Wheelistically @ Claire.NU

Featured Photo: Cat Nap

Claire — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:40:54 +0000

Sometimes, I want to post photographs here that don’t fit with Macro Day challenges or the like, but instead standalone and speak for themselves without an accompanying post or story.

This is one of those times and marks the first in my new series of Featured Photos.

Cat Nap — Click to see full-size version(s) at Flickr

Taken during our recent, annual trip to Colchester Zoo.

All Original Words and Pictures are Copyright © 2010, Claire.NU. All rights reserved.
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The Bit With Jessie…

Claire — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:20:14 +0000

I was given some very sad news this morning. My uncle’s beloved family dog, a Weimaraner called Jessie (and star of this post), passed away last night.

After a long and happy life full of running, playing, bouncing about and nicking food whenever anyone wasn’t looking, Jessie became too old, too pained and too poorly to join in any more. Last night it was decided that she should embark on her Forever Sleep.

Jessie ~ 1997–2010

As a dog owner now myself, this is all too poignant for me: Dogs are our companions, our confidants, our comfort, our court jesters, our best friends and most of all, our family. And yet, their lifespan is heart-breakingly short when compared to that of our own species.

If you have a dog, give them an extra-special tummy-tickle and rub behind the ears today. For Jessie.

The Bit With Amberville…

Claire — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:48:57 +0000

In the interest of disclosure: The following post is a book review: I received a paperback copy of the book for free as part of the Summer Reading Challenge. However, I have received no payment for the following review and all opinions given below are my own and are in no way influenced by the publisher.

Amberville — Tim Davys

Eric Bear thinks he has escaped his violent past, but when crime boss Nicholas Dove threatens Eric’s beloved wife Emma Rabbit, Eric has no choice but to do what he asks: find a way to remove Dove’s name from the Death List.

Problem is, no one knows if the Death List really exists. Nevertheless, Eric gathers his old team together — sadistic male prostitute Sam Gazelle, sweet but dangerous Tom-Tom Crow, and wily Snake Marek — and they set off to find the elusive list.
What Eric learns will forever change the way he thinks about his life, his family, and his town.
— ©Amazon

Amberville is a dark mystery-thriller filled with blackmail, extortion, drug use, violence, prostitution… and teddy bears.

See? I had you, didn’t I? Had you and then lost you again at the teddy bit — bear with me (no pun intended), it’s worth it.

Depicted in a constructed world with its own geography, history, religion, culture and alternate concepts of time and weather that often subverts or mirrors our own, reminiscent of Pratchett’s Discworld; Amberville focuses on the life of protagonist Eric Bear: a middle-aged, married, well-respected bear with a high-paid job at the head of a top advertising firm and a dark, dark past.

I love this sort of fiction; conflicted characters with shady pasts, dragged through the belly of an urban, seedy underworld — but this book is different. It takes the fluffy, soft, harmlessness of cuddly toys and gives them a packet of cigarettes and a blow job. These aren’t cuddly toys, or rather they are, but the fact they’re made from fabric and stuffing is immaterial to the human-ness of their portrayal. The genius in Amberville is in it’s ability to allow you to suspend reality long enough to see past the surreal nature of the world in which it is set and get sucked head-first into the story, the emotion, the characters. In doing so, it gives you access to a gripping and surprisingly convincing journey that exposes universal questions and truths about life, death and corruption that are altogether relevant to our own world.

Amberville is well written and engaging — a fact worthy of note not just because of the unusual subject-matter, but because this book is in fact an English translation: the original was written and published in Swedish. I usually steer clear of translations for fear of the author’s voice or intention becoming lost in the transition from one tongue to another, particularly as there are many an idiom that relies on culture-specific constructs in order to work and many words and phrases in other languages that do not have a suitable English equivalent. However, the only negative consequence of the translation appears to be the retaining of Euro-peculiar place names that serve to occasionally jar the reader out of the “fictive dream”. This is a great shame as it is evident from the outset that Davys works tirelessly (and with considerable success) in immersing the reader in this new world that conjures Americanised visuals that are the bastard child of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and a Martina Cole novel. Unfortunately, the place-names had the perpetual effect of bursting my imaginary bubble and plonking me in the assembly instructions for a shelving unit from Ikea.

