and everything. Please order soon if you need stuff in time for Halloween, as everything is made to order and delivered direct by the printer, not the ‘weasel.

I will try and be a more regular correspondent from now on. I know I’ve said that before but this is the first time since 2015 I’m not on a surgeon’s waiting list, which is encouraging. Fingers crossed, eh?

Bonus Music Video

Ok, I admit the title of this blog entry is a bit tenuous. Is it because I talked a bit about gardening? Am I a flower trying to turn towards the sun? Or was it just a flimsy excuse to share this beautiful song at the end?

Yeah… it’s the last one, obviously. But you’ll thank me once you listen to it.

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Ok, so it’s not a mystery but it was that or ‘Stairway to Heaven’, which was not appropriate for this story.

Why haven’t I blogged for a while? Well, my dodgy back occasionally affects my balance and a few weeks ago it caused me to miss my footing at the top of our (steep old Victorian) stairs. I tried to correct myself with my dodgy leg, which promptly gave way under me and… crash, bang ‘weasel. I was stone cold sober at the time, honest. Maybe that’s where I went wrong?

It was one of those accidents that went in slow motion. My first thought was ‘where’s the dog?’ but she’d scarpered as soon as she heard my first swear. Then I thought Very Bad Things about the horribly underfunded state of the NHS and those responsible for underfunding it, because I’m still waiting for two rescheduled hospital appointments at the spine clinic and the foot/leg clinic. Then I thought of certain sympathetic (…*ahem*…) friends and decided that if this was how I was going to go I wanted to be laid to rest in the exact upside-down-and-backwards pose in which I’d landed, because they would find that hilarious. Then I just thought ‘Ouch’. Thankfully, I avoided serious injury; my legs took the worst of it and I already had a pair of crutches in the house, but it’s slowed me down and bits of me are still various shades of bruised.

In more cheerful news, I’ve been having great fun with the 100 Day Project. I’ve added my drawings so far to a gallery page here and there’s now a ‘comments’ section on all my galleries for anyone who fancies a chat. I’m using the hashtags #The 100DayProject and #ImaginaryMenagerie if you’d like to follow along on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. I’m ‘@poochweasel’ everywhere.

Also, my short stair-related break means I have FINALLY got around to building a new website shop so you can now buy prints, mugs, or t shirts of anything you like! Adding all the products is quite painstaking so it’s still a work in progress but I’m so pleased it’s up and running. I really want to get it right first time, because my old website was a headache to maintain and I was forever tweaking and mending things. Technology has moved on a lot since then but my 56 year old brain has not. I’m having to learn new technical skills, which is not really my brain’s thing. A typical afternoon at Poochweasel Towers goes something like this:

Me: Right then, brain, we need to create some new product templates.

My brain: Ok.

Me: Then we need to… *something about pricing, mock ups and uploads*…

Brain …

Me: Are you still listening?

Brain: What? Oh yeah… of course. Templates.

Me: Yes. Templates.

Brain: Have you ever noticed that when wombats yawn, they look like they’re doing karaoke?

Me…

Me: Stop it.

Brain…

Me…

20 minutes later:

And in case you were in any doubt, here’s a little story I should probably call ‘Reasons I Am An Idiot Episode 437’.

I have a good friend called Ritu, who is amazing DJ and broadcaster. You should take a minute to check out her website and follow all her socials. We met in the late 1980s, when I was working for Our Price Records and struggling to find the time to be creative, and she was DJ-ing evenings and weekends around her ‘day job’. We bonded over (among many other things) music and art and she was pretty much the only person I knew who was supportive of my ambition to be a full time artist one day. She gave me a beautiful Rotring pen set for my birthday. Artists just did an intake of breath… those things are not cheap. Shortly after that I changed job and moved house. Awful grown up stuff happened and I downed my art tools for many years until I met Luce, who encouraged me to pick them up again and start arting full time.

Fast forward to 2019 when I set myself the challenge of getting back into ink drawing. I quickly graduated from biros, my old standby, to fineliners. As I remembered how to draw(!) I also remembered the struggle to find the perfect pen. I bought better pens, with finer nibs that didn’t blot. Then more pens, because I was getting through them so quickly. I fretted about the environmental impact of disposables and researched pens that would last longer, might be refillable, might have impossibly delicate nibs that wouldn’t break. I talked for hours to other people who obsessed about pens and were constantly disappointed.

