puppy dog tales

life with munnin is, well ... different.
i wake up earlier, i sit much less as i am continually checking up on my new house mate! it is hard to believe how one young bullie can cause such havoc - she has two middle names - silence and speed ... yoiks! munnin appears to have one golden rule - if i can grab it, i can chew it. trouble is i am kind of fond of my stuff, i enjoy with my eyes, she enjoys with her teeth! at the moment i keep all interleading doors closed, confining the wee devil to wherever i happen to be. i realize that this is not a long term solution, perhaps i will purchase some of those safety gates they make for homes with small children.

i walk a lot more and of necessity pay less attention to the weather i walk in. trying to exhaust munnin past her chew point is the name of the game.
munnin has made several new friends and so have i. so far we have met a small brown dog called donald, a scottish deer hound, an irish wolf hound ... man oh man, what ginormous dogs! several labradors, quite a few alsations and a pair of really grumpy rottweilers. there appears to be an unofficial club, of which the village dog walkers are members.
unofficial club rule - learn the names of all walking dogs (no need to know the name of their human).

for those of you who might be interested in my girl's rather unusual name ...
i did not choose it, she was named by her family of origin. they are breeders and their kennel is called ragnarok- a good norse name meaning - doom of the gods - huh?
so anyway, they tend to name their bullies after norse mythological characters - thus ... Munnin!

quote from wikipedia -
"In Norse mythology, Huginn and Muninn travel the world bearing news and information they have collected to Odin. Huginn is "thought" and Muninn is "memory". They are sent out at dawn to gather information and return in the evening. They perch on the god's shoulders and whisper the news into his ears."

"From Grímnismál:

Old Norse:

Huginn ok Muninn fliúga hverian dag
iörmungrund yfir;
óomk ek of Huginn, at hann aptr ne komit,
þó siámk meirr um Muninn.

English:

The whole world wide, every day,
fly Huginn and Muninn;
I worry lest Huginn should fall in flight,
yet more I fear for Muninn.

Another translation reads,

Every morning the two ravens Huginn and Muninn, are loosed and fly over Midgard; I always fear that Thought may not wing his way home, but my fear for Memory is greater."

how interesting! so much to learn, so little time.

we call her muni (pronounced moonie) ;-) and i love her!

meet munnin

meet munnin

well ... i went and done and did it!
i got me a puppy ... awwww cute ...
aaarghhh crap! is more like it ... heh!

munnin is five months old and was born in bexley heath, which is the kent side of the outskirts of london. yep indeed, quite a way from my ayrshire headquarters.

but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

thanks to my new best friend 'navman', i negotiated the entire trip with unprecedented style and ease. i left home on wednesday and drove as far as bolton (nr. manchester), where my friend rose very kindly offered me a bed for the night. i intended to leave early thursday morning but was somewhat delayed by rose offering to make me one of her most excellent english breakfasts. yummm ... what can i say, no one does better breakfast than the brits!
i finally got going about elevenish.
all was well until i hit the infamous m25. talk about stop start driving, what a queue, it took hours to travel twenty miles. i was afeared my bladder would burst!
later, rather than sooner i arrived at the queen elizabeth toll bridge. wow, by the time you hit your sixtieth birthday, one is inclined to become a tad blase (afraid i have no notion as to how to get the little dingus above the e, but i'm sure you all know exactly what i mean). 'nuff said, that bridge, what a beaut! it was so friggin' high i felt airsick when i looked out of the car window.

thursday evening i went to meet munnin and her family. i was pretty nervous by now, on the trip down i had been giving the whole dog companion business some serious thought.for more than five years i have lived alone, responsible only for myself. i am spoiled ...
i do what i want when i want.
bringing a pup into my home would probably (yeah...right!!) change the dynamics of my life

of course, she was beautiful and obnoxious in that utterly bullie way. she leaped, she pushed, she tried to trip me, she tried to taste me. i was relieved to move inside and talk business.

friday morning, bright and early, i picked up my newest family member. her breeders cried, their children cried, i cried.
munnin and i set off, up the great north road, a ten hour journey ahead of us.

faultless navigation

by nature ... i am nomadic. which might lead one to believe that this girl knows her way around a route map. unfortunately, not true! i possess an uncanny knack for arriving at unintended destinations.

getting lost ... the story of my life.
and then ...
enter the navman!

wow! how clever are those little devices?
a soft, intimate voice, whispering instructions, so patient, no ...
"eryll you numpty, we are lost ... again. would it be beneath your dignity to ASK someone for directions!"
instead, i have dulcet tones, patiently directing and redirecting me
"as soon as is possible, make a u turn, make a u turn!"
i feel as if i have my own personal travel angel, somewhere up there in the sky, making sure i arrive at the correct destination and on time.

2nd april 2009

2nd april...
if only humans were immortal ...
today would have been my mom's 100th birthday.

mary catherine mcdonald hart ... you were special!

i miss you.
i miss the comfort of my mother and my friend.
i miss the ever present song on your lips,the gentle aroma of "oil of olay" face cream, the roughness of your hands as you reached out to comfort - you worked so hard ...
i miss hanging out in the kitchen with you.
i miss our chats as we pegged out washing in the harsh sunlight.
i miss the buns you used to bake especially for me - no fruit, because i loved buns but hated currents!
i miss discussing creation and eternity and humanity.

i miss you mom!

hush

hush hush
do you hear
spring unwinding

sleepy sunshine
the blur of bumble bee
arisen from long slumber

night birds
who sing once more
of summer's promise

while wind blown daffodils
nod somewhat shaggy heads
to greet the indigo carpet




the bluebell harvest
soon to cloak
the woodland floor

spring unwinds
in fits and starts
of energy unleashed

the sound
of summer waiting
while winter wanders off

All materials Copyright © 2004-2009 by Eryll Oellermann

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togetherness and other random stuff

how warm is hot? how cool is cold?
heh!
different for herself than it is for myself ...
that's for sure.

keeping herself warm is a full time job. problem is ... the weather has been pretty mild since the princess arrived. question is ... how would she cope in real wintry weather?

new yorkers are used to their creature comforts. effective heating systems in winter and efficient cooling systems in summer. back home in the good old rsa ...
we are made of tougher stuff. we somehow manage to sweat through our summers and shiver through our winters with very little assistance from cooling and heating systems. the gentle wop, wop of the ceiling fans stir the still evening air and keep those little blood sucking bastards (alias mosquitoes) more or less at bay. when the winter evenings draw in the mosquitoes leave and we make do with a small electric heater whilst we watch tv, come bed time and we run for our bed covers.

hmmmm ...
i remember ...
we once lived in a house in durban north and the main bedroom had an air conditioner ... uber posh! come february ... a particularly hot and humid time of the year on the east coast ...
i would switch that loud, rackety thing on when the kids came home from school and we would spend an hour in the artificial coolth.
used an awful lot of electricity though, not the cheapest way to cool off! quick dip in the pool worked just as well plus washing off the days sweat.

of course, here in scotland, summers are pleasant. oft times pretty wet, all sunshine gratefully appreciated and the chance to sweat.... well!
winters are rather dark, dreary and wet ...
wet is good, it is the reason our hills glow with green health and our cattle are sleek and happy!
yeah well ... that's the story and we need to stick with it.
we do indeed need and use heating. but ... heating is expensive in our part of the world. i find i can afford to make do with the minimum. being of hardy south african stock this works for me!
but the princess ...
oy vay!
how will she survive a wild and windy winter?