Dog wisdom

I want to introduce you to Jack. Jack is not a Jack Russel although there is a certain resemblance. He is around 14 and originally from Johannesburg. A couple of years ago he was starting to look really old. He really struggled in Winter because it can get very cold in Johannesburg, particularly at night (that random bit of information is for the foreign readers). So, Jack retired down to the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal (where it is less cold and he gets to go to the beach every day) and became years younger again. It is a pretty remarkable difference. (It suggests that maybe we should all be living on the south coast... OK, maybe that is just my current wishful thinking). 

Anyway, you didn't actually need to know any of this, but it adds back story to my mini light bulb moment on our daily beach walk today. Jack likes to walk forward, he will put up with turning off the path to the pools if the other dogs insist, but as a whole he likes to keep going straight on (unless he is stopping for one of his many sniffs and leg-lifts). He behaves really well and generally responds to little tugs on the lead when I get impatient waiting for him to finish smelling the canine community news reports. The only time that he really requires persuasion is when us lazy humans decide it is time to turn around and go back home. This goes against everything Jack believes in (which, as I said, is to go forward). 

Today, I was a little exasperated (and there is that slight feeling of guilt because we could of course walk further but then we will have to walk back further too) and asked Jack (out-loud in that way that perfectly sane people talk to their dogs) what it is that makes him so excited about the next step. 

I know... light bulb moment... OK, maybe it is not immediately obvious but as I said it, it made me ask myself why I am not so excited for the next step. The most immediate answer is that I don't have any idea what the next step is and I am someone that likes to know where I am going to be in 6 months time (I may have mentioned that already), so the not-knowing and diminishing bank balance (particularly in light of the sms I keep getting telling me I have to buy a TV licence - as if that's how I want to spend my money) is causing stress. And today I was told that I need to move out of my BEAUTIFUL office in UCT which makes going back no longer a possibility. (This was inevitable, expected and completely reasonable, and to be honest, it was a very nicely phrased email that still gave me an option of having 'floating space' in the lab - but it still made me feel a little lost, dispensable and unemployed (so that answers that question)). 

BUT, this should be an exciting time, a time of new beginnings and options (although it really doesn't feel like it), hope and possibility. I should take a page out of the wise old Jack's book: look forward and be excited about the next step... whatever that step may be. 

Well, actually, I am posting this today because the next step is that I am flying up to JHB (City of Gold, Red and Orange) on Friday so I won't be able to post then (and the light bulb moment happened today). I am devastated to turn away from the daily walks on the beach and the constant sound of crashing waves (and Jack and Dingo and Brinny. Oh and my awesome folks) but I am looking forward to spending time with the people I love up there and seeing my school friends. I am also hoping that the aura of JHB work ethic will blow away the lazy-beach-bum mist that has settled on my brain. Papers need to be written and work needs to be found and I am going to try very hard to look forward and be excited about whatever the next step brings... 

And Brinny, because there is no favouritism
here. 

Introducing Dingo