David started the first ever photo-a-day gallery on pbase on 31st December 2002. He started a 10th anniversary PAD yesterday and I felt thrilled and jealous in equal measure. Thrilled because he’s a fab photographer and I’ve missed his pics. Jealous because I’ve let photography slip from my own grasp so comprehensively that I felt bereaved. His gallery was the inspiration for me starting my first PAD on 8th March 2003 so although my restart isn’t quite a 10th anniversary special, it is still the renewing of a very long-term project.
The truth is that since 2007/8 when I stopped doing the PAD project religiously, my photography has dwindled to nothing. I’ve shot only a handful of photos and worse, the ones I have shot have been perfunctory at best. Worse still is that the PAD galleries that I shot between 2003 and 2008 form a wonderful record of my life during that time. They report the ups and downs of a life that in many ways seems alien to me now. Since then, I have no record of our “new team” becoming a part of our lives, filling the void left by the deaths of the old team (Rosie and Archie) but never replacing them in our hearts. I have so few photos of JD and Lola that it breaks my heart so here is a “remedy” for that. OK it’s not the best photo in the world but that’s the nature of PAD – some days they are stonkingly good and on other days they are, well to be brutally frank, crap. It may seem odd to start with one that’s at the wrong end of the continuum but it shows something so rare as to be worthy of capture.
Lola and JD are sat on the bed that I’ve just vacated. This is not the rare bit. In fact it’s a common occurrence, happening almost every day. They like the warm patch and today there is a big bonus – something as rare as hens’ teeth in these parts – a patch of sunshine. We have blue sky for the first time in I don’t know how long. It has rained and rained and rained here for what seems like forever so to find a patch of sunshine to see in the New Year seems like a good omen.
OK – I fully expect to get the “dirty bitch” comments from the cleanliness brigade but who cares? I don’t. In fact my heart is full of joy because for the very first time we have two dogs that adore each other. JD loves Lola and she loves him back. They sit together happily. They fight, they play, they mooch, they run but they are always happy together. It’s fabulous.
JD and Lola are at opposite ends of the collie spectrum. Lola is tiny, a proper working stock dog who just might have turned up on “one man and his dog” had she not turned up in my arms. JD is a big bruiser of a chap who has almost certainly got a bit of something else in him other than collie but that’s OK – it makes him a bit different. When asked what he is, David tells people that he’s a “Dutch Mountain Dog” and then waits for the puzzled expression. We’re both appalled at how many people fail to look puzzled but perhaps that is an indication that changes to travelling that make the planet small haven’t improved people’s basic grasp of geography. My grasp of the subject has got better since starting my degree, despite the degree being in biology, not geography, though the two go together well.
So my better-educated, less-frazzled fresh start begins with the introduction of our new babies, the new “Team Mingay”.
