Long Overdue Update!

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry I haven't posted since the New Year, things have been quite hectic here! The reason for this, is I managed to get a new job! I start on Monday and I'm thrilled to bits that I'll actually be working close to home, with some really nice people. So I've been rushing around lately going to interviews and buying new work clothes, and consequently haven't had the time to update the blog at all. I am just happy that I'll now be able to get back into my usual routine and it also means that I'll be able to continue to afford to feed Gerry his vegan food :)

Talking of dog food, I ordered Gerry a new treat today. Now it's not strictly "vegan" and I don't know what other vegans will think about this - it is a dog chew made from Stag Antler. The difference with this animal product is that it is naturally shed and a sustainable resource. No deer were hurt in the process, and the chews last a long time and are good for dogs, providing them with lots of necessary vitamins and minerals. The company also makes sure that all their packaging is environmentally friendly and recyclable. I decided to order one because Gerry loves his chews and the vegetable-based or rice-based chews I've bought him in the past are gone in a matter of seconds, and I need something to keep him occupied when I'm away from home and that will last him a good while. He has a plastic bone with vegetable paste inside which lasts a long time, but sometimes I do worry about him swallowing little bits of plastic. These antler chews are 100% natural, beneficial nutritionally, help to clean the teeth, are ethically produced and are not harmful to any animals in the process.

I'd be interested to hear your opinions on this. I have no idea how these deer are kept. If I found out that they were not roaming free in an estate or parkland, and discovered they were intensely farmed or mistreated in any way, then I would stop buying them immediately. Does anyone have any insight into this?

















Gerry recovered well from his fractured paw. He was actually very well behaved during his 6 weeks house arrest - as if he knew exactly why he wasn't allowed out. He went through a pretty terrible time, poor thing. The bandage on his leg rubbed the skin and he got a few pressure sores and the skin started peeling off, which meant the bandage had to be removed, slowing down the healing time for the fracture. He's still being eased into exercise now (I think he overdid it a little today on a walk with a Sighthound Stroll friend and ended up limping a little) but he's doing well and his sores have nearly completely healed over.

In other news, I got a tattoo on my foot recently. I was planning on getting the other one done, but after the way my foot reacted to it I think I'll be leaving it for quite a while - I could not walk for about a week! It really swelled up and it was so painful. My tattooist Joe didn't do it this time, but my friend Anto, their apprentice, did an amazing job and used the same Eternal vegan ink as Joe uses. Here's the result, neat huh!

I also got my septum pierced. I've missed my nose piercing for the last few years. I only really took it out because of my work, but with a septum piercing you can tuck it up and hide it away inside your nose whenever you want. So that is what I shall do! It's very subtle, as it's only a small horseshoe and not a full ring. You can just about see it in this photograph.

And now for some lovely pictures I've taken recently:

And some yummy vegan food I had over the Christmas / New Year:

Homemade apple cinnamon crumble with nuts on top and vegan custard.

Black Bean, Apple & Soya Mince Chilli, which was really very good.

Christmas Dinner at my dad's with the Mulberry Bush's homemade nut and mushroom roast, with a wonderful sauce made with morello cherries and red wine, accompanied by sprouts and chestnuts, with maple roasted root vegetables. Mmmm!

My second Christmas dinner at home with the boyfriend consisted of orange and cranberry stuffing balls, root vegetable roasts (with yummy peanuts) from Goodlife, maple roasted root veg, sprouts and copious amounts of cranberry sauce and thick, delicious vegan gravy. Well worth waiting for!!

A chickpea tagine made with spicy sundried tomato and cinnamon sauce from Tesco, accompanied by some of Tesco's own Mediterranean Cous Cous. A quick and simple meal which tasted lovely!

So I'll update again soon and let you know how my new job is going. The words "Occasional Friday Pizza" and "Night at the Dogs" have already been thrown at me even at the interview stage, so we'll have to see how I cope with that! There will be no way I'm going to the greyhound stadium, so maybe when people ask why I can use it as an opportunity to educate them on sighthound welfare. As for the pizza, I'm sure I'll be able to order in something without cheese and educate a few more people about veganism when they give me some funny looks!

Latest Tattoo

I totally forgot to post up a photo of my latest tattoo! It's a gramophone turning into a flower (a morning glory, one of my favourite flowers as a child) with swallows flying out of it, symbolising how carefree music makes me feel. I love what Joe did with my idea :)

On the way up to Spilled Ink I stopped at Blazing Salads to get us some vegan cookies. Never again. They were so bloomin' dry they tasted like chalk in my mouth! Imagine a flapjack with no moisture that sucks all the saliva out of your mouth... I think I'll have to stick to making my own in future.

