Is darkness/black always bad and light/white always good?

Indrani’s Inkblot

[1]

But my dear man, reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.’ Alan Watts, British philosopher.

With Christmas around the corner and houses and public buildings beginning to twinkle with Christmas lights, it’s timely to think about the symbology of light versus darkness and white versus black.

Most religions around the world including Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam use light as part of their celebrations. They also use it in their symbology. Light is associated with good, knowledge, justice and wisdom. Conversely, darkness is associated with evil, ignorance, injustice and deception.

This simple opposition is also reflected in the white/black opposition, which is often applied to people of different hues to judge beauty, higher social status and moral superiority. Curiously, this is used not just by the pale-skinned but by dark-skinned communities as well.

These beliefs might have originated with the pale-skinned Aryans conquering the lands of dark-skinned peoples (and or?) with people of upper socio-economic strata having lighter complexions as they did not labour in the sun like those from lower socio-economic groups.

It may surprise some readers to know that black did not always have negative connotations. Ancient Egyptians regarded black as a good colour, providing protection against death and evil. The ancient Germanic tribes regarded ravens and crows as sacred and worshipped Nótt, goddess of the night. Even today, many Hindus worship the dark goddess Kali who is the destroyer of evil.

We don’t quite know who started the association of black with evil and sad events that is common in many countries. However, this practice is by no means universal.

Yes, black is the colour of funerals and widowhood for many people, for example, those from Christian and Muslim backgrounds.

But it is also the colour of the traditional garments worn by many Christian priests and nuns and some orthodox Jews in everyday life and festivals. Classical Western musicians, lawyers and judges, and people attending a formal event also wear black. It is the little black cocktail dress that is considered the epitome of sophisticated evening wear!

Conversely, people from some Hindu and Sikh groups wear white for funerals, and widows may be dressed in white garments.

The association of night time with evil is not surprising as humans are not a nocturnal species and less able to see where danger lurks in the dark. However, the invention of various means of lighting houses, streets and public spaces make this less relevant.

Taoism teaches that opposites are necessary for harmony to exits.

If we did not have night, it would be difficult to sleep, to see the moon, comets and stars. How would we appreciate the bright lights of the buildings lit up to celebrate festivals and events? Light pollution is now recognised as detrimental to the health of urban wildlife.

So, it might be time to rethink our symbology?

I end with these beautiful lines by Walt Whitman and a lovely photograph from Nick Uwour:

“Day full-blown and splendid-day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter, The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness.”[2]

Image of  the night sky: Unsplash: Nick Owuor (astro.nic.visuals)@astro_nic 25

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[1] Image of inkblot: Unsplash, Nicolas Thomas@nicholasthomas

[2] Walt Whitman, https://quotefancy.com/quote/930817/Walt-Whitman-Day-full-blown-and-splendid-day-of-the-immense-sun-action-ambition-laughter

First published in SCOPE Magazine of the Fellowship of Australian Writers Queensland December 2021 

What’s in a Name?

 

Indrani’s Inkblot

But my dear man, reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.’ Alan Watts, British philosopher.

The bard got many things right. But I’m not sure about his pronouncements on names. True a rose would smell just as sweet even if we called it a turnip. But many names have real power, the power to uplift, strengthen identity or delight us or equally to downgrade us and drag us down.

I have long been fascinated in how names are invented and how and why they change.

Recorded history shows us humans have been constantly changing names of places, people, plants and even food, plants and animals and diseases.

Common reasons for a country’s name being changed is conquest or acquiring independence. Australia is a good example of the continuing process of name changes. Once it was many nations with distinctive names. Europeans ignored this diversity and gave it the singular title of ‘Terra Australis Incognita’ or ‘Unknown South Land’. Once the Dutch discovered the route to it, they renamed it New Holland. It was the Englishman Matthew Flinders who suggested the name Australia which derives from the Latin australis or southern.

Today, individual places within Australia reflect its unparalleled ancient Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures as well and the impact of British takeover not just in Australia but in other parts of the Empire. The process hasn’t stopped, often for the better. I confess I find Uluru a far more alluring name than Eyre’s Rock.

