...why I shouldn't buy Smidgen this jumper for her birthday.
I mean, LOOK AT IT. And you know Smidgen would wear it better than some terrier.
Whatever, Buster. You're no sighthound, and you know it.
There are, actually, a few good reasons why I shouldn't buy Smidgen this jumper for her birthday. 1) It's £46. 2) It's £46. 3) She will almost definitely roll around in the rotting carcass of a seagull within minutes of putting it on. Even if we're inside. She ALWAYS FINDS A WAY. 4) It's £46.
But hey, a girl can dream. And anyway, it had been far too long since we had a dog wearing clothes around here.
Did anyone see any good doggy Halloween costumes this year? Remember these guys? Never not funny.
SEE ALSO:
→ Smidgen's third birthday (in which she wears a hat)
→ Smidgen's fourth birthday plus a lot of random facts.
Images via Houndworthy
Sometimes only a dog and a baby wearing matching ridiculous hats will do.
If this story doesn't make you feel better about the world, nothing will.
Image by Grace Chon, brought to my attention by Sara (thank you!)
Gorgeous photography! Great design! DOGS WEARING CLOTHES!
It's like they invented it just for me.
Meet Houndworthy, for all your quality hipster dog goods. Need an on-trend geometric collar and matching lead? Of course you do. Need a distressed canvas vintage French postal dog bed? Mais oui. Need a white 100% cotton doggie bandana decorated with painted fish flies? Um, yes, you do. IS THAT EVEN A QUESTION?
I'm not joking with this. I know it can be hard to tell.
Smidgen, if you weren't getting a disgusting chunk of meat for your Christmas, and I had a spare several hundred pounds, you would be getting everything that Houndworthy has to offer. I declare it officially worthy of my hound.
SEE ALSO:
→ A dog wearing antlers looking happy→ Dogs dressed as Santa looking miserable
→ Smidgen totally needs a new jacket. I mean, she only has two.
All images via Houndworthy. Not a sponsored post, I just like to imagine I have the kind of life where I can spend all my money making Smidgen look even cooler than she already does.
It's been a while since my dogs wearing clothes tag saw any action. Obviously I had to remedy that immediately.
SEE ALSO:
Image: "Tommy Atkins" (appropriately enough) via the Library of Congress. See the whole bizarre series on Shooting Film
You might think that comparing my hunt for the perfect spring coat to the First World War is a bit over the top (my, the tasteless war puns are flowing thick and fast today), but they have more in common than you'd think. Both involved carefully-planned strategic campaigns. Both dragged on for years. And both, ultimately, achieved precisely nothing.
Okay, maybe they're not exactly the same. I should probably stop with the inappropriate comparison. But before I do, let me just remind you that trench coats were invented during World War I, so all I'm saying is that maybe it wasn't a complete waste of time.
FINE I'M STOPPING NOW.
Back to my quest for a new coat.
Ever since I bought my beloved navy duffel coat, I've had a hankering for more timeless pieces. When it comes to outerwear, which in my book should always last through several seasons, the classics have more enduring appeal to me. So far, I've managed to acquire a classic Western denim jacket and a vegan aviator. ("Vegan" is just a pretentious codename for "pleather," but vegan sounds classier so I'm going with it. After all, I'm practically a vegan myself. Ahem.)
Now that spring is finally rolling into town, I'm itching to begin my annual search for a trench coat to complete the collection. The trench coat, like most "classic" items, is tricky to get right, which explains why the search has become something of a traditional spring pastime for me. Every year I look, and every year I fail to find anything that fits the bill.
I actually own a sort-of-trench-coat, as seen in this post in which I attempt (very, very badly) to impersonate Blair of Atlantic Pacific. But it's really more of a jacket than a coat - it withers at the merest mention of rain and it has all sorts of trendy, "twist-on-a-classic" details. I don't want a twist on a classic. I want a classic classic. No weird zips, no funny pleats, no zany colours. Just a pale beige, showerproof, double-breasted, just-above-the-knee, belted, long-sleeved trench coat. Why is that so hard to find?
I was ready to resign myself to the fact that the perfect trench coat simply doesn't exist. Or, rather, that it only exists if you're prepared to drop a grand on it which, clearly, I am not. But then I saw this:
And THEN, I saw THIS:
I'm damned if I'm going to be out-styled by a child - even if it is Emmanuelle Alt's child - and a DOG.
