The blessing of parkland

I am blessed in having a nearby off-lead park in which to walk my dog.  I live quite close to the city, but I believe at some stage this land was planned to become a freeway. Luckily it never eventuated, so now we have a lovely half-wild park.

One side of the creek is fairly natural and "bushlike", except they mow the grass, and the other contains ovals and a bike path and a big area of wild-ish parkland. 

Since the planting of gum trees and other native vegetation, the native birdlife has been returning and now we regularly see ducks, kookaburras, currawongs, magpies, rainbow lorikeets, and many others— well a lot of them we don't so much see as hear— so it  can feel more as though you're in the bush, rather than a fairly short distance from the city.

If you want to hear the sounds they make, here are links: kookaburras, currawongs, magpies, rainbow lorikeets.  I'm assuming you know ducks. 

And this is my dog surveying her domain. She jumps on this old chunk of concrete every single night.

Gorilla Love

A dog is a heat seeking device.  There is sun this morning, after days of grey and rain and cold — it's winter downunder — and Milly has found herself a small spot of it, and is sunning herself and her orange rubber gorilla.

Usually they lie at (or on) my feet in front of the small strip heater under my desk, she and her gorilla.

She's had that gorilla for nearly six months, since her first week here. It was a welcome gift from a friend. She was terrified of it at first — it had a wonderful two-tone squeak and had a tendency to bounce or roll when patted with a paw. 

It took Milly ages to brave it, and I had a lot of laughs at her tentative pat-squeak-leapback routine, but eventually she lost her fear and totally fell in love with him. His squeak is gone, and he's a bit grubby, but otherwise he's whole and undamaged, which is amazing for such a flimsy rubber toy that gets such constant dog-love. 

Tennis balls, on the other hand have been peeled, stripped and thoroughly destroyed, bones reduced to mere knobs and she'll even chew on a bit of wood in the garden. But not the orange rubber gorilla. She loves him. 

I suspect he might need a name. Any suggestions?

Puppy Love

On New Year's Eve I came home with a puppy — not a tiny puppy, maybe 5 or 6 months old. I'd seen this picture on Pet Rescue and I was a goner.

I drove down before Christmas to meet her and make the arrangements—she had to be spayed, innoculated and microchipped before they'd release her — and collected her on New Year's Eve. She was named Amelia then, but I changed it to Milly.

Since then we've had a LOT of fun. She's a sweet-natured, affectionate little soul, very playful and active, but also quite happy (after a good game) to play by herself in the garden, or snooze on her bed beside my desk while I work.

Of course, sometimes she's not snoozing, but yumphing happily on a rawhide donut.

When I first got her, I bought Milly one of those "tug-of-war" ropes, with a tennis ball at one end and a rope handle for a human on the other.

The tennis ball was first de-fluffed, then thoroughly killed (and a post-mortem conducted — disappointingly hollow and untasty — and the remains scattered) but the rope, one end all shreddy, damp  and delicious, the other end still a neat handle for a human, remains and we have fun playing tug-of-war and learning (one of us anyway) to "give."

So she was playing with the rope thingy all by herself in the lounge-room this morning, tossing it up and pouncing and catching it and giving it a good vicious shaking and all excellent fun.

Then her back foot got caught in the handle, and hah! the rope is fighting back! So naturally she's not going to be defeated by a shreddy old rope, no matter how delicious. So she gives a biiiig tug and plonk! Down goes a surprised puppy. Looks around. Who pulled my foot from under me?

But there's nobody there, and this rope needs to be taught a lesson, so up she gets and wrestle-tug-shake-growl...

And then plonk — floored puppy again — what? Pull my foot out from under me — again? Baaad rope. So growl harder, pull harder. . .  fall harder! Damn rope!

Over and over for about 3 or 4  minutes.

Heartless here did nothing to help, just laughed and laughed.

Inaugural post...

This might be a big mistake, but I've just bitten the blogger bullet and this is my first blog on my own account. Inspired partly by Sherrie Holmes enticing me onto Twitter and my friend Carol Marinelli embracing the net and blogosphere in one hit!

Who am I? I'm Anne Gracie and I write historical romances set in the regency era for Berkley. For more about my books go here.

I already blog twice a month with the word wenches, but this is a less organized, more frivolous and more personal blog.

I have a dog, an Australian Kelpie (cattle dog) called Chloe, and if you think it's cruel that I make her wear a red feather boa, well, here's some other pics from the photo shoot, showing just how miserable she wasn't. If ever there's a dog that likes dressing up, it's her.





I used to try and put cats in dolls' clothes when I was a little kid. I wasn't much interested in dolls, mind — just animals, but people kept giving me dolls and clothes (hoping ladylikeness would take) and I did like the clothes. We had dogs, a horse, cows and goats and everyone was cooperative about wearing old pullovers, scarves and hats and garlands (the goats used to eat the garlands, which was a little disheartening), but the real doll's clothes were all perfectly cat sized, but would the cats cooperate? No way. I still bear the scars. It was most annoying when they were the only doll-sized animals I had. But then cats always are perverse and independent creatures -- that's a huge part of their appeal. You feel so flattered when they deign to sit on you.

After I grew up I never used to be in favor of dressing up animals but a few years ago we had a Christmas party at "dog park" the park area that runs along the creek down the back of my place. It's an off-lead dog walking area and over the years the regulars have become friends. Chloe's affair with accessories started there, at that Christmas party.

One woman, Jane, owner of Chockie and Oscar, dogs who always wore stylish bandanas, turned up with 50 Christmas dog bandanas that she'd sewn herself. So I broke my rule and tied one onto Chloe — and to my amazement, she loved it. Next day she saw it in the car and got all excited and nudged it with her nose and as soon as I put it on her she sat up, proud as punch.

So then the next Valentine's day I took a photo of her with a red feather boa for my website. Most dogs would rip the boa to bits, but not this one. Nope — as you can see, she posed. 

That was several years ago and the boa is still in one piece. And why do I have a red feather boa? I have several — are they not required wearing for a writer of romance, after all? LOL.

 This particular one was a gift from Harlequin, when we had an author dinner at a romance writers conference in Melbourne, and every author was given a red feather boa. So it's truly a Romance Boa.
And if you want to read another boa story, from that same conference, go here.