Being a predominantly Anglophone country, Australia has also witnessed widespread Anglicisation of the names of people from Indigenous and ethnic minority backgrounds to promote assimilation or integration (make people ‘fit in’) or simply to appease those uncomfortable with unfamiliar names, especially if they are more than two syllables long.

This is not so strong today though it hasn’t disappeared, particularly among the older generation. It’s nice to see a reversal of trends with some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people reverting to their Indigenous heritage, e.g. Kath Walker becoming Oodgeroo Noonuccal or using both Lois O’Donoghue becoming Lowitja Lois O’Donoghue Smart to reflect both her heritages. Many migrants from different backgrounds are doing the same.

I myself have mixed reactions to changing my own name. I don’t wish to revert to the original of my family name ‘Ganguly’ (‘Gangopadhyaya) as it is difficult even for many Indians of other backgrounds to pronounce! However, I resist having my first name Indrani reduced to ‘Indie/Indy’, and tend to deflect efforts to do so with saying I don’t want the same name as the car race! It usually works, especially if I write it down so people can see it’s spelt exactly as it’s pronounced.

When it comes to food, Westerners are often bemused by my asserting there is no equivalent of ‘curry’ in any Indian language. It is a term the British derived from the Tamil word “Kari” meaning a sauce or soup to be eaten with rice and applied to any spicy dish. Indian restaurants often use a mix of the original as well as an explanation with the term curry which I think is quite OK.

I also welcome the trend to replace unappetizing names with more pleasant ones (e.g., mudbug has become crayfish and slimehead has become Orange Roughy) or where the original meaning has been lost and terms have acquired a negative meaning. Canola oil was once known as rapeseed oil, the term ‘rape’ being derived from the Latin rapa or turnip. However, given not many know the origin or the term and the association of the word ‘rape’ with violence and assault, the Canadian Oil Association came up with ‘Canola’ (guess why) which Australia has also adopted.

Equally welcome is the move to replace terms describing people in terms of deficits to more inclusive language. For example, it is now good practice to avoid using handicapped and disabled, stress the need to focus on the person not the condition and use more inclusive language such as car parks and toilets being described as accessible and ambulant.

The World Health Organisation also urges us to ensure that names of diseases do not discriminate or stigmatize particular groups. The most recent example is of course renaming the variants of the Coronavirus from the country where they were first detected to the letters of the Greek alphabet.

I refer all those who say this is all ‘political correctness gone mad’ to the Biblical ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ and the stirring words by Ruby Redfort:

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can also hurt me.

Stones and sticks break only skin, while words are ghosts that haunt me.

Source: Unsplash Daniel Ali

 

Source: Unsplash Brett Jordan

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[1] Image of inkblot: Unsplash, Nicolas Thomas@nicholasthomas

First published in SCOPE Magazine of the Fellowship of Australian Writers Queensland October/November 2021 

The Closed Door

The door is closed always

It opens only twice a day

Every day

For my grandmother alone

We tiptoe around it

The tiles cool on our bare feet

Scarcely daring to breathe

No sound escapes the room

What does my grandmother do?

Our father hides behind his newspaper

Our mother smiles indulgently

‘She likes to pray, go and play.’

My grandmother emerges

Smiling beatifically

Offering sweet, sweet sugar candy

First proffered to the gods.

Do they have a sweet tooth

Just like humans?

Days melt into months

Months meld into years

We grow older

The door grows older

The paint peels, the wood warps

We cannot fix it

The room’s still out of bounds.

Why does my grandmother fear

To let us look in?

Then comes the day

When she goes in

And never comes out again

We find her supine before her deities

Nestled amidst the offerings of flower

And the oh so sweet sugar candy

There is an old notebook

Little and brown like my grandmother

Its title page says: ‘My place, my space’.

Now instead of sweet, sweet sugar candy

We have her offerings of songs.

Source: Unsplash: Martin Adams @martinadams

Indrani’s Inkblot

Image of inkblot: Unsplash, Nicolas Thomas@nicholasthomas

‘But my dear man, reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.’ Alan Watts, British philosopher.

The Rorschach inkblot is no longer used as a test for some mental health conditions and younger generations who have never used a fountain pen may wonder what an inkblot is, but I think it is still a powerful metaphor for how each of us views reality through our own cultural and personal lenses.

