17. our animal friends

R.I.P Beesley

I felt I should write a post about my pets, as on Monday, one of my family's German Shepherd's passed away on the operating table due to having a ruptured splenic tumour (tumour of the spleen). It hit us all quite hard, as we'd got him via the German Shepherd Rescue place, (as his original owner would no longer be able to look after him) exactly a year before he died. His name was Beesley, and I honestly hoped that his year with us was brilliant. I felt quite bad, as I'm more if a cat person, and so I've never bonded as well with our dogs as the others. This Christmas I'd actually begun to bond with them, only to have bad luck take Beesley from us.

Beesley and Breeze together :)

We have another German Shepherd called Breeze, who is much older than Beesley was (he was around 8), and she suffers from arthritis. We got her a few months after Beesley, so we've had her for less than a year. She likes lying down a lot, but when she's about to go in walks, her high pitched barking begins - which can give you a headache.

KitKat I have to admit is my favourite pet. We took him under our wing, after his previous owners (who lived on our street) moved house, abandoning him. We'd begun to feed him, and we even paid his vet bills for when he had to have an abscess removed from one if his eyes. This means he only has one eye, but that doesn't stop him chasing after newspaper or playing with his toys. After he'd been to the vets, we still weren't allowed to own him until he'd been declared officially abandoned by the RSPCA. My mum didn't want to see the little fellow go, and to be honest, I don't think any of us did.

My boyfriend Rob, with my
one-eyed cat KitKat

My family have always had pets, even before I was born. In total we've had 8 cats (including KitKat), 2 dogs, 1 rabbit, 3 guinea-pigs over the years, and we may have even had some fish. We usually get out pets from rescue places, or if not, they're usually strays or the animals left in pet shops because no one wants them. When I'm living away from home, I'd love to have a couple of pets, because I think that they just make the house a happier place to be!

16. planning ahead

Well, for 2013 I have a few plans for what I want to do, and I hope that writing them down will make them become more definite, and that way I can keep track of my progress.

My new trainers :)

Prior to going to uni, I had plans that I'd join the gym there, go swimming or jog along the seafront - anything to keep me fit as in the past year I had put some weight on. I'm not fat or anything, but I'd like to get back to how I was before as I felt more confident then. However, due to my lack of trainers, I went for a jog once (in pumps) and it wasn't exactly comfortable. So mum purchased me some trainers, and therefore I hope to lose some weight by the summer!

I'm also planning on eating slightly healthier. Towards the end of last term I began to have some broccoli with most of my evening meals, and I have weetabix in the morning so I hope to continue that. I might buy some cheap pure orange juice so I can have a glass every morning to increase my vitamin C intake, and maybe get some chocolate milkshake powder to increase my calcium intake (I'm not a huge fan of milk on its own). Hopefully, I'll be able to keep this up because I know I'm not a mega-healthy person and I want to try and be a bit more healthy.

I also hope to keep up with my blogging. Unfortunately at university, nothing very interesting seems to happen, and I know I've blogged quite a lot over the Christmas period, but hopefully I shall find some interesting things to talk about. I also hope to update a couple of my posts by adding photos to them, which I haven't done yet, due to writing posts on my iPod and not my laptop.

'Dracula' by Bram Stoker,
my Kindle Touch,
'Captain Corelli's Mandolin'
by Louis de Bernieres 

Finally, I'd like to get back into reading. I always read a lot of books when I was younger, but the past couple of years I haven't had as much time just to read for leisure. Although I'd like to reread a lot if my 'teenage' books again, I'd also like to read some of the classics that I couldn't get into in the past. Currently I'm reading JRR Tolkien's Return of the King, having read the previous two books since the start of January. I'd like to make it my aim to read at least 100 'grown-up' books, or books that are quite long, before 2013 is out. I think having my kindle will help a bit, as it means that when I'm at uni I'll have a lot of books that are fairly accessible to me.

Tara

14. christmas and new year

So, here's the post I promised I'd write on my Christmas and New Year. I know that it's been a while since they happened, and I'll probably have another post to later as it's my little (and I say little in the sense that he's 2 and a half years younger than me) brother's birthday today, and we're going out to the cinema and for meal.