Fast forward again to last month when, after three years of pen-related frustration, my brain (see above) finally stopped thinking about wombats and 1980s song lyrics for five minutes and went “hang on”… Sure enough, about 20cm away from my battered little knees, carefully placed in a drawer of the desk I sit at Every. Single. Day. was the Rotring drawing set, in prisine condition after 30 years. I just needed new ink, which cost me £5.99 with free delivery. Take a bow, ‘Weasel, you absolute lemon.

On the plus side, it was a lovely surprise, I’m now using this glorious thing every day and I’ve probably just given Ritu a laugh.

There’s almost certainly a lesson to be learned from all of the above. Don’t ask me what it is though, if my life wasn’t a constant parade of nonsense and bobbins I’d have nothing to write about.

Bonus Music Video

I will always love Siouxsie. Can you tell it was 1979? The clues are there… Kids, ask your mum.

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A short update and a request for help. To get you in the right mood, here are some doggos doing their best help faces:

Regular listeners will know I’m currently waiting for (pandemically delayed) spinal surgery and I’m not able to get much work done. Which, if I were more mobile with my partially-fused sacroiliac joints, would have me climbing the walls with frustration as well as being rather skint.

You may also have noticed that my website has been down for a while. Unfortunately, it was expensive and pretty clunky to work with, so I decided I had to let it go. Then I had that difficult conversation with myself (again) about whether it was time to retire. I decided I’m still not ready for that, but it’s getting harder to carry on.

The good news is that I still have some pieces ready to post and I would like to offer prints etc. from some of my models and drawings, so I’m fundraising for a new website via Ko-Fi where you can support artists and other creative folk by buying them a virtual cup of coffee. I like the idea of being fuelled by coffee, even if it’s virtual coffee. I’ll build the website myself, I just need hosting and domain costs. If I reach my goal, I promise I will also use it to do my best to entertain and amuse you with my very finest nonsense and bobbins.

The other good news is, thanks to the utterly wonderful Kathy Burke spending her Saturday morning retweeting indie art businesses, I’m already nearly 20% funded!

I know it’s a really hard time for everyone but if you enjoy what I do and you’re able to bung a spare £3.00 my way, I’ll be forever grateful. If you’re not able to donate, I would be just as grateful if you would share my fundraiser and/or any of my social media profiles/posts with THE WORLD (especially anyone you know who might be interested). Thank you so much.

The title of this entry was shamelessly pilfered from ‘Coin Operated Boy’ by The Dresden Dolls. Bonus music video, as usual, for those who like that sort of thing.

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It has just come to my attention that I have missed the start of ‘March Meet the Maker’ again. For those of you who don’t know, this is an annual challenge set by Joanne Hawker which encourages arty/crafty small business folk to come out from under our rocks and share stuff about what we do.

Most years I mean to and then forget, but this year I thought “what better way to ease myself into daily art journaling? I will put this in my diary!” So I put it in my diary. And then I forgot.

But… in the spirit of self-improvement, commitment to creative discipline and reckless enthusiasm following several mugs of (very, very) strong coffee, I decided to use this week’s blog to catch up! If you would like to join in, here’s a link to the website with prompts and explanations.

At first glance I can’t honestly say I was excited by all the prompts, but I guess that’s kind of the idea. It’s a challenge. So here we go.

1) STORY

The story of Poochweasel started quite unexpectedly. Some years ago, I was driving along, minding my own business, when a random numpty pulled straight out in front of me. The resulting crash did my already dodgy spine no favours at all. I needed surgery, spent the next couple of years recovering and had to give up my job as I couldn’t drive. It wasn’t the ideal way to change career but my wife, Luce, encouraged me to start sketching and sculpting again while I was stuck at home. For fun, I made a ‘Basset Fairy Princess’ Christmas ornament for a friend and shared photos on Facebook.

Suddenly everybody wanted their own ‘tiny dog’ and things took off from there. In fact, things went a bit berserk, but Luce was really supportive and encouraged me to go with it and see where I ended up. I spent the first year or so setting up a business in a hurry and Poochweasel is now my full-time job. Hurrah!