That said, I had a hard time putting this book down and found myself becoming increasingly engrossed until I just had to sit and finish it — something that I’ve struggled to do with books now for a few years, normally running out of steam long before I reach the end. The novel also makes use of multiple/alternating limited narrators, occasionally deviating from Eric’s account to slot in a chapter from other characters. This is where the mystery element of the novel comes in as it is through these other voices that betrayal, deceit and conflicts of interest are exposed; these threads become more and more entangled before building to a series of twists at the end. (One of which I’d pretty much clocked by that point — unfortunate as I love a clever, unexpected twist — but it may work for you).

This is one I will be definitely be reading again — although I now know the plot turns, I also know that there’s plenty of foreshadowing and clever little nuances I missed the first time around that will make my second reading Amberville an even richer affair.

So captivating is Davys’ twisted, little furry universe that should he choose to revisit Amberville in a second novel, I’d be eager to read it.

The Bit With The Summer Reading Challenge.…

Claire — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:10:34 +0000

My love for books and fiction is well documented, not least because I’m in the process of writing my own. However, my reading habits have drastically fallen by the wayside. To combat this:

I’m taking part in the Transworld Dan Brown Summer Reading Challenge!

Between the Lines (Transworld Publishers) are offering the chance to nab some free paperbacks that are free with the free-ness, in exchange for waffling a bit online as to what you think of each, once you’ve read them.

There are fifteen titles to choose from — and a pretty mixed bag of genres and authors it is, too.

My picks are:

Amberville by Tim Davys [read my review here]
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Assassin by Tom Cain
Exit Wound by Andy McNab

I like my fiction to have teeth and made my choices accordingly, although the Dan Brown title was picked predominantly just to see what all the fuss is about. Although it must be said, I’m really looking forward to Tim Davys’ debut — the write-up for Amberville sounds twistedly intriguing — it sounds so off-beat, it really could be Genius. Here’s hoping…

Anyone care to join me on the challenge?

The Bit Where There Were Changes…

Claire — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:43:26 +0000

This year has been full of changes. We’ve changed where we live, who we live with, jobs, medication, lifestyle, support, hospital treatment and wheelchairs. Huge big, massive changes, which despite altering the landscape of my life for the better, have taken a lot of getting used to. Sadly, part of that process meant that I had to put my blog on a back burner for a short time.

In reference to the message I left up for the duration of my “blogging break”, my in-laws are now managing their own health and welfare much better now and are back safely in their own home. The Little Downstairs House wasn’t made for four fully-grown adults and for a while things got a bit hairy, not least when I ended up giving my Father In Law an eyeful when he walked in on me as I was getting dressed. On more than one occasion.

Anyway, where was I? Changes.

It’s been over 3 and a half years since this place had a facelift. I know for some the idea of a website having the same look for more than a month seems horrifying, but for me, I find overly frequent and radically ever-changing website designs jarring.

If when you opened up your ‘Office’ software or your Internet Browser and the Graphical User Interface (i.e. where all the toolbars/menus are, what the icons look like, how they are laid out and the tasks they do) drastically changed every fortnight, you’d get cheesed off. And yet people these sorts of changes to a website on that sort of basis and expect their users to be fine with it. Well, I’m not.

That said, the blog had long since out-grown its previous design: There was limited scope in the layout for the integration of content created via 3rd party websites (Twitter etc) and with each passing month, it was becoming less efficient at what I wanted it to do and more prone to bugs when plugins were changed/updated. I wanted to make use of epigraphs and “pull quotes” and to tailor each post design to its content: give proper emphasis to the EXIF data of my photos, allow myself to make short posts that wouldn’t then give way to masses of empty space. The last design just wouldn’t allow any of that without some serious grappling and if I was going to grapple, I may as well start over and do it properly, from the ground up.