Some may argue that this understanding is irrelevant for those who write fiction (‘it’s just a story’), others that for conscientious writers, fiction, fact and ethics are inextricably linked.

The word fiction derives from the Latin word ‘fictio’ meaning the act of shaping’ and defined as a piece of work which derives completely from the imagination of the writer. It is often perceived as being totally opposed to factual writing, : ‘Fiction is made out of nothing and on the other hand non-fiction comes out of something’.[2]

A second debate centres around the relationship between fiction and ethics/morality. Those who accept this dichotomy of fact and fiction argue that the issue of ethics and morality is also irrelevant for fiction as it represents a totally imaginary world with no bearing on reality.

This was not the view in the 19th century when fiction was regarded by the moral police as promoting unrealistic expectations of life or even immoral thoughts and behaviours.

‘[Novel reading] cascades people into useless outcomes, obsesses them with unnecessary passions, while providing a distorted view of life.’[3]

Oscar Wilde on the other hand wrote in the preface to The Picture of Dorian Grey ‘There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book… ‘Books are well written or badly written. That is all.’ His sentiments are supported by Milan Kundera, ‘A novel that does not discover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel’s only morality’[4].

Contemporary writers like Ron Hansen believe the first principle of the fiction writers should be ‘to do no harm’.[5] Similarly Musavi writes ‘fiction must be fair, honest and accurate’  and that ‘even if a writer is writing only to provide comfort and relief to [the] readers, … [the] work still should be factually accurate. Facts are the scaffolding on which the lies of fiction rest’. [6]

There is some research demonstrating that people may regard fiction as accurate representations of reality. In some cases, it may create or exacerbate negative perceptions of a particular group, culture or society. In others reading fiction contributes to a person’s moral psychological development and their ability to have empathy or understanding.   ‘

The issue of ethical writing has been keenly debated in many fields such as fictional narratives about specific communities or societies, debates on cultural appropriation, historical fiction, fiction drawing on one’s family and friends and children’s fiction. I don’t have the space to expand on these but will come back to them in future iterations of Inkblot.

Here’s what I’ve learnt are some essential principles of ethical writing.

1. The first rule is to do your homework. Find a way to get information about the community that you’re trying to portray from a source that isn’t biased. This can be everything from reading books by writers from the culture you’re trying to portray to actually talking to people from a particular community or society.

• Always acknowledge the sources of your ideas! As someone once said, we all know Shakespeare ‘borrowed’ many ideas but we are not Shakespeare!

• Try to be aware of bias. All writers are influenced by their own cultural and personal lens.

• Recognize you don’t always know what you don’t know. Doing the necessary research will often make us aware we have a lot to learn.

• Get feedback from as many people from different backgrounds as you can. This will help to apply the first four principles.

• Accept that negative feedback if done in a constructive way, is a good way to improve your writing.

• Lastly always think of how you would like others to write about you, your family, community or culture! To quote the soul-stirring song by Elvis Presley:

Walk a mile in my shoes huh

Walk a mile in my shoes

Yeah, before you abuse, criticize and accuse

Walk a mile in my shoes.[7]

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[1] Image of inkblot: Unsplash, Nicolas Thomas@nicholasthomas  

[2] http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/difference-between-fiction-and-non-fiction/

[3] Quoted in https://slgtalkingbooks.com/2017/09/18/the-dangers-of-fiction/

[4] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/milan_kundera_152276

[5] https://ethicsofwriting.com/2018/10/are-there-ethical-norms-in-fiction-writing/

[6] Farhan Musavi, Should Fiction Be Factually Accurate, https://www.huffingtonpost.in/farhan-musavi/should-fiction-be-factual_b_7930070.html?ncid=other_email_o63gt2jcad4&utm_campaign=share_email

[7] Lyrics by Joe South, sung by Elvis Presley.