2) HANDS AT WORK

Umm… ok, this is tricky, because there’s no one else here and dogs are notoriously rubbish at taking photos. Here is an old one of my fingers, holding a poodle. As you do(odle). And another couple of shots so you can see what I was making. Her name is Gemma, and yes, I painstakingly attached every one of those curls!

 

3) TIME

Time is my enemy, work-wise right now. Tiny dogs take a long time to make and I can’t sit at my desk for long because my back is crocked. Also, I have always been a night owl which has never really fit in with the rest of the world. And the NHS ‘clock’ is not my friend while I wait for more surgery. Let’s just forget the whole ‘time’ thing.

4) BRANDING

Oh, now this is a much more cheerful subject. My brand colours are light and dark purple, just because I like them, and I think they catch the eye.  My logo is the best photo I ever took of our much-missed old girl Sandie, who joined us for her retirement in 2008 after she lost her owner.

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We went the local Dogs Trust looking for a young male doggo friend for our terrier girl, Etty, and came home with a 14-year-old lady Labrador in the car. We got a ‘buy one get one free’ deal with Boswell, the puppy. These things happen to us a lot.

My business name is harder to explain. The ‘pooch’ bit is obvious, but I have no idea where the ‘weasel’ came from. There was wine and it all made sense at the time. People often stop and ask about the name and the logo at events though, so I guess I chose well!

5) CLOSE UP

Tiny dogs are ALL about the detail. This is Dexter the steampunk Dobermann. My models are usually between 8cm and 15cm tall, so you can imagine how tiny some of the details are. Those are actual watch parts on his hat, and on the box.

Dexter-small

I also made a steampunk cow, which is possibly my favourite thing ever.

6) REDUCING WASTE

My work doesn’t create much waste. I use environmentally friendly products to keep things clean when I’m working with clay, which likes to pick up every teeny tiny speck of dust. Polymer clay is a non-toxic plastic, so not easily recycled, but I keep every scrap of clay to use for armatures, etc. which means virtually nothing gets thrown out.

I think about sustainability whenever I choose art supplies. For example, I recently started using alcohol ink markers and chose a brand that offers refills and replacement nibs. Unless I’ve been specifically asked to gift-wrap something, I also use recycled packaging materials, so your order might arrive in a slightly odd box, but it’s helped the environment and you haven’t had to pay for it!

7) YOU

I live in Shropshire with Luce, and our two rescue staffies, Lola and Ruby. You may ask yourself “How did I get here”? But probably only if you were a teenager in the 1980s, like me (Kids, ask your granny about Talking Heads).

I grew up in London and studied at the Central School of Art and Design (which has since become Central St Martins). After that I spent a fun few years managing record shops. I always wanted to get back to being artistic but awful grown up stuff happened, and I found myself with a mortgage and a career in sales and marketing (yawn). I ran my own wine importing business for a while, which was also fun, even if certain parts of the 1990s are a bit of a blur. Now I make quirky art stuff for a living. Hurrah!

Things I like include animals, especially dogs (obviously), art (obviously), music, books, gaming, horror films, tattoos, trees, plants, coffee and wine. I have a ridiculous amount of t shirts, but I always need more. I also have a lot of board games, but I rarely have time to play them, never mind paint all the miniatures. I am nerd girl, hear me roar.

8) LOVE TO MAKE

I think we’ve already established that I love to make tiny dogs, but my favourites are the themed models that come from my own slightly odd imagination. Like these:

 

9) ROUGH/MOCK UP

Weirdly, I rarely sketch for models. I find I can just see them in my mind’s eye, then it’s all about coaxing what I see out of the clay, if that makes sense? If I’m doing a commission, I quite often send a progress shot or two to a customer, and I always send photos before the model is dried.

Another thing I always check if I’m making or drawing more than one dog, is that I have the comparative sizes right, and I’m more likely to do a quick sketch for a portrait or illustration to make sure that the customer is happy with the composition.

 

Phew! That took longer than I thought. And now I’m all caught up, I’ll try to keep up. Please feel free to use the comments section below, or any of my social media channels, to laugh at me, or ask questions, or show me your answers to the prompts, so I don’t feel like I’m talking to myself…

 

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The first couple of weeks of my year of living… artfully(?) have been fantastic!