This is where you come in. It's been a while since we've had a shopping challenge on ye olde blog. Who has some time to kill and wants to help me track down the perfect trench coat for under £100? You do? Excellent! And, GO.
P.S. A reminder that you can create fancy clickable links in the comments box by copying and pasting this easy snippet of code:
<a href="PASTE THE LINK HERE">WHAT DO YOU WANT TO CALL THE LINK?</a>
For example:
<a href="http://asafemooring.blogspot.com/">A Safe Mooring</a> = A Safe Mooring
Ta-da! You are an HTML ninja.
Images: 1. Vanessa Jackman 2. From Parisian Chic by Ines de la Fressange via Vogue 3. The Sartorialist 4. Atlantic Pacific 5. Stockholm Street Style 6. The Westerley Trench from Uncovet
SEE ALSO:
Did you know there was such a thing as STYLED DOG PORTRAITS?!
I mean, come on. There's got to be a market for this in Edinburgh, surely? And it's for charity! Any photographers want to get in on this? Anybody? No...?
For more styled dog portraits than you can shake a giant glittery bow at, there's a whole freaking category on A House in the Hills. I practically wept with joy.
Images from Fancy Paws created by Smitten Studio, Birds of a Feather and A House in the Hills, a.k.a. MY HEROES.
Nothing makes me happier than being included on somebody's blog love list. Well, dogs wearing hats and making silly faces probably make me happier. But it's a close-run thing.
This week, I was delighted to see that a friend had included me on the list of blogs she reads most religiously (I'm assuming this means she puts on a special robe and lights a candle whenever it's time for some dogs-wearing-hats blog action. I'm not sure though).
I can't deny it stung a little to see that the first thing she had to say about A Safe Mooring is that I'm "not updating it quite so often any more." This is unquestionably true - the dwindling numbers of posts per month speak for themselves - but nobody likes to be reminded of their failings. Especially when the rest of the description was ridiculously flattering. "Hilarious, a bit angry and very eloquent"? I'll take that, thank you very much, but I can't say I've particularly earned it in the last few months.
It struck me last night, at about half past bedtime, that today is our second anniversary. Not Fin's and mine - that was last year - but yours and mine. You, the readers; me, the blogger. I've spent the last two years of my life in varying degrees of devotion to filling this blank page. You've left me 2,580 comments and I've squirrelled away every single one of them, to keep me going when words are sparse.
This year, there's no bunting, no celebratory blogiversary background (I was weirdly organised last year). Instead, some small gifts. First, a dog wearing a snood. You're welcome.
Second, a couple of recommendations for any of you who, like me, have been spending more time reading than writing of late.
Along the same lines as the ever-popular Google Reader 'Next' button (if you missed it, scroll to the end of this post for all the ways in which the Next button is ace), the following tip could change your life. Or make your blog-reading experience slightly more pleasant. Which is practically the same thing.
Have you ever added a blog to your reader, only to discover that the blogger in question has utilised the single most irritating tool in the blogger's box of tricks? I'm not talking about referring to themselves as a "mommy" when their only child has four legs and licks its own balls. I'm not even talking about signing off every post with some pixel-wasting nonsense like "Love and light! xo," or "Kisses and fairydust! xoxo," or "Dandruff and wheelie bins! xoxoxoxox". I'm talking about... THE TRUNCATED FEED (dun dun dunnn).
You know, that thing where the blogger gives you the first seven words of their latest post, and then just expects you to click through to their actual blog to read the rest? Well hey, guess what, annoying blogger? If I wanted to click through to your actual blog then I wouldn't have SUBSCRIBED TO READ IT IN MY READER, WOULD I? HMMMM??? I will not click through! I will control my own clicks! And my next click will be on the unsubscribe button! How do you like THAT?
If you, like me, find truncated feeds intensely irritating, then I am about to give you the best present ever. It's called fulltextrssfeed.com, and it does exactly what it says on the tin. You copy the link of the feed you want, paste it into the url generator, and out pops a lovely full text feed that will deliver the entire post straight to your reader. Boom.
To accompany this top tip, I would also like to humbly propose that you use it immediately to subscribe to the Writer's Almanac. I stumbled upon this a week or two ago and, once you get round the truncated feed thing, it is an absolute delight every single day. Literary snippets + heart-stopping poetry = a daily reminder of what good writing really is. I've even done the hard work for you: here's the full text feed.