This article was first published in SCOPE, Fellowship of Australian Writers Queensland, April/May 2021

All creatures great and small during COVID19

Dogs have loved it. Cats have hated it. Fish may not have noticed. But many humans have relied on their pets to get them through the last months.[1]

Around the world people reported the healing effects of having pet or wild animals around them. I can certainly vouch for this. My two rescue beagles, Bonnie and Clyde who joined our family just before the virus struck, provided incentives for exercise, opportunities to meet neighbours I had never met before and much affection and amusement.

However, I was also interested in how COVID 19 affected animals – wild, stray, captive and domestic – and how humans reacted.

The Guardian reported that animals around the world came into the lockdown in search of food or simply to play.[2] Many wild animals benefited from the reduction of pollution of their habitats and the quiet of urban centres and waterways as human modes of transport came to a halt.[3]

Zoo animals were variously affected. Some loved the quiet, others were visibly lonely and zookeepers had to devise many ways to keep them happy and stimulated. [4]

Not all human reactions were positive. In India, I read of people being harassed for feeding stray animals and pet shops and breeding facilities being shut down with animals left inside. The Welfare Board sent an urgent advisory directing officials to check these properties. And some people simply used the pandemic to abandon pet dogs.

At the same time, it was really heartening to read of the many ways citizens took the initiative to feed or otherwise help animals in need. In India, the Animal Welfare Board of India issued a letter two days before the restrictions went into effect, declaring feeding ‘companion and stray animals is an essential service’.[5]  Many cities issued ‘feeder passes’ that permitted to leave their houses to care for street animals and birds including dogs, cows, monkeys and various feathered beings, mostly through their own resources.

In one place, a stray dog was reported not eating anything because every person that saw it gave it food to eat!

In the United States, the anti-cruelty group Animal Wellness Action reported a surge in adoptions but also noted many people abandoning animals at shelters when they couldn’t care for them.

Animal rights groups in Europe warned the pigeons were at risk because the humans who normally fed them or dropped morsels of food on the streets were stuck at home. The group, while acknowledging that pigeons are a problem for many cities, says they should not be allowed to die a painful death. In Krakow, Poland, one animal welfare organisation is coming out specially to feed the flocks abandoned for the time being.

Australia doesn’t have many stray animals but it does have plenty in shelters. I was happy to read how many animals were adopted during the lockdown and hope that fears they will be abandoned due to the recession or once restrictions eased up and people can return to their workplaces won’t eventuate.

There were some unanticipated outcomes. Dog owners had to be warned not to over exercise and overfeed dogs while they were at home. And some cats were reported to be extremely unimpressed with the intrusion of humans into what they regard as their territory. One owner reported: ‘My own cat now sleeps in another room when I work from home, though he also demands dinner earlier than he would normally be fed.[6]

The effect of corona on animals affected by the devastating bushfires of early 2019 are still being investigated. Scientists have been forced to cease or scale back fieldwork, prompting concerns it could affect wildlife recovery.

Queensland’s Bindi Irwin voiced the feelings of many about people’s relationship to wildlife:

“I feel like I’m nothing without wildlife. They are the stars. I feel awkward without them.”[7]

Regardless of the country and kind of fauna affected, animal welfare activists around the world voice their hope the experiences during the outbreak have increased awareness that animal welfare and human wellbeing are inextricably linked. And many are hoping this will lead to the end of the global wildlife trade following the exposure of the links between the sale of wild animals for human consumption and corona.[8]

As Henry Beston says:

‘We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals… In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.[9]

Peace and quiet without those pesky humans around. They just need to come home at my dinnertime. Source: Unsplash: Chris Barbalis@cbarbalis

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[1] https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/knowledgecentre/society/sociology/animals_and_covid19/

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2020/apr/22/animals-roaming-streets-coronavirus-lockdown-photos   

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52459487

[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-19/coronavirus-zoo-animals-some-miss-visitors-some-lonely/12261984

[5] https://twitter.com/Manekagandhibjp/status/1242048004841852929

[6] https://www.sbs.com.au/news/how-coronavirus-is-impacting-our-pets-and-how-they-ll-cope-when-we-return-to-the-office

[7] https://www.quotetab.com/quote/by-bindi-irwin/i-feel-like-im-nothing-without-wildlife-they-are-the-stars-i-feel-awkward-with

[8] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52125309

[9] http://www.henrybeston.com/quotes.html

Cross-Cultural Capers: Divinities and the Corona Demon

‘The epidemic is a demon and we cannot let this demon hide’

Chinese president Xi Jinping, January 28, 2020.