So far, I’m still doing more reading than writing. I’ve been following some of the advice in a very useful book about overcoming creative block and allowing myself to follow random ideas and interesting articles I come across ‘in the moment’, rather than filing them away for later and never going back to them. I’ve broken ground on my art journal and I have so many plans for new projects.

I now have three (three!!) sketchbooks on the go. I know! Look at me. One is for the journal, which I am going to start using every day, even if it’s just to note what I’ve been reading or thinking about. One is for work, which I will probably use more later in the year as I plan for the future.

The last one is shared with Luce. At the moment it’s mostly random silly sketches of things we come up with that make us laugh, like Lola in space (still getting her tennis ball pinched by Ruby. Oh noes!) or ‘Farty and the Tank’…

… but Luce is a very talented writer and we have often discussed collaborating on something creative. The first year of her PhD is pretty intense, with regular lectures involving a three-hour round trip to Warwick. Next year, fingers crossed, she will be more able to manage her own schedule, so we might just find time to start.

In my last blog entry, I spoke about challenging myself to learn new skills. Every artist or crafter I know has a long list of things they’re going to try “one day” and, more often than not, a cupboard full of unused supplies. One of the things in my Cupboard of Shame was a set of pro marker pens that I’d never tried so I used them to colour a couple of sketches.

Oh. My. Goodness. They’re fun. Now I have another few sets on the way! It doesn’t count as a shopping spree, because I used a voucher I got for Christmas. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it… *ahem*…

Since I’ve been sketching again, I find I am more likely to notice and appreciate the small stuff. I’m trying to make positive changes when I can even if it’s something that seems unimportant. Clearing out a drawer recently, I found a beautiful old biscuit tin that my Gran gave me when I was little. I used to keep my pencils in it, and now I do again!

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It took all of five minutes to clean it up and sort what I was going to put in it, but it makes me smile every day. Funnily enough, I have been drawing a lot from nature (or photos of nature, taken when I was able to go for long walks!) so it also suits that theme. And I have a butterfly story, but that can wait until next update.

If anyone would like to join me and have a go at art journaling, or writing a journal, or daily sketching, or anything creative at all, I would be absolutely delighted! It’s so easy to ‘burn out’ when you spend a lot of time on your own and art, writing etc. tend to be fairly solitary pursuits. I would love to build a little creative community so that we can offer each other support and encouragement.

For now, I have a Facebook group linked to my Poochweasel page, which anyone is very welcome to join. I’m not a massive fan of Faceache though, so I’m very much open to suggestions. Come and talk to me! 

 

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Hello and a belated happy new year! Please stick with me, this post is quite long but also really positive, I promise. And there might be a picture of a daft dog at the end. Oh go on then, let’s start with one too. That’s me photo-bombing on the left:

selfie

So here we are in 2020. Even if the world is in turmoil and things seem bleak, the beginning of a new decade seems like a time to take stock and look to the future.

The truth is that the last five years have been a struggle for us here at Poochweasel Towers. That’s not to say there haven’t been good times and we have plenty of reasons to be grateful. We are very happy together, we have wonderful friends and family, excellent doggos, and Luce is finally studying for the PhD she has wanted to do for years. But a ridiculous number of ‘challenging’ things have happened one after another and recovering from them has been difficult.

Also, as you probably know if you follow this blog, I am not doing well health-wise. It seems that every time I sit down to write a post, I start by telling you that I’m struggling and apologising for my lack of new work or availability for commissions. Unfortunately, my situation doesn’t look like it’s about to change any time soon.

I have suffered from chronic arthritis since I was about 12. I have had fusions in my neck and lower back. Last year, after nearly a year of waiting for various scans etc, I had the first of two procedures to fuse my sacroiliac joints. I was told the second surgery should be 8-12 weeks later. Turns out that even if you need two procedures for the same reason, they are treated separately and the NHS clock resets after each one, so it will be another 6 months before I become ‘urgent’ again. And it can take a year or so to fully recover from fusion surgery… None of this is the fault of the hospital or the NHS of course but being ‘lop-sided’ is not doing me any favours. I find it difficult to sleep, I can’t stand for long or walk very far, and I can’t sit at my desk for any length of time.