Christmas Day

My Nina Ricci 'Nina'
perfume

This year is the first year we've had dogs at our household for Christmas so instead of beginning to open at presents like previous years, we had to wait until 9. I'd woken up fairly early for once (half 7!!) so I made sure I had some coco pops for breakfast as our family tends to have mince pies for breakfast (which I think are disgusting). Just before 9 my older brother (Aidan), his girlfriend (Beth) and my nan turned up. This meant that unwrapping presents took way longer than usual as normally there are only 4 or 5 of us, and this year there were 7!! I got quite a few presents this year including: Nina Ricci 'Nina' perfume, some toiletries, an atlas and a jigsaw puzzle globe (in 3D - to increase my brilliantness at geography hahaa), some chocolate (of course!) and some money/New Look vouchers as well as other stuff! I didn't get any fictional books this year which is quite unusual but I'm guessing it's because I got a KindleTouch for my birthday in July.

My new slippers!

After opening presents I got ready to go to Rob's as this year I was having Christmas dinner there. I always feel bad when it comes to dinner time as I don't like the traditional Christmas dinner as such, so I have to have something different. This year Rob's family was having to cook me some chicken (as I don't like turkey), so I had that with some broccoli, parsnips (I love parsnips - why do they only seem to appear at Christmas-time?), chipolatas, roast potatoes with gravy! Yummy! Even for pudding I have to be different as I ding like fruit cake (and therefore Christmas pudding). I had some mini Melt-in-the-middle chocolate puddings with custard! Rob's step-dad actually managed to do that thing where you set the Christmas pudding alight (something which never happens at home! I think mum always uses too much brandy), so that was pretty cool to watch. I got some more presents whilst I was at Rob's - from him and his parents - which was good cos I like it when presents are spread out throughout the day. I got some DVDs including War Horse (when I watched it, I cried - lots!) and Rob also got me a really pretty necklace :D

My 3D Globe Puzzle

The rest of Christmas Day was spent relaxing really, watching the Doctor Who special (which compared to the previous episodes this series was really really good! Actually looking forward to watching it when it returns) and just eating some chocolate!

Boxing Day

One of the games we
played

Boxing Day morning and afternoon were spent at Rob's just chilling and watching one of his comedy DVDs that he got. But around 4pm we got picked up in order to go to my Nan's house for Boxing Day tea and games. My nan always does a little buffet with sausage rolls and breadsticks (which is what I usually eat when I'm there!) This year, both of my brothers and Rob got these games which are easy to play with large numbers (there was 8 of us, so madness often occurs) so we played some of those in teams of 2. At 9 the Christmas special (and start of series 3) of Miranda was on, and as the majority of us watch it normally we watched that. I enjoy going round my nan's because it's a chance for the whole family just to have fun!

New Year's Day
As I said in my previous post, I was ill over the new year, so instead of seeing the year in at midnight I was fast asleep in my bed. I'd originally been planning on spending it at Rob's but I'd felt so awful New Year's Eve, I went home in the hope I'd feel better for the next day. Luckily I did feel better to an extent. The headache I'd had continuously since the Friday (28th) had lessened so I felt that so long as I had paracetamol with me, I should be okay. Rob's parents picked me up at around half 10 and we headed north to the Keighley & Worth Railway (in Yorkshire) for the Mince Pie Special train. One of the stations along the line (I think it's Oakworth) is where The Railway Children was filmed (the one filmed in the 80s?). I was tempted to do the whole 'Daddy! My Daddy!' thing but it'd probably have looked a bit weird. We were also in Bronte Country so when we got off at Haworth station, people could go and see where the Bronte sisters used to live. The day out was good, and in the evening we went out for a meal at The Charnwood Arms. Luckily, if I cut up my food into tiny pieces I was able to swallow it without too much difficulty as I'd been struggling to eat with a swollen throat.

So, there you go. My Christmas/Boxing Day as well as my New Year's Day. I'm quite surprised that I've managed to write it so soon after I'd said I would. I'm usually hopeless when it comes to things like that!

Tara