I am not religious but have always been fascinated by the myths and legend that proponents of every religion have created to depict the fight between good and evil. I read with equal avidity the stories of the Hindu, Christian, Egyptian Norse, Roman and Greek deities and their battles with demons or evil in general.

The stories which were most alive to me were the Hindu ones as these goddesses and gods are still widely worshipped in different settings not only in India but in every country where there is a sizeable Hindu population. My favourite festivals even now are Durga Puja (worship of the goddess Durga who descends to earth to defeat the demons the male gods couldn’t vanquish) and Diwali (the festival of lights which also commemorates the defeat of the demon king Ravana and his followers). There are many enactments of these battles by human actors which both entertain and inform.

Since the advent of the world-wide coronavirus pandemic I have been perusing the reactions of some of the major religions to this twenty-first century ‘demon’. In a recent article in The New York Times, Vivian Yee writes, “Religion is the solace of first resort for billions of people grappling with a pandemic for which scientists, presidents and the secular world seem, so far, to have few answers. With both sanitizer and leadership in short supply, dread over the coronavirus has driven the globe’s faithful even closer to religion and ritual.”[1]

While Xi Jinping is an atheist who simply has used a religious image, adherents of every major religion appear to be divided into two camps. There is one group which believes corona is an evil spirit that has come to earth in response to the perceived sins of some groups or humanity in general. The closure of places of worship and the cancellation of pilgrimages, ceremonies and festivals are seen as signs of evil forces taking over the world. Some groups have been made scapegoats for the pandemic and subjected to verbal or even physical abuse.

Thankfully, there are many others who have said the fear the corona virus generates must not be used as an excuse to marginalize and mistreat. As one Christian commentator says, ‘It is not a “foreign virus” but endemic to our common nature as humans and thus a means of drawing us together for the good of all.’[2] Similarly, the Dalai Lama and other senior monks and Buddhist organizations in Asia and worldwide have emphasized that this pandemic calls for meditation, compassion, generosity and gratitude.

Technology has provided a vital way for the faithful to stay connected with their religious leaders. Many churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples have offered worship through livestream amidst the pandemic. One study has shown that devotees of a particular religious organisation reported that the social and collective dimension of the ritual has in fact been enhanced through these webcasts. As Rebecca Irons notes ‘The digital has become sacred!’[3]

Hindus have come up with their own unique take on this phenomenon for the festival of Dussehra. October-November which celebrates the goddess Durga defeating a demon that the gods couldn’t vanquish. The images of the goddess show her wearing a mask with sanitiser and other ‘weapons’ while the face of the demon is often made to resemble the corona virus!

Durga showing the way with mask and sanitizer
Photo: Indrani Ganguly 2020

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[1] Rebecca Irons, ‘Hinduism and Coronavirus: How the Digital Becomes Sacred’, https://medanthucl.com/2020/04/13/hinduism-coronavirus-how-the-digital-becomes-sacred/

[2] Daniel Harrell, ‘Is the Coronavirus Evil? Or is this part of life in the world God made?’

| https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/march-web-only/coronavirus-evil-covid-19-disease-theology.html

[3] Rebecca Irons, op cit.

‘Twas the Christmas before COVID

Christmas 2019 has become an extra special memory as we spent it in the beautiful Indian city of Bengaluru, often called the air-conditioned city because of its superb temperate climate. While some of this has been eroded due to urban growth and deforestation, we found the weather in December dry and cool with day temperatures in the low 20s and night temperatures around 16 degrees, quite a change from hot and humid Brisbane. However it was the events we attended that made it especially memorable. The first was the wedding of our close friend Rajan’s son. Rajan had organised for his guests to stay at the historic Bowring Institute established in 1868 with lovely well-kept grounds, comfortable rooms and delicious meals. The wedding held in the equally historic St Patrick’s Church was just before Christmas on the 23rd of December, the only time the groom could get leave from his job in the USA.