Unsurprisingly, all this has taken a toll on my mental health too. I have found it increasingly difficult to be creative and being creative is what makes me happy. Mid December, when I found out that my next surgery probably wouldn’t happen before July 2020, was a particularly low point, so I had a little talk with myself. “Ok me”, I said, “You can’t change your circumstances, but you can choose how you react to them, so what are you going to do about it?” My first thought was “that’s it, I’m going to have to retire”. But I don’t want to do that yet and thinking about it made me miserable. I pondered the probable timing of the surgery/recovery and decided I would have to take a year off. Obviously, my first reaction was to panic. Then I thought “would that really be so bad?” Luce and I have always been determined to take the positive from any situation, even if it’s just a lesson we’ve had to learn the hard way. The more I thought about it, the more positives and possibilities I saw. So that’s what I’m going to do, but I’m not going anywhere and there will be no moping or moaning or feeling sorry for myself. I plan to use the time to ‘get my mojo back’ and start art-ing and writing and generally ‘weaselling about the place again.

I find January is a rubbish time to start anything. Like going on a diet when the house is still full of Christmas chocolates and there’s a litre of Baileys in your fridge (*ahem*). So, the next couple of weeks will be mostly spent reading, listing and organising. And maybe finishing some of the chocolates, if I can prise them away from Luce….

IMG_20200108_131206566      IMG_20191225_102553738 (2)

Here are some of my plans so far.

Firstly, tiny dogs. I love making tiny dogs. There will always be tiny dogs. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take on commissions until I’m fully recovered because I can’t guarantee if/when I will be able to make them. Even if people are very patient and prepared to wait (which they nearly always are) my work list quickly stacks up and causes me a lot of stress. I don’t mind being under pressure when I’m able to work full-time but when I’m not I imagine people being fed up if I’m doing anything other than making their order and that stops me doing anything creative at all. So, no commissions for a while, but more tiny dogs in general. Also, I have some long-term tiny dog projects that have been on a back burner for years and I would love to start bringing some of those to life. Think really imaginative, detailed models. Maybe some animations. Maybe starting to head towards a small exhibition, or even a book?

Before any of that fun, I must get back into good creative habits and for me, that starts with sketching. I’ve been reading about art journaling and I’m planning to give that a go. I’m also going to be doing #inktober52 which has prompts for an ink sketch every week. I got way behind with last year’s #Inktober, which is a sketch every day, but I’m hoping I can manage this!

Self-care is important but mindfulness and meditation aren’t really my thing. Being creative is what gives me ‘head space’ and provides an antidote to stress and anxiety. Stupidly, like many creative folks, I also put myself under unnecessary pressure to produce something fabulous every time I pick up my clay or put pen to paper. I’m pretty sure that doing more spontaneous quick sketches etc. will help me get over that, as will getting out of my comfort zone and trying some new things. I might even ask for suggestions or challenges!

Which brings me to social media and the amazing people who follow and support what I do. I was surprised and delighted when Poochweasel took off as quickly as it did back at the beginning of the last decade, and I am enormously grateful that so many of you have stayed with me. Every comment or share or RT or post ‘like’ really is appreciated. Keeping things going on social media without a steady stream of new work (or ‘content’. Ugh.) is difficult and time-consuming, so it will be a massive weight off my shoulders to have new things to show you.

I love being self-employed but it can mean being rather isolated. I would very much like to share what I get up to while I’m finding my way back to a regular creative routine. The odd posts I’ve made about personal projects have been popular, so I’m thinking some of you might find it interesting. I also know that a lot of other people are going through similar problems and I would love to build a community where we can chat and support each other.

Having said that, I realise that plenty of people are only here for doggos and that’s fine! I’m going to use my blog for this project, probably as an extension of my art journal. I’m thinking I’ll label these journal entries simply by date and other updates will have the usual fancy music-related titles(!) I’ll post/tweet links and include a brief description of each entry, so you can easily pick and choose.

I’m planning to keep the Poochweasel Facebook page as it is and share any dog-related art as usual. I will use the ‘closed’ (members only) Poochweasel Facebook group for everything else. The only reason the group is closed is so that I don’t spam your feed with other arty/silly stuff that may not interest you, and to encourage people to chat and post their own work without making it public on Facebook. Anyone is welcome to join. Here’s a link: www.facebook.com/groups/poochweasel You can also find also a link on the Poochweasel page, or just do a Facebook search for ‘Poochweasel’.

