My name is Blob Thing and I am a small pink soft toy. Together with my sister Winefride I have toured across Tyne and Wear over the course of two weeks and together we have attempted to complete the Great North Snowdog Trail. This consisted of us having to find sixty-two Snowdogs and ninety-seven little Snowdogs. That's one hundred and fifty-nine dogs in total.
And that's a lot of dogs.
We almost succeeded too. We managed to see one hundred and fifty-eight of the dogs in their locations. The only one we missed was called Patchwork who wasn't in Tyne and Wear at all. Seeing Patchwork was impossible for us. Never mind. We saw every other Snowdog and little Snowdog and we are very proud of ourselves for this achievement. We've also seen a lot of amazing sights along the way because Tyne and Wear is full of wonderful places. We will be seeing Patchwork too, at the Snowdog farewell event at the start of December.
For more information about our amazing quest and the way we were helped by our person, please see my first post on this blog. It can be found at http://blobandthesnowdogs.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/blob-thing-and-winefride-welcome-you-to.html I confess that we all got more than a little obsessive about Snowdogs in the first half of November 2016. There are worse things to get obsessive about.
Please remember that the Great North Snowdogs existed not just as an enjoyable addition to the landscape of our wonderful county of Tyne and Wear but as a way to raise funds for St. Oswald's Hospice which is our local hospice and which does amazing work. To find out more about the hospice and see ways in which you can donate, should you wish to, please head over to their website. It can be found at http://www.stoswaldsuk.org/
I will include the above text in all my posts. It explains everything. If you get obsessive about Snowdogs too then don't feel you should read it every time. That would just be taking obsession a step too far.
Today's post contains pictures of the following Snowdog:
Dog Number 17
Photographed on 15th November 2016
Those paying very, very close attention will spot that so far I have posted about dogs numbered 1 to 15. Now I've jumped to 17. I'm not going crazy. It's just that on 15th November we saw six dogs and I am posting about them in the order I saw them that day. We saw dog 17 before dog 16. I'll be posting about that one, The Snowdog, tomorrow. A very exciting dog. Our last Snowdog - apart from Patchwork, the naughty Kielder stray who we couldn't see until the farewell event. By the time this is published that will already have happened. It is going to be so excellent.
This dog is called Gingerbread Dog.
This dog lived, for the duration of the Snowdogs festival, on a first floor balcony outside The Biscuit Factory art gallery in Shieldfield, Newcastle.
It was quite windy on that balcony and very difficult for two small pink soft toys to hold on tightly. My person was very worried about us falling off the dog. We had fallen off other dogs but none of them had been on first floor balconies that we could fall from. Once when Winefride fell off a dog, at Stadium of Light in Sunderland, she tried to run away across a car park. That was very dangerous. Normally my person keeps tight control of her reins in dangerous situations but she can't hold Winefride's reins and take the Snowdog pictures at the same time. Fortunately Winefride didn't get run over but it was a worrying experience for both me and my person. In her case, autism means she hasn't yet been able to gain a proper sense of danger and that's why she had reins made for her by my creator. My creator knew that they would be a good thing and the reins certainly make life less worrying. When there isn't such danger we let Winefride run around and play and be magnificently herself in whatever way she wants to express herself and find great joy in the world. She's wonderful.
The other problem with that balcony was that it was quite small. It was very difficult for my person to get enough space to take a decent picture of use and Gingerbread Dog.
The dog was painted by Sarah-Jane Szikora, a freelance artist from the North East.
Now. I have to have a moan here. I'm going to repeat this moan six times because it's a moan related to the finding of six Snowdogs. I might even moan again when I talk about some little Snowdog packs. This is my fifth time of stating this moan.
I said that we photographed this dog on 15th November. That's true. We saw it on our very last day of Snowdog hunting. The dogs were going to be leaving their temporary homes on 21st November or as soon after that as they could all be collected so the last day for searching would have been the 20th. But we were away visiting my creator from the 16th to the 20th so the 15th was our last Snowdog day - and we had only started our quest at the start of the month and had been forced to take days off too.
My moan is this: My person had already SEEN this dog.
Yes. It's true. She had. She saw this dog - and others - on 6th November. On that afternoon she had decided to go and see some of the dogs in Newcastle and walk from Gosforth to Seven Stories in Ouseburn. She would see six Snowdogs and some packs of little Snowdogs too. She got ready to go out, even though the weather wasn't great, and caught a bus to Gosforth. When she got there it was hailing and she nearly came straight back home. But the hail cleared and she reached the first dog. While walking to the second it rained on her hard and she was glad of her adventure coat. She persevered and saw all of the six dogs.
BUT she saw the six dogs ALONE.
Yes. It's true. She was alone. She reached the first dog of the day, Addam Upright, and realised she had forgotten to take me with her. And she had forgotten Winefride as well. How dreadful. She. Had. Forgotten. Us. Did she come back home and collect us? No she didn't. She just went to see the dogs on her own. She says that she was sad when she discovered we weren't with her. But obviously not sad enough to come and get us. Oh no. Not my person. She carried on regardless.
You can imagine how angry I was when she got back later that day. I was livid. I'm usually a very joyful small pink soft toy and my smile is famous, or should be famous, across the world. I'm a happy person. But that evening I was cross, cross, cross and I cried a lot too when I realised that we had missed out on seeing dogs.
Eventually my person promised me that she would try to take us out to see those dogs and that she would do her best to make sure that we would see every single one of the dogs we had missed. She would walk the whole walk again - and as it turned out she walked even further second time round than the had the first.
I calmed down at the news that we would see the dogs. In the end it worked out very well because we didn't get wet at all when we went to see the dogs we had missed. She got soaked. We stayed dry. Serves her right. Of the sixty-one Snowdogs we saw these six were the last.
It was a very good day once we came to experience it. We saw the dogs and three packs of little dogs. Then we walked to Byker and my person spent 99 pence on four books. She likes cheap books. And she likes books to be cheap. Then we caught a Metro and went to see the Snowdog pack in Tynemouth that I've already posted about. Then we had a very nice walk and ate some very nice chips in a very nice location.
Winefride and I had a lovely time and now that it's happened I don't mind having missed out on the 6th. And I am very thankful to my person for taking us on a special trip even though she had already taken the trip. We picked up our certificates that day too for completing the Great North Snowdog Trail. I am glad to have my certificate. And I am glad that we all heartily deserve our certificates.
Here are our pictures of Gingerbread Dog.
You can see how excited and happy both Winefride and I were to be on the trail of Snowdogs. We have had an amazing time. And I think our person has enjoyed herself too.
Firstly, here are our photographs from 15th November. Glad to be there.
And here are the photos my person took on 6th November. Neither Winefride nor myself are in thse pictures because we weren't there.
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