Thinking like my dogs and understanding my neighbours!!!

Have you ever felt the need to totally understand those souls that live with and around you. I find myself at the age of fifty-six living in a small rural village where we are the only English speaking family in the street and that although neighbours greet us whenever we see each other there is never any attempt to form neighbourly friendship from either side.
Although my curiosity usually leads my nose in the direction of finding things out I feel that here there is such a huge invisible barrier around our property that there is no way that we can ever overcome language differences and get to swap jam recipes and gardening tips with our fellow street dwellers.
Even the dogs seem to keep separate and to themselves and although they bark and do the perimeter wall run when anyone or thing passes they show no signs at all of ever forming friendships themselves with the neighbourhood animals.
That brings me to the point of what do my animals think about different nationalities and different peoples life styles. Do they cast rolling eyes at passers by wondering how they can walk their pets with such a strange array of winter doggy clothing that my dear ones would be ashamed to wear as pyjamas when only the family is at home? Perhaps my little dears are far too spoilt and therefore do not have to wear castdowns from some dark and dismal about to go bankrupt shop in the middle of the hommadullas (a place of not much of anything where no one wants to be).


Have we had such a great influence over our pets that they have adapted to our tastes and ways? Or do they do things to please us which maybe in their doggy minds ensures weekly bones and daily biscuits, finished with an anchovy paste sandwich for bedtime snacking.
Does there happy tail wagging session when we return from anywhere really mean they are happy to see us again or are we misinterpreting their body language to suit our own short- comings in that we have this strange human desire to always be wanted and needed by whoever and whatever comes into our lives?
Provided of course all is in our own mother tongue and to our tastes and standards. As animals cannot or will not talk back to us and foreign speaking neighbours could not care about us one way or the other, no wonder that it is so hard these days to find friends other than our always faithful pets.

Cold to the bone!!!

Come winter I am the one who does not complain about the chilly winds and frosty mornings, but rather tend to sit long hours in the pleasant outdoors, feet in the sun and head in the shade. I love winters crispness and the feeling of soft velvety cold air on bare arms and feet.
Winter foods that make ones mouth water and the warm comfort of hands around a large mug of coffee.
Never have I been able to work out how or why I ended up being born in the Southern Hemisphere in a hot, dry climate. I dodge the Sun all summer long and cannot wait for autumn to bring in her cheer of falling leaves and dappled shade, chilling evening air and the blood orange sunsets that smother the western skies with the promises of starry clear nights.
I enjoy taking the dogs out last thing before bed and as we wander together around the garden the distant smell of other peoples fires and pollution does not deter me from sniffing in the cold air and gazing up at the starlit skies and being amazed by the vastness of the small amount of the Universe that is visible to me.
Why do the Heavens of a winters night always look so freshly washed and hung up to dry? Each star sparkling like a distant diamond catching the rays from some far off Sun.
I love the cold, I love feeling cold and breathing in cold air. I love the energy that autumn and winter bring into my life each year and the promises they both hold that other life is only sleeping for now.
As the rush of spring comes and the days warm up so I tend to slow my pace down and dodge the sunshine for indoors and shady havens in the coolest spots that I can find. Spring with all its beauty gives too much of a warning of the heat that is to come and therefore when September arrives and the first spring rains fall then I go into my own form of hibernation and sit through the heat longing for the first leaf to fall and the miracle of the end of summer and the beginning of autumn to be here once again.