Jozef and Indrani relaxing in the grounds of the Bowring  Institute before the wedding

Inside St Patrick’s

         

Christmas Eve was spent wandering around the streets of Bengaluru looking at the lights and displays and sharing the fun filled atmosphere with people of all backgrounds.  

Christmas Street and Nativity Scene

Then came Christmas Day which we spent with a cousin who I hadn’t seen for 15 years and his wife and son who I’d never met. My cousin took us to a famous restaurant, SodaBottleOpenerwala, which featured the cuisine of Parsis, a group that came to India to escape persecution in what is now known as the Middle East. The Parsis are renowned for their business acumen and concern for social justice but the cuisine is less well known so this was an unexpected treat. Their names also reflect their occupation, similar to English names like Smith and Carpenter. Apart from the food, there were quirky cocktails which added a special touch.

The fabulous cocktails

The last thing we did before leaving Bengaluru was have coffee and plum cake at a famous bar and bakery called Koshy’s. The cakes made great Christmas gifts for friends at our next stop, New Delhi. I leave you with an image of elegance and taste which are the everlasting memories of our trip to Bengaluru.

Cross-cultural research: Nothing about us without us

Talk given at the conference. The slides below are those not in the recording.

Our Pawfect Christmas Party

The Christmas season for 2020 started on a very different note for us with Beagle Rescues’ Annual Christmas party for beagles on 8 November at Alexander Clark Park in Loganholme. It was held early this year due to some unavoidable factors including the forecast of a bad cyclone season.

I was keen for our two lovely beagles Bonnie and Clyde who we adopted in February this year to attend. They are generally good with people but not with other dogs due to Clyde being bitten by some dogs when he lived with a previous family. Going for a walk with them was quite stressful when we first got them as they would bark and lunge at every dog walking past. They have now calmed down and remain quiet as long as the other dog maintains a suitable social distance.

It was time for them to engage in some controlled canine social activities I thought. But I had to find a way to ensure they didn’t frighten any other dogs and their families.

Muzzles were the answer. It took three goes to find ones which Bonnie couldn’t pull off in a few seconds. We practised making them walk around the neighbourhood as advised by PAWZ, our friendly local doggy grooming service and seller of colourful attire, treats and a few other doggy items including the muzzles. Both dogs tried some emotional blackmail to get us to take them off by looking super sad and refusing to do their usual ‘business’ but we have learnt to harden our hearts when necessary and refused to give in!

On the day of the party it was great fun dressing up Bonnie and Clyde in a mix of Indian and Western Christmas gear. Bonnie’s outfoot was the more glamorous as she has the more flamboyant personality, but Clyde looked pretty cool too. Both were surprisingly calm about it, though not quite sure what was happening. A dash of doggy deodorant and a brush down and we were good to go.

It was good for us the weather was overcast and cool. We arrived at the park armed with plates to share with both humans and other dogs hoping there wouldn’t be any rain.

I have never seen so many beagles in one place before. Big beagles, small beagles, old beagles, young beagles, males and females…they were all there, yapping excitedly, greeting old friends, making new ones, competing for a turn on the play ramp with their human families. The cool weather meant energy levels were high. The dog biscuits disappeared very quickly.

We let Bonnie and Clyde run around without leash or muzzle as advised by the organising committee. To our surprise, Clyde leapt into the activities with great gusto, even making a new friend while Bonnie growled at every dog that came near. We had to muzzle her and take her to a little side park where she could run around by herself and calm down.

The other families were quite relaxed about Bonnie’s behaviour as there was no danger of any dog or person getting hurt. We had a lovely morning tea ourselves and made friends with both two and four legged participants.

At the end of the party all the beagles got party bags and a Christmas stocking filled with toys. And our grumpy Miss Bonnie was judged to be amongst the best dressed beagles! We’re not sure if she appreciated this honour but an extra treat was gobbled down with gusto. Clyde got one too as a consolation prize.

The ride home was uneventful with two exhausted beagles snoozing snuggled up to each other. My husband and I agreed it was the perfect start to the Christmas festivities and we’re definitely going back next year if we’re around!

Bonnie and Clyde all ready to party

Our muzzled pooches

Clyde finds a new friend

Rest time after the party

Creativity Building Resilience