Twitter and Instagram work differently, and I might be able to separate things enough just by using different hashtags. I’ll play that by ear.

Having ended 2019 feeling properly down in the dumps, I’m excited to see where the next year or so takes me artistically, and that has made me feel a whole lot better already. I really hope I can pass on a bit of fun and positivity along the way.

Thank you so much if you’ve read this far. I’d love to hear what you think!

As promised, here’s a daft dog. If you cheated and skipped straight here, I understand.

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Bonus Music Video:

The title of this post is a lyric from Golden Years by David Bowie, form the album ‘Station to Station’.

“Bowie made an appearance on Soul Train singing (actually, lip synching) ‘Golden Years’ and ‘Fame’ on November 4, 1975. Few white performers had appeared on the show, but host Don Cornelius gave him a warm welcome, introducing him as “one of the world’s most popular and important music personalities.”

 

 

 

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Remember my last blog? I ended by saying “…as delightful as March has been, I am ready for April now, pleaseandthankyou. What could possibly go wrong?” Well, let me tell you…

On the 8th April I had more spinal surgery as planned, the first of two procedures to fuse my sacroiliac joints. Everything went really well and I already feel much better. My right SI joint is recovering well and the surgeon also had the foresight to do the necessary diagnostic/painkilling injections in the left side while I was anaesthetised, to spare me that unpleasantness at another appointment. I was lucky enough that the operation took place first thing in the morning and I managed to escape from hospital after only one night, feeling very pleased with myself. Silly me! This is still 2019.

Our good friends Sandra and Sonya helped out with dog-sitting so that Luce could visit me in hospital and collect me. They had visited Ruby and Lola before and they are now their favourite aunties, obvs. As Ruby demonstrates:

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We are used to the whole back surgery thing now and everything was going brilliantly until a couple of days later when Luce started to feel unwell. By the next day, a Sunday of course, she was having severe abdominal pain and we had to call the emergency doctor. Really? Oh yes. Turns out the universe can indeed be that hilarious and she ended up spending six nights in hospital having a nasty appendix diagnosed and removed. She has now joined those of us who are ‘abridged’ (thanks to her friend Maebh for the lovely turn of phrase!) although things have moved on a lot since I had mine out about thirty years ago. This is now keyhole surgery, so she doesn’t have the classic lower right hand scar, more of a bowling ball arrangement of three small puncture wounds, as if she’s lost an argument with a very small triceratops.

Luckily for us, Sandra and Sonya immediately stepped in; between them they took over dog-wrangling, shopping, cooking etc, drove me to the surgery to get my staples out and to the hospital to visit Luce as soon as I was well enough to travel. I honestly don’t know how we would have coped without them, they have been absolute stars.

We are both recovering well now, but we also remain grateful for professional dog walkers, online grocery shopping and everyone involved in the invention of modern painkillers. On the plus side, it has given us a kick start towards a healthier lifestyle. We’ve been so stressed lately that things have slipped a bit. Luce is going to be taking time out from full-time teaching to do a PHD in family law over the next 3-4 years and we’ve been talking about getting into better habits now that we’re able to plan our time more easily. Neither of recommends this particular method, but we’ve both undergone a fairly radical unintentional ‘detox’, so we might as well make the most of it!

Most of all, I’m planning to use this time to get back to just enjoying being creative again. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do that, because I’ve been so worried about keeping my business going, but I know I will be having surgery to fix my left SI joint fairly soon so there’s no point rushing things. Better to be patient and come back as strong and healthy as possible.

I daren’t look forward to May. Let’s just wait and see. This is Lola, waiting and seeing. I basically have the same expression.

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Bonus arty farty bit:

As ever, if you recognised the lyrical reference in the title of my blog, come and talk music with me! For those who are interested, My Blakean Year is a song by Patti Smith from the album ‘Trampin’:

“From pattismith.net : “[William Blake’s] life was a testament of faith over strife. he suffered poverty humiliation and misunderstanding yet he continued to do his work and maintained a lifelong belief in his vision. he has served as a good example in facing my own difficulties and feeling a certain satisfaction in doing so”.

