Athalour

And it is awesome. There are t-shirts and things. And leggings with Mr Dragon Fruit of the Spotty Belleh printed on them.
What more could anyone want?
Clicky!
www.redbubble.com/people/athal…

New stuff will be added as it is produced. Hope y'all like.

1. Finally identify horrible rashy thing that has plagued you since forever: keratosis pilaris.

2. Read up on home remedies. Scrubs are mentioned. Realise this is a fun excuse to make body scrub at home!

3. Find recipe. Almond oil, essential oils, salt, sugar, and...

4. Tea leaves? Tea leaves! Of course. Tea scent and magic-healing properties of rooibos. And texture. Awesome.

5. Mix scrub in kitchen. Feel very alchemical. Entertain foolish dreams of being head-hunted by Lush.

6. Breathe in the lovely aroma of home-made scrub as you carry it triumphantly to the shower.

7. Scrub! Scrub-a-dub-dub. Mmm, lovely texture. Er, apart from the odd ouchie of salt in a previously undiscovered scratch. Or several. Ooeer.

8. Wonder why tea leaves are not coming off.

9. Scrub some more. Realise tea leaves are now glued to your arms with mixture of oil and sugar and such, and will not budge.

10. Scrub with renewed ferocity, with spongeything and so on, to get damn tea leaves off damn skin goddamn.

11. Finally get off most of the tea leaves. Climb out of shower. Revel in smooth skin for all of three minutes before realising there is a fine film of salt left on you.

12. Itch.

When my mother moved to Cape Town, I inherited her pets. One of these pets is the family dog, a cairn terrier named Feather. (If you've never seen a cairn terrier, think Toto in The Wizard of Oz. If you've never seen The Wizard of Oz, think toilet carpet meets rastafarian; a creature with the heart of a rottweiler and the voice of a pekingese.)

Feather is very old. Fourteen or so this year. And has always been a strong personality; I doubt there is a creature on Earth more bloody-minded than a cairn terrier. She's clearly bright, but will only follow orders when she feels like it. Her hobbies include crapping, playing "invisible burglar", and sleeping in the sunshine. Some years ago, she lost one of her eyes to glaucoma. Her remaining eye is also falling to it, and doesn't work as it should. This means she tends to walk into things and then yap at them, like they've deliberately ambushed her. Chairs are especially pernicious, but even walls have started ganging up on her in her dotage.

Dealing with an old dog is challenging. I've employed new groomers, ones that make house calls, to save her the trauma of a trip to the doggie parlour. An extra meal gets offered daily, to try and put some meat on those old bones. (This has led to a truly gargantuan...output...as a result. In a dog that was already an olympic-grade crapper, three square meals a day means a great deal of cleaning up for the hapless caretaker.)

The challenges continue. Feather is walking stiffly these days; a touch of arthritis in the hips, I fancy. She's not as active or perky as she once was, although she still greets me (and her dinner) with a wagging tail. I tell myself she is mostly happy. She doesn't seem to be in pain. She loves her food and her sunshine.

But, as I said, it's a challenge. This week her remaining eye started oozing green yuk. I've been flushing it out, a process Feather tolerates only because I've learned how to restrain a dog between my knees. (Not a talent to put on your CV.) And my heart is sinking, because with every blip and twinge, I wonder if she's on her way out, if I'm going to have to make a terrible decision on her behalf.

Watching an old pet fade is a frightening experience, and making decisions like this is unspeakably hard. When I spoke to a colleague about my concerns, her response was "just take her to the SPCA". Tempting as it may be to foist the problem onto someone else, it's not something I can do. I promised to take this creature on, for good or ill. And that means I travel with her to the end, into the very fires of Mordor.

Here is my old dog mantra: when I see that she is hurting, when she no longer loves her sun and her peanut butter sandwiches, I will make the choice.

Of course, knowing Feather, she might just say the hell with it and outlive us all.