I am going to go back to Joe in the New Year and get some leaves added around the base of the gramophone and some light blue and white clouds behind the birds. As well as a few small bits added to my chestpiece. Maybe I could bring in some homemade flapjacks to make up for the bad cookies! I've been wanting a Mexican archaeological inspired tattoo for a while now but I think I'll have to wait maybe until my birthday until I get that... or until I get a new job!

I still haven't had much luck on the job front. I did get an interview though, which went extremely well, but the competition is so fierce here for work that it unfortunately amounted to nothing. Hopefully I'll find something next year, and in the meantime I'm going to try get a few qualifications under my belt thanks to the free training that FAS provides.

This Christmas I'm heading back to Wales for a few days to spend some time with my father and catch up with old friends. Gerry still has a fractured paw and is on house arrest so my boyfriend is staying in Dublin with his folks this Christmas so he can look after him. I'm really looking forward to going back to Wales, I'll try take some photos and blog about the food I had over the festive period when I return. In the meantime... I hope everyone has a lovely Yuletide! :)

Boyfriend's Ink

Joe tattooed my boyfriend today. It was my Christmas present to him... that's to my boyfriend, not to Joe!!!! Joe got vegan jellies instead ;) The lyrics are by Music Machine. No explanation needed :)

More Ink!

Yup, he's done it again. Joe Deegan has exceeded all expectations and given me a bitchin' new tattoo! A very rare Welsh bird of prey called a Red Kite, with some daffodils and a pink ribbon. It's in memory of my mother and also a symbol of my nationality. I love it!

For those who haven't heard of them before: Red Kites are pretty awesome birds. There are breeding centres for them in the part of Wales where I am from, where there are now 600 breeding pairs. However at one time they were so rare that the entire population of Red Kites was down to just a few pairs and came from one single female bird! These birds have a wingspan of 5 and a half feet would you believe it... that's taller than me! 

Joe and I ate the yummy vegan croissants I made... and I forgot to take a photo! Oh well, I'll just have to go buy more pastry won't I? ;-) 

Aside from this, not a great deal has happened lately. Gerry is thankfully the coolest and most laid-back pup known to the history of dogkind, so the fireworks at Halloween didn't bother him one bit. In fact, it was me that was freaking out in the garden when on the phone to my dad and a few dozen fireworks suddenly went off over my house and rockets started landing on the patio!! The only time Gerry lifted his head was when he saw a beagle on the telly. And that was for about all of 10 seconds. I was quite shocked at how many dogs I saw wandering on the local green with no owners in sight, being left alone to sniff at burning bonfires and trot up to kids with fireworks. There were dozens of dogs barking like crazy, you'd think their owners would have the sense to bring them inside tonight.

My father also came to stay for a few days and even though Dublin had some pretty bad flooding we still managed to get out and do a few things like visit the Japanese Gardens at Kildare National Stud, go out for nice vegan food at Delhi O'Deli in town and Bits'n'Pizzas in Dun Laoghaire, and just generally mooch around and go to a few galleries and drink mojitos. It was a nice relaxing visit.

In other news, I have been made redundant so I have to look for a new job. Whoop-de-doo. Not really looking forward to that. I hate starting afresh. Luckily I kinda saw it coming so I'm quite prepared and not really very phased by it at all. Hopefully I'll be sorted with something by the new year.

Here's a few pics I've taken recently of random goings on :)

Wonderful vintage lighthouse necklace I got the other day.

The Japanese Gardens at Kildare National Stud - so beautiful.

Chilli Corn Soup, a veganised Jamie Oliver recipe, I'll post it up soon.























Gerry out on a walk early one morning.























Autumn leaves.

New Ink!

Here's a picture of my new tattoos by fellow vegan and rescued lurcher owner, Joe Deegan... I was almost 6 hours under the needle and was ready to scream at the end - but it was well worth it as you can see!

I'm so happy! :)

There's my Gerry on the left, and a cute girlfriend for him on the right.

Vegan Inking!

Take a look at tattoo artist Joe Deegan's website. All his inks are vegan... and he owns a rescued lurcher!  I simply love his work, which was brought to my attention by the lovely tattooed beauty Glauce... budding journalist and vegan cupcake-baker extraordinaire :)  Beautiful stuff!!

"You Smell LUSH Today!"

Lush Cosmetics now have their own perfume range and all of them, bar one, are vegan!