I first heard ‘Horses’ as a teenager and Patti Smith opened my eyes to what music could be. These lines from the Introduction to the Songs of Experience from William Blake seem apt:

Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk’d among the ancient trees.
(whole poem here)

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I know, I know, I haven’t blogged for ages. Again. Where have I been?

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Ok, that’s me on the right but I haven’t  actually been holed up in a top secret bunker waiting for everything to stop being on fire. Although now you mention it, that doesn’t sound like a totally bad idea.

Here’s the thing. 2018 was… challenging, so boo to that. This year so far has been way busy and way beyond stressful. For those who want to know why, read on. If you don’t, just skip to the funny story at the end. I won’t mind, and it pretty much sums up the last three months.

In January we were involved in some nonsense which (and I have always wanted to say this) I cannot talk about for legal reasons. Suffice to say neither of us was a defendant and we have not suddenly become Thelma and Louise. Sorry to disappoint.

Later that month, my mum finally had a knee replacement she’d needed for a long time. I arranged to stay with her for a few days when she came out of hospital. That turned into nearly two weeks, as it became apparent she had been discharged without a ‘care package’, so no nurse visits, physio etc. Happily, she is up and about without crutches now and doing really well.

Shortly after that we lost our gorgeous old Etty dog. Hardly a shock, as she was at least sixteen years old, but heartbreaking just the same. She deserves her own blog which I will be writing very soon.

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In happier news, in February, we adopted these two gorgeous loons, Ruby and Lola, who ended up in rescue after their owner died. They also deserve their own blog, also coming soon.

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Regular listeners know I have been struggling with back problems, particularly over the last three years or so when I have also had referred leg pain (a bit like extreme sciatica). Good news is that I finally seem to have a diagnosis that makes sense! I’m booked for more surgery on 8 April, all being well. If that works I will have another op 8-12 weeks later, so things are looking up, but I have a little way to go yet.

All this has meant that I haven’t been able to work full-time for a while now, and hardly at all this year. I am so very grateful to everyone who has stuck around and supported Poochweasel and I’m determined to get things up and running again as soon as possible. Seriously; if you’re bothering to read this, you rock.

So yes, funny story: Here’s a perfect (and dog-related) illustration of how 2019 is going for us: to set the scene, we’ve been trying to get our house on the market for ages. Luce has some free time at the moment, so the plan was to to get as much as possible done before April. We made a start and the house was in… well, let’s call it ‘organised chaos’ as we sorted through clutter, rearranged storage, boxed up charity donations and so on. Last Tuesday afternoon, Luce took the dogs for a walk and Lola found some lovely, stinky mud to roll in.

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I ran her a bath and we popped her in as soon as they got home. We stuck Ruby in and washed her paws for good measure and congratulated ourselves on having such little angels who sat happily to be dried and barely made a paw-print in the bathroom. Then we heard a weird noise from downstairs… Turns out that the waste pipe under the bath had chosen that moment to give up the ghost.

We can laugh about it now and, on the plus side, the insurance company have been brilliant and dealt with everything very promptly. However, you would not believe the damage a dog-bath’s worth of water can do when it crashes through a ceiling! In addition to the other clutter, our downstairs rooms are now full of furniture from the living room and we are camping upstairs. The ceiling needed to come down and once that had been replaced, the entire room needed redecorating. Thankfully, all the work-people have been lovely, friendly, efficient folk who have made friends with Lola and Ruby, which has helped. When the decorating is finished, we need the electrician to sort the new light fitting, someone to assess the state of the wooden furniture and someone from ‘soft furnishings’ to approve cleaning or replacement of sofas, rugs etc. Such fun!

My work room is directly above this. Yesterday was the first day I was able to venture back in:

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Of course, our story is that Lola, affectionately known as ‘Tank’, broke the bath to avoid future cleaning. The irony being that everything in the house is now covered with a thick layer of plaster dust and the dogs are pretty much the only things that don’t need cleaning.

In conclusion, as delightful as March has been, I am ready for April now, pleaseandthankyou. What could possibly go wrong?

Fin.