And with that, I'm going to shamelessly steal the line that ends every epistle from the Writer's Almanac, because it sums up everything perfectly (and doesn't end with xoxo):
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
(Oh, and happy anniversary.)
The excellent, excellent pictures are from my new favourite Etsy shop, Whitly Craft Works. Anyone who knits snoods for dogs is clearly my kind of person.
That's right. Our little ball of fluff (okay fine, our half-bald skinny bag of bones) turned three. And in a strange quirk of timing, she came to live with us on her second birthday, so the date also marked our one-year anniversary of becoming dog owners.
Of course I had to make her a hat.
In many ways, Smidgen isn't an easy dog to own. Given how ridiculously inexperienced Fin and I are (neither of us has ever had a dog in the family before), it's kind of crazy to think they even gave her to us in the first place. Her timid, cautious nature made her a rubbish racer, and led to her being put up for adoption - yay for us! But it also left her completely unprepared for life as a pet in the big bad world, filled with people, buses, televisions, HOOVERS OMG IT'S SO SCARY OUT HERE!!!
She's still shy around everyone apart from us and a select, Smidgen-approved few. She's wary of strange dogs. If she does decide she wants to play, the only game she knows is Let's All Chase Smidgen Round And Round And Not Be Able To Catch Her For Twenty Minutes, which I'm not sure is that much fun for the other dogs. She's a terrible moocher, she has no respect for personal space, she's kind of weird-looking if we're honest, and she doesn't even wipe her feet on the mat when she comes in from walks, the rude bitch.
But that, of course, is only half the truth. Okay, so we can't go out for dinner on a whim, but frankly I'll take a long, happy walk on a crisp day over an overpriced burger. And if an overpriced burger is the only thing that will do, well, fortunately I know a place that keeps a stash of doggy treats behind the bar.
Smidgen is sweet, joyful, affectionate and for some unknown reason she absolutely loves the pants off me and Fin. Her desires are simple: somewhere comfy to snooze, something tasty to eat, and the people she loves cuddled up beside her. She's a constant reminder to value the everyday and be grateful for small pleasures. Who doesn't want to be reminded of that?
PLUS. Not only does she let me put stupid hats on her and take pictures, she is so chilled about it that she falls asleep. With the hat still on.
If that isn't the cutest thing ever then I'd like to know what is.
Happy birthday, Smidger McGidger. We love the pants off you, too.
First, I slept through the alarm on my new phone and woke up an hour later than planned. Oops.
Then, stuck in a state somewhere between hyper panic and still asleep, I forgot what I was doing in the shower and tried to wash my hair with shower gel. Which was pleasant.
Then, I put a hole in the top of my only pair of clean tights and couldn't find any clear nail varnish to patch them up, so my tights are now held together with bits of gold glitter.
Then, when I finally made it to my desk, I was footering about on the blog (ahem, working hard) and accidentally published a random snippet of draft blog post that made absolutely no sense. But Google Reader clearly enjoyed it so much that it refuses to part with it, so if you are lucky enough to subscribe to this blog then you will have the pleasure of reading those nonsensical ramblings FOREVER AND EVER.
Fuck today. I think I should just go back to bed.
Dog in a bow-tie (!) by Shannon Michele Photography via Style Me Pretty and the best pinboard ever
This weekend, I watched Crufts*. I don't mean I watched it in a "it came on while I was doing the ironing and I was too lazy to change the channel" kind of way, or a "had it on in the background while I wasted hours of my life on Pinterest" kind of way. I mean I sat down on my couch and, quite deliberately, watched it. I checked what time it was coming on and watched the clock compulsively until it started. I perused the programme of events online to see when the hounds were being shown. I expressed opinions on obscure dog breeds about which I know precisely nothing. I even, in a brief spurt of enthusiasm, followed Clare Balding on Twitter. All of which led me to ponder the following question:
What the f*ck has happened to me?
I've never been a dog person. The only dog I had regular exposure to as a kid was my friend's springer spaniel. She would bark hysterically every morning when I appeared at the back gate to collect my friend for our walk to school. What I initially mistook for joyful exuberance turned out to be a post-traumatic reaction to being tripped over and trodden on by me one too many times (accidentally, I hasten to add). She would scrabble frantically at the kitchen door in a vain attempt to evade me and my clumsy hooves, the fact that I had been present in the house when she first arrived from the breeder completely overshadowed by my subsequent inadvertent trampling.