So, here it is: my new blog.

It has its own name now and everything. What with me using my name online in preparation for when I graduate and eventually turn my hand to this “employment” lark, my blog needed an identity of its own. Still something inherently “me”, but ultimately something that marked it as something wholly separate; wholly personal. I have always enjoyed blog names that subverted familiar turns of phrase or played on words in some way or another. Yet, I wanted something that could be used in a .com address that wouldn’t require a good memory and lots of hyphens. The result? Wheelistically: authentic, mildly amusing and a bit different — with a slight crip edge, which hopefully represents my blog, especially in months to come.

The design was partly inspired by the works of the late John Heartfield, a German-born avant-garde artist and ex-Dadaist, known predominantly for his radical photomontages of the 1930s and 40s. The other and most easily identifiable influence is that of the Surrealist Movement; particularly the work of Dali and his Surrealist objects (most notably, the infamous Lobster Telephone [1936]).

Since my art classes at secondary school, I have been drawn to and coveted many a book on 20th Century art, particularly those focused on Surrealism and Dada. During my birthday trip to London last year, I spent days absorbed in art galleries, enthralled by the complex simplicity of Modern Art, fascinated by what it meant, or didn’t — as the case may be! When it came to choosing the subject matter for the final year of my degree AA318: Art of the Twentieth Century seemed and natural and exciting choice and reading the course texts has been nothing short of inspirational.

Many a cynic among you may write off Modern art as a load of cobblers that your 3 years old could produce. I beg to differ and implore you to read up on your Art History in order to see otherwise. The reality behind what appears at first glance to be baffling, is truly enlightening.

I hope you enjoy you time at my new blog as much as I have creating it. I am so excited to be back writing and sharing here.

Macro Day: Love

Claire — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:16:31 +0000

This week’s Macro Day Challenge: LOVE

Love
Click the image to view the full-size versions at Flickr.

Because I love her enough to give her my last Rolo…

The Bit With The Life List…

Claire — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:37:48 +0000

On my 21st birthday, just a couple of months after this blog was born, I set myself a challenge of doing 100 things in 1001 days. Some months later, I forgot all about it and the list then sank without a trace in The Great Blog-Loss of 2008.

Some 4 years later, the list has been reincarnated; gone are the deadlines, the apathy and the pointless things I no longer have any interest in doing and in their places are new goals and a fresh enthusiasm.

I have been on this Earth for a quarter of Century, and now? I want to get a wiggle on and do things that I think are worth doing!

[My list have been moved here]

The Bit With The Mayfly Project…

Claire — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:01:09 +0000

I recently came across The Mayfly Project.

The Project
At the end of every year since 2000, we invite readers to look back on the last twelve months of their lives and reflect on what has been important, defining or constant during that particular year, and then sum their year up in just 24 words.

We believe that embracing the constraint of summing up the last year in a handful of words helps to focus what has really mattered.

The Background
[…]
The best brief biography I’ve ever heard was for a mayfly:

“Born. Eat. Shag. Die.”

Because Ephemeroptera lives only for twenty-four hours, the summary of its life is refreshingly straightforward: To the point. The stuff that matters. Just the essentials.[…]

[T]here’s nothing quite like embracing the constraint of brevity (whether time or wordcount) when summing up the last year of your life to make you re-examine your priorities, or focus on what has affected you or was important to you over the last twelve months.

Due to popular demand, we’ve been running the Mayfly Project at the end of every year since then. […] It seems that people have got a lot to say — or rather, that a lot of people have got not a lot to say: twenty-four words, to be precise, reflecting the mayfly’s short lifespan.
© Meg Pickard at Meish.org

I rather liked the project as in many ways, it mirrors my personal journal entries, post-therapy.

