Bye-Bye Boo

When I woke up this morning all was right with the world. But within an hour nothing was.

You see, our dog Archie, has had arthritis for a few years now. Last winter he was bad, and he never fully recovered over the summer. Yesterday he was in pain and off his food. This morning he couldn't even get up. Gaz and I took the painful decision to take him to the vet and have him put to sleep. Put to sleep, just writing that is making me cry.

Archie was the best dog anyone could ever ask for. He was sweet and loving and loyal. He was also impulsive, kinda dumb and pain in the bum at times. But you could never stay mad with him for long. He'd turn those big brown eyes on you and you're heart would melt. EVERYONE loved Archie, the groomer almost cried today when we told her, he even managed to make the vet fall in love with him in the short time he was there. He had this way of being that made everyone who met him smile. Those of you who did meet him, know what I'm talking about. For those that never got to meet him I feel sorry, you missed out.

We have our happy memories of him, the times he played ball with Cassius when Cas was little. Archie NEVER gave back the ball, you had to catch him for it. I remember watching a four year old Cas desperately chase Archie round the yard at the farm. Archie would wait until Cas was within reaching distance and then run to the other end of the yard. Exuding a stupid happy grin, and Ner ner ner attitude.

For me and Gaz there are those times we were home alone with him. When he just wanted to be near you, would be happy just to sit beside us whilst we did whatever we had to. He was a happy dog, and a dog that made us happy.

Now the house feels empty, pulling up in the car outside and not seeing his big fluffy head in the window or hearing his excited bark........ that HURTS. I think it will for a while.

All that is left to say is - Bye-bye Boobear. We love you very much, and things will never be the same without you. Run free........

Our recent photo adventures

Ok, so we've been out quite a bit recently. Me finishing Uni has meant that there is much more time for my photography addiction and I've been feeding it well. ;) Of course this means that the family has followed along with me. I'm going to share my favourite pictures of the last couple of months, there's quite a few, I always find it hard to chose. And of course there's three of us taking them!!

First up I'm gonna share some recent pictures I took of Cassius. I'm not usually good at taking pictures of people, but when I processed these I thought that I'd managed to catch the various sides of my sons personality and I wanted to share them:

Then there's my favourite landscape, no idea where this is, somewhere in East Yorkshire I think, though Gaz  and I drove around A LOT that day. ;)

I've also had a thing about trying to capture a reflection in the wing mirror, this is my favourite so far: 

Next I present a shot taken by Gary the King of Macro:

The conversation for this shot went something like this:

ME: "damn it!! Can't get the shot right. Gaaaaary! Come and get a shot of these butterflies will you?"

Gary (few shutter clicks, then passes camera to me) "Those do?" (stupid smirk on his face)

Me: "Thank-you, no need to be so smug!"

This conversation pretty much sums up our whole relationship! ;)

Then we decided that we wanted some shots of hay bales. This was a more difficult task than you would think. It appears every farmer in the North West now wraps every bale in black plastic!!

However, after much hunting we found the perfect farm shots.

 

Cassius got this shot:

Finally, I thought I'd share a couple of Cassius's fun shots. Just coz I thought they were cool! 

I hope you like the shots, and I promise that the next post wont be so long!!

Have a great weekend ~ Claire xxx