Coincidentally, this is pretty much the reaction I receive from infants too (I have a bad habit of dropping them on their heads. WHOOPSIE) and so throughout my adult life I have always proclaimed, with a breezy indifference, that animals and children "just don't like me."
I can't explain the mysterious transformation that culminated in us acquiring Smidgen; the process was so incremental that it's impossible to point and say, "there, that's it - that's the moment I became a dog person." It's a bit like falling in love. You're merrily bumping along, skimming the surface like a stone, until one day you look down and realise you're actually waist-deep, and sinking fast.
So now, for better or worse, I'm officially a dog person: boring friends to tears with tales of sleeping patterns and gastric worms; befriending strange and slightly shifty rottweilers on buses; conducting in-depth research on different brands of dog food; and, yes, watching Crufts. (This fundamental personality shift doesn't bode well for if we ever have children. Am I suddenly going to start finding breast pumps and Supernanny terribly fascinating? File under: Worrying.)
And even while part of me is despairing at what I've become, another part is screaming, "where has this been all my life???" Because - and I don't know if you know this - Crufts is actually AMAZING.
As well as the almost deadly levels of cuteness on display - the pomeranians! the dachshunds! I die! - there is just something so wonderfully bonkers about the whole thing. People travelling from all over the world to have their dog fondled in front of thousands of people. Lengthy features on the history and preservation of otterhounds. Animals who experience more grooming in a single day than I have in the last month. A dog wearing an actual RAF cloak with actual medals.
And oh lordy, the heelwork to music. Heelwork to music! The ice dancing of the dog world! Who knew such a thing existed? When Mary Ray strode out into the arena clad in her M&S dungarees and ill-advised headscarf, I had a feeling it would make uncomfortable viewing, and I was right. The dog was clearly some kind of genius, but surely even he was cringing as Mary swept away the last shreds of his dignity with her patriotically-striped broom. I could just picture his wolf ancestors shaking their heads sadly, wondering how it had all come to this. You know, if they were watching it on TV.
But despite the nonsense, there is a genuine sense of pride underlying the whole affair. It's impossible to remain scathing in the face of such passion and commitment. Frankly, I would rather live in world where people care so deeply about something, even if that something is training their dog to dance around a broom. I would rather be the kind of person who high-fives her husband when the greyhound makes the cut in the hound group, and then goes in the huff when the borzoi wins (the borzoi? I mean come on, that thing looks like a greyhound and a retriever welded together). What it comes down to, I suppose, is that I'd rather be a dog person than not.
Pretty sure kids still kind of hate me, though.
What about you? Are you a dog person? Or - *shudder* - a cat person?
*Random fact: Did you know that it used to be called Cruft's, before the Kennel Club "rebranded" the show in 1974? The Waterstones apostrophe's got NOTHING on the Crufts apostrophe. I like to imagine it slumped in the corner of a bar somewhere, pickled in gin and yelling "dachshund" and "kooikerhondje" at random.
Me: "I have to write a post for International Women's Day to run on Any Other Woman and I have no idea what to write about. The topic is 'choices'. Any ideas?"
Fin: "Hmm. You could write about Smidgen?"
Me: "Erm..."
Yeah, so, seeing as how it is not actually International Write About Your Neurotic Pet Greyhound Day (more's the pity), I wrote something far more pertinent to the issues at hand; namely, internet memes and nail varnish. Naturally.
Any Other Woman is running posts every hour on the hour throughout the day and I believe mine is up RIGHT NOW, if you'd care to read it. You should hang around and read the other posts too. I'm sure they won't be as great as mine, obviously, but they'll probably be vaguely interesting. I've heard that some women can actually string multiple sentences together. Sometimes even into paragraphs! Whatever next? Dogs wearing glasses??
P.S. I randomly posted this at midnight last night. Consider it a little bonus extra, for all the international women in my life (that's you).
Glorious image by Hana Pesut - see the whole series here. It was a toss-up for me between the glasses and the pink mini sombrero. Tricky.
I hope you are feeling marginally happier about Christmas than these guys.
In fairness, I'd be pretty pissed off if someone forced a Santa hat on my head and took pictures of me, too.
Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas, filled with love, laughter, Chocolate Oranges and weird-looking dogs. That's what I'm hoping for, anyway.
See you on the other side (*coughMYBIRTHDAYcough*).