I've never been a fragrance kinda girl in the past, I absolutely detest most perfumes on the market and having to walk through the perfume section of a large department store is one of my worst nightmares! I feel like I'm suffocating! Even Lush shops are rather overbearing for me, with all the smells mingling into one another it can be very overpowering and makes me sneeze and my eyes start watering... although, of course, I love their products and individually they smell divine.
























While I was in town with my friend Katie the other day, she pulled out a Lush solid perfume from her bag and I could not stop sniffing my wrists all day after I tried some on! I just had to research them when I got home, and spent ages on their website reading all the descriptions of the various fragrances and the customers' reviews. I came to the conclusion that I simply HAD to go and buy the Vanillary and Love perfumes as they sounded really "me" - and I certainly wasn't wrong!

I am now particularly obsessed with the Love fragrance. I adore its rich, warm apple and cinnamon scents and subtle hints of citrus. Vanillary is gorgeous as well, and is much stronger and sweeter than Love. My friend's boyfriend says she smells like a cake shop when he picks her up after work, and that's hours after she's applied it! It does seem to stay on the skin for a long time, much longer than Love, which only seemed to last me half a day before I had to reapply. Gerry also seems to agree that Vanillary is like a cake shop in stick-format, as he keeps trying to lick it off my wrists whenever I'm wearing it!

What I like about these fragrances, is that they are quite unique in the fact that they can smell different at various stages of the day. For example, when I first applied Love, the smell of flowers and apples was quite apparent. Later on, the warmth of the cinnamon began to come through, then the citrus became stronger, before finally just a slight flowery scent before it vanished. From reading all the reviews online it seems most of these perfumes react differently on each individual person, which I think is quite unusual and also another favourable point seeing as it makes it more unique.

Both fragrances I purchased cost €8.00 each, which is quite a bargain because the solid perfumes have many advantages over the sprays. They are not as strong, not alcohol based so do not irritate your skin, and will not cause a lot of mess like bottles do when they spill in your bag.

Go HERE to view their full range of solid perfumes, and also their limited edition perfumes which are available in the Dublin stores for a select amount of time. Some of the fragrances (Dirty and Ladyboy in particular) apparently also appeal to men, so beware...... they may be stolen by male occupants of your household! Next time I get around to trying another perfume I think I'll go for the Ginger one :)

Another new Lush product that I have tried which is totally vegan is their Toothy Tabs. These are solid tablets of toothpaste that you crush between your teeth then as it begins to foam you brush your teeth with a wet toothbrush. I tried Ultrablast, and I can definitely say that due to the slight abrasive nature it really made my teeth feel cleaner than ever before! They cost €3.45 for a packet of 40 tablets, but the cheapest comes in at €2.50 for 40. They come in an array of different flavours and one that even helps whiten your smile :) I'm really not going to go back to tubes of toothpaste after trying these. I just love them, and also the fact that there's less packaging and they are also fluoride, SLS and preservative free! WIN!

The Story of Stretch

After returning from Wales I was walking through my local park with Gerry when I came across two ladies. One asked me if Gerry was a Lurcher and said that they’d seen a stray black and white lurcher in the park a few times the week before, but nobody had managed to catch it. I kept a lookout over the next few days, but saw and heard nothing.

Fast forward another couple of days and my friend Jeni who also has two lurchers in our area text me and said her friend had told her there was a stray lurcher on the green that fit the description of the dog the ladies in the park had told me about. I went out to look but there was no dog. I think I was looking in the wrong place.

The next night my boyfriend went to the shops and text me and said the lurcher was on our road, so I grabbed Gerry and a spare lead hoping he’d attract it over. However it was so nervous it ran off immediately and wouldn’t come over for food.

Yesterday evening I was out with Gerry again and I came across the lurcher on the green. A young man walking a boxer stopped to talk to me and said the lurcher had been there for days on the green, and some kids playing there told me it slept in the trees on the edge of the green every night. I stayed put while the man went home to fetch a tin of dog food. We spent about half an hour trying to catch him. He ate some food and I managed to touch his nose but he’d just run off any time we got near. At one point he stood in the middle of the road and refused to move, blocking off the traffic, and the police arrived and asked us what we were doing!!! We gave up and the man said he’d come out the next night at 7pm and try again.

Well I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately so at 5am I thought it was a good idea to go out to the trees on the green and see if the lurcher was asleep there… And he was! I took some food, which he ate, but he kept walking off and sitting or lying down further away from me. It took a great deal of patience, but eventually I sat next to him and petted his paw. He immediately got up and walked off. For about 20 minutes that’s all I did, sat near to him and tried to pet him, then every time he just walked off. Eventually I got to stroke and scratch his neck, head and shoulders properly… but he ran off before I got to slip the lead around his neck. So I had to start all over again, following him, sitting next to him, regaining his trust…. Then BINGO! I got the lead around his neck and he gingerly followed me home.