Every so often, I make a point of listing the key things that I have achieved (no matter how small), since my last entry. Then, list the things I hope to achieve in the future.

Nothing massive, I don’t want to take over the world; it’s just a gentle way of reminding myself to not let go of the things I’ve learnt through treatment, both about myself and others, and most importantly: to not forget the progress I’ve made since.

Before January draws to a close, here are my 24 words that sum-up the roller-coaster that was 2009.

2009:

Fought for my independence, felt free in London. K and I survived her breakdown. Therapy. Achieved Diploma. FINALLY moved into bungalow, adopted Ziggy. Love.

Macro Day: Pets

Claire — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:29:09 +0000

This week’s Macro Day Challenge: PETS

That Nose
Click the image to view the full-size versions at Flickr.

This is something I want to/need to practice; manual focus, bad light and a constantly moving target make macros of doggy noses really difficult to shoot. The shot is not as perfect as I’d like, but I see it as a good starting point for shooting unpredictable subjects.

I didn’t want to use a flash as the lens has to be really in close and it would completely startle/blind Ziggy. Perhaps I need to sacrifice on noise levels and go for a higher ISO?

Hmmm… This is new territory for me: I’m so used to shooting inanimate objects.

The Bit With Our Hound [Part II]…

Claire — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:25:40 +0000

This is Part II, you can see Part I here.

Why did you choose Ziggy?

As I mentioned before, Ziggy was the “first match” brought out to us; he had a near-identical brother that had been reserved by another lady the previous day (which explains why we have Ziggy in particular and not his brother). You can read about details of Ziggy’s story prior to his adoption over on Ziggy’s About Page.

Ziggy shook with adrenaline at being let out of his kennel and introduced to us. Quiet but curious, he readily came up to investigate us and have a good sniff, whilst we cooed and ahh-ed at his big brown eyes and pigeon-toed stance. During our hours spent at the kennels, we were allowed to take Ziggy for a little walk on our own in the surrounding grounds of the property. We took him for a gentle stroll, in his muzzle, out on the concourse. Immediately, we were struck by how gentle he was. He didn’t fuss or pull on the lead — here we were, perfect strangers and he was happy to stand, be petted and gently guided along. One of the staff had her Primary School-age daughter there, she stood in little, pink Wellington boots and was patting Ziggy and hand-feeding him biscuits. Having the opportunity to see him interact so well with children was a wonderful bonus.

My wheelchair fascinated him. When I was sitting still, Ziggy took no notice, but the moment I moved, he stopped in his tracks to silently stare and cock his head to one side. He watched the wheels intensely and sniffed and prodded at my feet with his nose.

Here’s a person, that smells like a person and sounds like a person, with paws at one end, like all the other people and yet — How’s it DO that?

You could see the confusion on his little face, he just couldn’t work it out. Is it floating? Is it a person? Is it something else? Is it scary? Does it smell good? Every time I moved, he was just mesmerised, his ears flicking up in alertness and puppy-like curiosity, waiting for something to happen, though he didn’t know what. It was adorable.

Inside the kennels, the movement of my chair had spooked some of the dogs that were known to dislike prams and buggies and had sent them off in a frenzy. Knowing that Ziggy was just a bit confused (and not frightened) and that he was so young and likely to be resilient enough to get used to it reassured us that Ziggy was the right dog for us. Kennel dogs (greyhounds especially) have a reputation for anxiety issues, but seeing Ziggy respond so calmly to a completely alien stimuli without the support of familiar “pack members” present, was a big relief. It was important to us that we homed a dog that would actually benefit from a Forever Home, as some hounds become so institutionalised by years of Kennel Life, that rehoming is simply a much too stressful and cruel process for them to endure.

Whilst out on the walk, I asked Ziggy if he thought he might like to come home with us and asked K if she thought this dog might be our Ziggy. Ziggy looked at me with his big, brown eyes and K replied that this was definitely our Ziggy — he was exactly the dog we wanted and she thought he looked quite like a Ziggy.