FINALLY. I've been itching for the festive season to officially start for a long, long time, but somehow December has snuck up on me and I can't quite believe it's that time of year again. I haven't even got myself an advent calendar/advent candle/hand-crafted super-duper advent extravaganza yet, and as for Christmas presents... well. The less said about that, the better. I do have some sparkly boots though, so don't go thinking I'm *completely* unprepared for the festivities.
I am stupidly busy at the moment, but my Christmas present to myself (oh and birthday present. Did I mention it's my birthday in December too? No? It is. Two days after Christmas, in fact. You might hear me mention it once or twice. Or a million times. One side-effect of having a birthday so close to Christmas is that I feel the need to bring it up at every opportunity, lest anyone should come even remotely close to forgetting it. Or - even worse - wrapping my birthday presents in Christmas paper. WHY DO PEOPLE DO THAT?) is to devote a little more time to blogging for the rest of the month. I'm not all that far away from my one-year bloggiversary and I don't want to limp halfheartedly across that threshold, dragging my pale, lifeless blog along behind me like a shrivelled limb, oh no. I want to skip across it wearing sparkly boots and singing Christmas songs. Even though it will be January by then. Whatever.
In this spirit, I am so excited to be hanging out with the lovely Lauren McGlynn this weekend and hopefully taking a few pictures of the newest and most photogenic member of my little family. I might even be in some of them too, and if you're VERY lucky (and I don't look like a total weirdo in them), you might get to see them. Merry Christmas.
Anyone else getting into the Christmas spirit? No? Just me...?
(That isn't Smidgen in the antlers, by the way. Not yet, anyway. You know how I feel about dogs wearing clothes.)
Image: Punchline by Derek Potts
A confession: I actually quite like pink, if it's a nice pink (hello, blog). I also carried on playing with Barbies for longer than anyone who hopes to have a normal social life reasonably should, only giving up when the potential embarrassment of being found out by my friends was finally greater than the joy I found in making up stories and creating outfits and designing floorplans all over my bedroom carpet with precarious rows of books as walls.
But I also read those books, and rode my bike, and wore green dungarees and red wellies and nobody accused me of not being feminine. I played with Barbie; I didn't aspire to be her.
I don't have a daughter, or any immediate prospect of one, but even I can see that there is something badly wrong with the way in which little girls are targeted and defined by today's media. There's pink, and then there's Pink.
In the sheltered, calm waters of the blogosphere (or at least the corner of it that I frequent), it's tempting to believe that the tide is turning. I see intelligent, stylish parents raising their daughters with respect, imagination and more than one colour of clothing, and I feel some measure of hope for my own hypothetical offspring.
But apparently, the rest of the world is lagging behind a bit. More than a bit, in fact. Just look at this. Ugh, and this. Sigh.
All is not lost, though. I have been following the Pink Stinks campaign on facebook for a while, and I was delighted to see their new website has just launched this week. Their campaigns not only highlight the pinkification (what? It's totally a word) of little girls, but also challenge the underlying stereotypes and blatant sexism that sneaks in behind it. They first caught my attention when they forced Sainsburys to back down over gender stereotyping (they labelled a fancy dress doctor costume "Boy", and a nurse's uniform "Girl". I mean, come on). By the looks of the shiny new Pink Stinks website, they are headed for even bigger things. I defy you to watch the promo video on the front page and stop your jaw from dropping. It's not possible.
Far be it from me to lecture parents on how to raise their children. I'm finding it exhausting enough just trying to keep a dog alive. But not even dogs are safe from this ruthless gender stereotyping. Just look at poor Smidgen:
The Pink is spreading, ladies. WE HAVE TO STOP IT.
1. Doutzen Kroes shot by Karl Lagerfeld (yes, really) for Harper's Bazaar, April 2008. 2. Me, shot by a responsible adult, presumably. 3. Smidgen, shot by me. She loves it really...
I like to think I've cultivated a bit of a reputation here at A Safe Mooring. A reputation for serious intellectual discourse, highbrow cultural references, and above all impeccable taste. My readers, who are without exception intelligent, classy and tasteful themselves, have come to expect a certain standard from me and I consider it my duty to endeavour at all times to live up to their well-founded expectations.
With that in mind, as soon as I saw these stylish ensembles I just knew I had to share them with you, my discerning followers:
I'll tell you what would be more ridiculous. This:
If that's not a good reason to get a puppy, then I don't know what is.