I called him Stretch, because that’s all he’d do – get up, stretch, walk off, sit down, stand back up, stretch and run off again!

I spent all morning ringing Sighthound Welfare organisations and groups to get him a place in a rescue home. My friend Jane managed to sort one but the only problem then was it was 2 hours drive away down the country!!! I don’t drive and neither do many of my friends, so I had to text, message and ring a lot of people (even people I didn’t know!) to eventually get a lift organised with a girl I'd met briefly before, Hilary, who also owns a greyhound and goes on Sighthound Strolls with our group.

Gerry was very affected by it all and was yelping and howling at the intruder in the garden. I wouldn’t let him out to meet Stretch because he’s been on antibiotics for his skin condition and couldn’t get his Boosters done as a result, so I didn’t want him to catch any infections or diseases from the stray… Not to mention fleas and ticks. So he waited inside and cried! Needless to say, I was also very tired and stressed by the time Hilary turned up!

He was amazing in the car on the way down, very quiet and not at all vocal or fidgetty. He was sick twice and he did a wee too! You can imagine the smell…! I think the sickness was probably due to the copious amounts of treats we gave him to try and coax him into the car, so it was our fault really, haha! In the end we just lifted him in, so they were totally unnecessary! We had yummy vegan treats in the car - bombay mix and popcorn - Hilary didn't even know I was vegan, so it was pure luck she brought some snacks I could eat. She is vegetarian herself, so I guess that was handy!!

Stretch is now safely in the custody of ERIN HOUNDS. An organisation that specialises in rescuing Irish greyhounds and lurchers and rehoming them in the UK. He is at a Kennel in Carrick-on-Shannon where he will be looked after until the time is right for him to go to a new home. He was taken to a stable where he was isolated from other dogs for the night so he could undergo treatment for fleas and ticks. He will later be moved to a pen nearer the other dogs, and eventually he shall find his forever home :)

I am so looking forward to watching his progress! Apparently he has already had his first bath and has been de-flead, wormed and had the mites from his ears removed. Next will be the 8 ticks on his body... not a pleasant job to say the least! He's brightened up and now wants to play, and the redness in his eyes is fading too.

I was so sad to leave him there, he looked so folorn, but I told him it was for the best so I know he will forgive me ;) Once he's feeling heathier and comfier, I know he'll appreciate his second chance and will make someone a lovely pet!

Blog Relaunch...

Yes I am still alive! I plan to get this up and running again pretty soon... I suppose lately things have been pretty unmotivational seeing as I lack the money to spend as extravagantly as I used to when I worked full-time, so no restaurants or fancy lunches anywhere, and no travelling for a while either.

I did go to a festival in Dublin last month called Forbidden Fruit. Three bands I love (Battles, Caribou and Tera Melos) were playing, and Aphex Twin was the final act of the night. It was awesome!! My friend and fellow lurcher-lover, Cat (Naturetable), who follows me on here and who I met through writing this blog, was also there but we totally missed each other! There weren't many vegan options at the festival, shockingly, but Kanum Thai whom I absolutely love, had a stall there, so I got a lovely peanutty noodley tofu dish. NYOM! Here's a pic of Caribou I took on my super-old vintage lomo camera from the USSR at the festival - totally didn't know how it would turn out, I double exposed the band with the top of the stage and the sky (they brought the sun out while singing their track "Sun"!) so it worked out really well.

Gerry-pups is ok, he's been through the wars a little with the demodex mites. They were hard to get rid of and he had terrible reactions to the treatments he was given by the vet. His hairloss on his hind legs keeps improving and then getting worse again, so he had a biopsy and now that the mites have gone hopefully all will be well when he gets off the next course of antibiotics and Ivermec. I'm so relieved I got insurance for him, or this would have cost me a complete fortune. If he still doesn't improve later on this summer he'll have to have allergy tests. Paws and fingers crossed that it was just the demodex that triggered it though! Emotionally he's very happy, as lively and mischevious as ever... here he is chasing bunnies. Yup, that's one thing I have to put up with, although he never catches them, he just likes to play. He does enjoy running off with dead things though :-/
























He's still not vegan, but is on high quality organic food with lots of yummy things in between like veggies, rice, soya yoghurts, fruit, vegan-specific chews, etc. I still can't find a vegan kibble in Ireland or the UK that I can afford at the moment, and to be honest I've had enough on my plate to worry about with his condition and having to feed him tablets, syringing medication into his mouth every day, worrying he's going to bite out his stitches and having to cope with the nasty effects of the antibiotics on his poor little stomach!! Hope to God that he's going to improve soon....

