A POST FOR LADY M

A few days ago, Lady Macleod kindly passed on to me the "thoughtful blogger"award. I am delighted to receive it and I urge you, if you don't already know Lady M's fascinating blog about her life in Morocco, to take a look. She writes effervescently, beautifully, touchingly and very evocatively about all aspects of her sojourn there, and she hints at a past in which she has endured her troubles, too. I hope she won't mind my saying that this makes her writing all the more attractive to me. Today she has received the "Courageous blogger" award and that is well-deserved, too. Do take a look at her post on courage. It moved me to tears.

Lady M commented on the picture of Simone I posted yesterday and it occurred to me that newer readers have not been properly introduced! So here is my favourite photo of my precious, taken in Britain, and it is the photo that appears in her EU doggy passport, of which we are both justly proud. She will be 9 years old in December [such a big girl!] and yes, I am aware that time is passing ... Every moment with her is one to treasure. She is such a brave little girl: she has had a big change in her life, moving here [for her mummy would not have left Britain without her!] and she has largely taken it all in her paw- stride. She has won many Sicilian hearts in the 2 years we have been here and continues to do so [and a lot of these hearts belong to people who are not used to dogs as pets]. She shares my life; she runs my life ; she is my life.

Now I must pass the "Thoughtful blogger" award on to 5 others:

1. Ruthie, who writes thought-provoking, always fair-minded posts on a number of political issues but who also takes time to tell us of her feelings as a single Mom and all about the delightful "Little C".

2. Eurodog: My friend in Belgium is a dog-trainer whose love for animals shines through in every thoughtful post. Eurodog has stories about the way in which dogs are treated all over the world and I have learnt so much from her blog.

3. Steve: you never know what this kindly American is going to post about, and that is part of the charm of his blog. Book reviews, jokes, pretty photos - they are all here and Steve is such a gent! Do take a look at his photo blog too: recently he posted about a visit to Flossenburg Concentration Camp and it is something we should all look at.

4. Shirl: My friend in South Glos has a very interesting format for her blog and she keeps to it, reminding us how much happiness, heartache and hope there can be in every single day [for I cannot put it better than Shirl does in her blog title]. Hope always wins out, at Shirl's.

5. Marymary: A fairly new Irish friend, Marymary is always thoughtful, sometimes whimsical, sometimes challenging and she often cheers me up. She always replies to her commenters and is frank about her feelings.

[Trouble with spacing again in this post.]