For The Love Of Dogs

I have always loved dogs.  The unconditional love.  The happy face that greets you when you come in the door.  They way they somehow seem to know when you are ill or sad and come to cuddle you.  

Over the past 25 years we have had many dogs.  See you if can see the (very obvious) theme of the names! Benjie, Sophie, Cindy, Ellie, Rosie and Simba.  All with the "ie" on the end apart from our latest baby boy, Simba.

The saddest part about having a dog is that they have you their entire life, but you don't have them for yours.  We have had to say goodbye to 5 dogs and it is heartbreaking every single time.  But we will always remember their love, their characteristics, their personalities.

Our dining room is host to the pictures of all the dogs we have had over the years.

I realised the other day that Simba was turning 2 in June and we still not have a picture of him up in the house.  That had to be remedied ASAP so I started looking at photo canvas prints online that we could put on the wall.

I think the hardest part was choosing a photograph of him, I have hundreds on my phone as he is such a little poser!  See what you think of the photograph I chose..

Isn't he just utterly beautiful?  As you can see, we have departed from having Yorkshire Terriers to this time, a Shih Tzu this time.  When we went looking at dogs this time around after losing our wonderful Rosie and Ellie last year, I saw their faces in all the puppies we looked at.  We found Simba on Gumtree of all places, with current owners who couldn't care for him anymore so at 4 months, he became our baby instead.

Do you have photographs of your fur babies (or actual babies, whatever takes your preference that you want on your wall?  Because I am happy to tell you that I have a promotion code for www.my-picture.co.uk on their already discounted canvas print formats (87% saving in all!).  

All you have to do is go on the site, upload your photograph, select the desired print canvas format and enter the code THECURVEDOPINION in the coupon code section when checking out.  Simple!  The code is valid until the 15th May 2018.

Let me know in the comments if you buy a print and what photograph you have chosen!

*This item was gifted to me but all opinions (and fur babies) are my own

An Opera Affair

Life has certainly changed since this little boy came into my life.  Used to Yorkshire Terriers that loved nothing more than to sleep, Simba loves to play, cuddle with his mummy and have frequent walks.  We take him three times a day and he still has the energy to play with his teddy for a couple of hours in the evening.

I love taking him for a walk.  He trots away in front of me on the long lead, looking back every few feet to make sure that his mummy is still there.

On our usual walk we always pass a house that has a garage attached, with a man tinkering with his motorbike.  I am convinced he lives in the garage as I never see him out of it.

I always walk a little slower past that house because as he works on his motorbike, he is playing classical music full blast.  The kind that I love.  There is something about classical music that just speaks to me and stops me in my tracks.

One of my favourite pieces is Chopin, Nocturne No 2 which is a well known song, but I also like look out for more modern composers.  I discovered a man called Ilya Beshevli who you can find on Soundcloud.  What he can do with a piano just speaks to my soul.  His music, particularly "Snow Waltz" I could listen to for hours.  It brings me peace.

Music like that slows the world down for me and brings me calm.

The thing about classical music however is that I do not like to listen to it with earphones.  Music like that needs to fill the room and flow around it.   The thing is, all of my music is stored on my laptop.  I do not own any CDs anymore, nor have a stereo that can flood the room with music.  But yet, that is still too modern for me for this music.

What I want, and think that I am going to invest in some time in the next few months is a classic looking turntable.  I want to buy some classical music on vinyl and just sit, with a glass of wine and my eyes closed and listen.

Peace in your life and peace in your mind can be hard to find sometimes.  Classical music is my safe space and I am going to make this vision of mine come true.

What kind of music do you like to listen to?