Bonus music thing: If you recognised the lyric reference in my blog title, come and talk music with me! 😉  If you didn’t, meet the legendary Kathleen Hanna and the Julie Ruin:

 

If you enjoyed, I urge you to go catch up with everything else Kathleen Hanna. Look up her other bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre and/or buy Julie Ruin stuff here: Julie Ruin Store

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New idea… a short blog every week, rather than attempting to rewrite War and Peace every time and not blogging for ages. What do you reckon?

Thing is, especially with all the recent GDPR bobbins, it’s getting more difficult to reach people and (as I am my own PR department and there’s only one of me) I’m going to have to try and direct my efforts more efficiently.

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Allow me a quick moan about Facebook to demonstrate? I promise it has a point which isn’t just ‘woe is me’ but also ‘woe is you, because Facebook says you can’t see what you’ve chosen to see’. And a couple of useful suggestions to put that right. Ta. If you don’t fancy that, just skip to the end to listen to a pretty tune. Oh yes. ALL the new things.

Facebook is still the biggest social media platform there is and it’s free, so hurrah. I don’t just use it for work, I use it to keep in touch with friends and family and follow stuff I’m interested in too. But… I can’t help but notice that every time a useful feature allows me to choose my audience or organise my feed, they remove it.

For example, ‘interest lists’ used to allow me to arrange all the pages I ‘liked’ into different categories, like ‘bands’ or ‘dog charities’ or ‘greetings card makers’ so I could keep up to date with them or shop from them easily. It also allowed me to keep a ‘Poochweasel recommends’ list via my page and share other small businesses I thought my customers would like. This feature was quietly removed and now I have no easy way to organise the 3000-odd pages I follow.

Most recently they also removed the ‘targeted audience’ feature from business pages. This used to allow me to tag my posts with relevant interests, so if I made a little Roman Emperor dog, like this (which I did)…

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… I might use ‘dogs’ ‘history’ and ‘Ancient Rome’ and Facebook would prioritise showing that post to people who liked pages related to these topics. Now it’s just pot luck. Yah boo.

There are ways around these things but they’re clunky. You could choose to ‘see first’ and get notifications every time I post to my page but that’s annoying and intrusive and you’d soon get fed up. I could choose to pay for ads but I resent being bullied into it and, let’s be honest, how much do you enjoy seeing sponsored and ‘suggested’ content on Facebook? Exactly. Me neither.

So how *can* you choose what you see? Well, a lot of pages now have groups you can join (shameless plug: mine is here: Poochweasel Facebook Group). Group posts will show up in your feed and you can turn off notifications to avoid irritation. You can chat with makers, get to know other people who might like the same things as you and often grab special offers. I try not to just duplicate what’s on my business page (because having everything appear twice would not endear me to anyone), so you won’t necessarily see everything I make in my group but it will remind you that I exist and I always try to post interesting or entertaining stuff.

When it comes down to it, Facebook is all about interaction and the single best way to see pages in your feed and keep them in business is to visit them and interact with them. Facebook doesn’t show you everything, it ‘filters’ your newsfeed. If you don’t visit pages you ‘like’, it assumes you’re no longer interested and excludes them from your feed, which means you don’t see them. And if you don’t see them, you don’t visit them and… do you see how this works?! If you ever think “I wonder what happened to that page I liked?”, maybe take a second to look them up? If they pop up in your feed, spare a second to hit ‘like’ or post a quick comment. The same goes for your friends or family’s posts – it’s the only sure way to influence what you see.

Ok, so that turned out to be a bit longer than planned! I was going to talk about some of the other platforms I use, like Twitter and Instagram, but that will have to wait for another blog I think. Otherwise we’ll be back to ‘War and Peace’ and I’ll be posting this in October.

I’ll sign off with another bright idea; sharing a ‘thing’ on my blog that I’m particularly enjoying this week, just like I used to on my Facebook page. Take that, Zuckerberg! 😉 This week, I’m loving the new album by Courtney Barnett, an Australian singer/songwriter who you might not have heard. As it’s a beautiful day here in darkest Shropshire, I’ve chosen a song from an album she made with Kurt Vile which has jangly, ‘summery’ guitars and a sweet, silly video which swaps their vocals and makes me laugh. Enjoy!

You can read more about Courtney Barnett on her website   or  Wikipedia and follow her on  Twitter or Facebook

As ever, if the title of this blog post means anything to you, or you enjoyed the video I posted, come and chat music with me! 🙂