As for me, I'm spending most of my time taking photographs. I went to Connemara recently and had a lovely time, but there aren't any vegan shops down there or restaurants, as far as I know, so it was mainly self-catering using ingredients from the supermarkets in Clifden and the lovely "Country Shop" in Letterfrack which stocked a good number of organic and health food products.

I'm off to Wales next week, so....... on the 20th July I plan to relaunch this blog with a mighty-fine post from my favourite vegan eateries in Ceredigion, a ton of lovely pictures, and details of all the meals my wonderful father concocts for me with his home grown veg :)

See you all then!! xxx

I'll leave you with some pics I took in Connemara...

Sickly Pupsickle

I'm really excited for the week to come. My father is coming to visit from Wales on Saturday and I literally can't wait to see him. I don't think I've seen him since May of last year, seeing as my visit at Christmas fell through because of the terrible snow and ice. I'm really looking forward to spending some quality time with him, eating good food, strolling in the evening sun with Gerry (the weather has been fantastic through the whole of March in Ireland, for once!), and visiting lots of galleries and some new sites he's never seen before. I'll be taking my camera with me everywhere so I'll definitely have a few pics and stories to share about vegan eats and treats!

We'll also be visiting Dublin Flea Market. Some friends and I are thinking about getting a stall there next month - I will be flogging some vintage jewellery and clothes, while they will be selling their artwork, zines and papercraft items. It will be a really fun venture and will give us a bit of extra money on the side.

In other news, I took Gerry to the vet as he has been experiencing hair loss on the back of his legs since January. I hadn't taken him any sooner as I thought it may have been natural shedding, or something known as "Bald Thigh Syndrome" that greyhounds are prone to getting, for no particular reason. Also, as he didn't seem irritated by it in the slightest I didn't really see the urgency. Anyway, yesterday I trotted him over to the vet to get it checked, as it's been getting a bit worse lately and I wanted to make sure it wasn't something serious. Gerry is always straining at the lead to go to the vet's because he can see all the doggies in the waiting room and wants to go in and say hello and have a good sniff around the food and toys they have for sale at reception. However, getting him into the surgery is a totally different matter! He refuses point blank to walk in, and I have to carry [all 21kgs of] his big, gangly body into the surgery and up onto the table. What a scaredy-pup! Once he was in there he was grand though, he waited patiently while I talked to the vet and didn't whine or make a fuss when he was given an antibiotic injection. He is now on antibiotics for 2 weeks, as he seems to have a bit of a skin infection. They are hoping it's some sort of mite and that the antibiotics and application of a repellent spot-on called Advocate will get rid of it once and for all, and that it's not a skin condition that will need constant management or an allergy that we can't do anything about. I have to take him back in a fortnight to see how he's doing. If it hasn't cleared up they'll be taking him in for a skin test, but hopefully it won't come to that and we can just continue with the monthly application of the Advocate and see if he needs any more antibiotics or not. Poor little chap! Apart from this he's in amazing health though, enjoying the Springtime sunshine in the park, running around with his friends and lapping up the attention he attracts from everyone!

I am still trying to source vegan kibble for him. It's a nightmare. I've literally checked everywhere, and as nowhere in Ireland stocks any (apart from one place which is way too dear) it's either too expensive to get it shipped over from the UK, Europe or America, or they won't deliver here at all! I've emailed a few places to check that their ridiculously high shipping fees are correct, but I've yet to hear back from them. All I can do at the moment is feed him as high quality raw organic kibble as I can, and make sure all his other treats are vegan. He goes crazy over a kong filled with frozen mashed banana and apple chunks, and he adores his vegetable based chews and biscuits, as well as rice, broccoli and carrots, so he's definitely a healthy pup who doesn't get fed any junk :-)

***UPDATE***
I just got a lovely email from a staff member at Veggie Pets about ordering 30kgs of  V-Dog. She is going to find out exactly how much it is for me to send it to Ireland, and they can hopefully do it quite cheaply if I'm going to be a regular customer. I really do hope it's an option as £22 for a 15kg bag is very very good, and I would have no problem paying an extra £20 on top of that for shipping. Even if it costs me a total of the equivalent amount of euros that it would to get the Yarrah food from Zooplus, I still wouldn't mind as it would be 10kgs extra food than what Zooplus could give me. FINGERS CROSSED!

Here's a photo of the gorgeous Bianca over at Vegan Crunk, and her vegan dog Datsun who is a most handsome ambassador for V-dog. Hope you don't mind me stealing this pic from your blog, Bianca!