So, Ziggy he was.

What about the adoption process?

On our return, we told the kennel staff that we were confident that they had brought us out the right dog for us; we wanted this one. Ziggy was taken back to his kennel and our names were written on his sign. He was offically reserved. For Us.

This was our dog. From this point, up until we brought him home a week later, I was terrified. What if the staff made a mistake and accidentally gave our perfect, beloved little Ziggy to someone else in the meantime? What if they got the brothers mixed up? What if something went wrong and we couldn’t have our Ziggy? From that second on, that doggy was mine and I just wanted to bring him home into my warm and comfy home full of snuggly blankets, cuddly toys, belly rubs, fun games and yummy treats.

The RGT charity do the best they can and you really get a sense from the staff and the volunteer dog walkers that they care about the dogs and would love to see them find a Forever Home and take pride in caring for them until they do, but the harsh facts remain: there simply isn’t the time, money and resources to make Kennel Life very comfortable.

These dogs are bred to race, to earn money. If they’re past their racing prime or fail to chase in the first instance, they simply become a waste product, void of value. A litter of eight may only bring one winner, maybe two. That leaves at least six pups surplus to requirements, six drains on an owner/trainers resources. If they are fortunate, they may find themselves placed into an adoption scheme, as Ziggy was. But, what becomes abundantly clear very quickly is how over-subscribed the RGT Kennels are. There are 70 RGT branches across the UK, housing 30–50 dogs in each (sometime more), with more coming in to them every day. And that’s just one Greyhound adoption organisation. There are many, many others.

Ziggy spent years in tiny, cold and draughty kennels with no windows, no toys for learning and stimulation and only sawdust thrown down on concrete and shredded paper for warmth and comfort. There are so many dogs in the kennels that it simply not possible to ensure they each get even one walk a day, let alone any one-to-one attention and affection.

I found the thought of Ziggy being there a minute longer than he had to very difficult. If we’d have had a bigger home, I’d have adopted more than one. If I could, I’d bring another home tomorrow. Leaving him there that day, I felt a whole bundle of things: complete excitement at the thought that we had found the newest member of our family, impatience that we couldn’t drive him home there and then and sadness that in choosing one, we’d left all of the others behind.

The next stage was the home visit. A RGT volunteer visits your house to inspect that your home is safe and suitable for a greyhound, checks you have sufficiently-fenced garden (Greys have been known to clear a 6ft fence from standing), asks questions about your housing (to check that you have landlord permission for a dog), your routine and work and gives advice on feeding, exercise and answers any questions. Only after passing a home check can you adopt your dog.

We had our visit a few days later and the lady was really lovely. She’d adopted two hounds herself and had lots of funny anecdotes and advice to share. My Step-Dad and Uncle had worked for days in the lashing November rain to put up a brand new hound-safe fence in time for our home check, without which, we wouldn’t have passed. We had read over the book and pamphlets given to us at the kennels and had purchased the recommended raised food stand, and some toys, food and bedding in advance. She checked all of this over and gave a resounding nod of approval.

Two days later, we went back to the kennels to collect our dog.

What about the paperwork?

We arrived as early as possible on Adoption Day and went through the paperwork that signed Ziggy officially over to us and stated that we’d passed the checks and were not going to hurt him. We also registered for his insurance (you’re given 4 weeks of complimentary insurance when you adopt), collected his veterinary paperwork and gave the “recommended donation” of £100. When you adopt a Greyhound, the dog comes to you with a brand new leather sighthound collar and lead, a plastic box muzzle, has been neutered and vaccinated, and has had a full vet-check and dental. The donation goes towards these costs.

Ziggy chose a blue muzzle, we clipped on his house collar with his shiny new name tag (and his shiny NEW NAME) on it and we had his walking collar sized and fitted. K went to ask questions about meal portions, whilst I did the boring bit of filling forms in block capitals.

Finally, we were ready to take our boy home.

To Be Continued…