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.
And we've seen Patchwork too now, at the Snowdog farewell event. That was a very special day for me, being able to see all the dogs again. The streets of Tyne and Wear feel somehow empty without those dogs.
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 18
Photographed on 21st September 2016
This dog is called Tails of the North East
This dog lived, for the duration of the Snowdogs festival, outside Newcastle Civic Centre, opposite the river god.
The dog was painted by David Maguire.
Hey, look at the date. 21st September. Yes. That's right. We didn't really start seeing Snowdogs until the start of November. By the start of November we had only seen two dogs. Or at least we had only stopped to spend time with two dogs. This dog. And Hound Dog, who lived in Eldon Square in Newcastle. We had a very quick trip to see Hound Dog and took one photo in October - and had to go back later to see it again.
So this dog, Tails of the North East, was the very first dog that Winefride and I met. I don't know why my person decided to allow us to meet this dog. She was at the Civic Centre for some other reason that day. I think she had taken us to a training session there about autism awareness. I think Winefride and I are quite aware of autism already because we're autistic. And so is our person. She probably wasn't really meant to be at the training but she went anyway. Some of it she thought was very good. Some of it she thought could do with tweaking (as a bare minimum) or overhauling in bigger ways (ideally). The very first thing said made my person completely cringe - the man said that everyone is a bit autistic. And that's complete and utter ... well, I want to utter a swear word there but I am a very polite small pink soft toy and don't use such words. Because the statement is wrong. And because it plays down just how hard it is to be actually autistic. I don't like hearing that statement. My person is nodding her head as she is typing what I'm saying. Another thing we hear quite a bit is that we're all a bit OCD. There are quizzes that ask "How OCD are you?" and the answer is that you're not. You're just not. At all. Unless you have OCD. In which case you have OCD. But even then the question doesn't make any sense. How OCD are you? It's like asking "How depression are you?" or "How whooping cough are you?". Nonsense. There might be a "How whooping cough are you?" quiz out there somewhere and you would get marked as being a bit whooping cough because you sneezed last Thursday. It's that nonsensical with the OCD quizzes. And it's that nonsensical when you hear someone say that we're all a bit autistic. No. You are not autistic. And that's final. Unless you are autistic. In which case you are autistic. And that's final too. No arguing with a wise autistic soft toy please.
Sorry. I got carried away there. My person has told me to take a deep breath and let go of the stressful question. That's hard for me because my brain would prefer to carry on talking about it. The course ended with something about an organisation called Autism Speaks which was always renowned for not allowing autistic people to speak. But my person says that much of what was between the screamingly awful start and finish was actually pretty good and would have been useful to people who weren't aware of autism. And the person running the course was doing his best to provide something as good as he was able. He wasn't a bad person. He was standing for autistic people.
Anyway. This dog was the first one that we saw. In September. On the 21st. Six weeks before we started our Snow Dog quest.
Here are our pictures of Tails of The North East. You can see the river god in a couple of these photos. My person had already taken a picture of the god that day. From above.
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.
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