Channeling My Inner Narcissism – Anniversary Competition

Posted on March 12, 2014 by suzie81speaks

Unfortunately, I have to have a break from the blogging world over the next few days. I am finalising the house move, marking ridiculous amounts of coursework, still attempting to recover from the infection I had a few weeks ago and trying not to get cross at Wobbly, my 19 year old cat, as she has recently developed the rather annoying habit of waking me up at 4am.

However, I had an idea (although technically, I’ve completely stolen this idea – I will add the links to these later as my iPad won’t allow me to copy text at the minute for some reason).

In a few weeks time Suzie81 Speaks will be having it’s first year anniversary and to celebrate I am going to channel my inner narcissism, in the form of a competition that you can take part in.

For the next THREE days, I am giving you the opportunity to ask me one question in the comment section below. The question has to be appropriate (I am not answering any questions about my sex life – some of my family and friends read this), and any questions that are deemed to be racist, sexist or judgemental will be ignored and deleted.

On the anniversary of my blog I will answer every single question, along with a link to your blog.

The author of the best question that is submitted over the next three days will win TWO WEEKS of free advertising on Suzie81 Speaks, starting from the first week in May. I will create you a button, display it on my page and promote it on all my social networking sites. In order to enter you also have to be a follower of this blog.

So, lovely readers, get asking your question! Reblog, share, tweet, pin… Tell all your friends! Note: I am not going to reply to the questions now, so I’d like to thank you in advance for joining in!

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @Suzie81blog

Fabulous Friday Five for February

Posted on February 28, 2014 by suzie81speaks

As February draws to a close, I took a little time to reflect on the last few weeks. It’s been tough – I’ve been in hospital, the cat is ill and required an enormous amount of vet treatment that I couldn’t afford and we found out that we are going to have to move again after only six months of living in our new house. However, February has also been a positive month, particularly in my little blogging endeavours, so I thought I would take the opportunity to share the five things that have been fabulous.

1. Suzie81 received it’s 100,000th view a week ago. This in itself was a monumental achievement and it exceeded any expectations that I had when i started this blog 10 months ago. I decided to bite the bullet and share a few of my posts with my friends on Facebook, most of whom had no idea that I actually had a blog to begin with. They shared one of my posts – ‘Why Being a Stay at Home Parent is the Toughest Job in the World…’ which was viewed several thousand times and ended up being featured on ‘Mumsnet,’ which was amazing! Since then I decided to share one of my older posts, ‘How To Know When You’re a Teacher’ and it has been picked up and shared over 3,000 times, giving me and extra 20,000 views in the last week. It’s still going – I have been boring The Bloke to death with daily updates and I have become a stat obsessive, checking it at least ten times a day. It’s so exciting!!! Every morning I wake up with this facial expression…

I’d also like to say a massive ‘thank you’ for all the lovely awards that I have been given over the last month, but more on that in a future post.

2. My school underwent a very tough and intense OFSTED. I was seen by one of the inspectors and was awarded an ‘Outstanding.’ This was the third one that I have been given in a row and as a ‘well done’ The Bloke gave me a beautiful Pandora bracelet to celebrate – I’m spoilt rotten!

3. I have been reminded yet again what amazing family and friends that I have. When I was taken to hospital my mum and sister drove half-way down the country to be with me, some of my friends came to visit me, my work colleagues sent me a beautiful bunch of flowers, and my mum spent the weekend at my house after I was discharged. During my recovery I have been inundated with messages asking how I am, with offers of support if I need anything. When I found out about the house move my friends offered to lend me money and help me move. I’m extremely blessed and once I get all this stress out of the way I am determined to show them how grateful I am and how much they mean to me.

4. The housemove has meant that I have been able to get myself a little more organised – I have been able to be ruthless and give lots of books, CD’s and clothes to my local charity shop. I received a letter from them to tell me that my stuff has raised £50 so far, so this gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.

5. And finally, I have been really pleased to see the fantastic response to the campaign to help Merbear, a fellow blogger, who suffers from Fibromyalgia and is a risk of losing her house. After reading a heartbreaking post by the lovely Merbear, who I have only had the pleasure of meeting recently, Zoe started a donation fund to highlight her plight. After only a few days she has managed to raise over $1,100, which is just unbelievable. If you can, please share her story – let’s get everybody involved! If you wish to donate, simply click here – no amount is too small! It has restored a little faith in humanity for me, and proved that the blogging world is one of the most supportive that I have ever had the pleasure to be part of.

For those of you who may have missed them, these are my Five Favourite Posts from February, simply click the image to be taken to the post.

21 Little Pleasures in Life

A Fat Disney Princess

Stop Apologising for Yourself!

Why Being a Stay At Home Parent…

My Love/Hate Relationship With Facebook

Hope you have a lovely Friday!!

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog

A Milestone to Celebrate

Posted on February 23, 2014 by suzie81speaks

Awesome. Just awesome.

This evening Suzie81 received its 100,000th view. Thank you so much – I’m absolutely delighted at the support and encouragement that I have received since starting this little blog last April. I’ve been inspired to take it to the next step and will be purchasing my own domain name later this week, when I have finally decided what to call it! I want to keep the Suzie81 as part of it as that is what I am now known as, but I can’t decide what to add after it…

How exciting!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend!

A Smile for the Weekend

Posted on February 21, 2014 by suzie81speaks

I saw these and had to share… They made me giggle!

Happy Friday!

The Valentine’s Day Grinch

Posted on February 7, 2014 by suzie81speaks

sexandrelationships.com

Roses are red,
Bacon is red,
Bacon.

With a week to go until Valentine’s Day my social networking feeds are becoming filled with sweet messages of love and ideas for gifts…

Oh joy.

Before I begin, I would like to make it clear that I love love. I love being in love, reading romantic stories and watching romantic films. I’m an advocate for all things heartfelt and passionate and while I don’t believe in the idea of ‘soulmates’ I truly believe that there is somebody out there for everybody. I love celebrations and holidays and I look forward to them every year.

However, there is one particular celebration that I dislike: Valentine’s Day. I am the Valentine’s Day Grinch.

I’ll never forget the jealousy I felt when my friend received an enormous anonymous card on her doorstep. It was beautiful, with ‘Will you be my Valentine?’ carefully written on the inside. I was 13 years old and had gone to her house after school for dinner – we heard the sound of the letterbox and there it was, staring at me.

“Who’s it from?” I asked, forcing a smile.

“I’ve no idea!” she squealed at me. (To this day, she still doesn’t have a clue who sent it).

I tried to be happy for her, but secretly I was suppressing a desire to punch her in the face. Why didn’t I get one? What was wrong with me?

This scenario, however childish, is just one of the many reasons why I don’t like Valentine’s Day, despite being in a committed relationship for years. In many circumstances the day serves as a huge slap-in-the-face reminder to single people that they haven’t met ‘The One’ yet, and while most of my single friends in their 30’s are past the point of caring, there are still plenty of those that do. Since the middle of January I have read posts from single bloggers with advice for preparing to spend the day ‘alone.’ I dislike the fact that some are made to believe that their self-worth is defined by their relationship status, and I dislike the pressure that the day often puts on our male counterparts, particularly in the younger generations.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I can’t rhyme,
Refrigerator.

However, scientific studies (and by scientific, I mean I asked my friends – I’m sure there are far more scientific studies out there however) have shown that couples equally dislike everything that the day has come to represent. In the shops the masses of Christmas tat is replaced with Valentine’s tat, accompanied by a sea of red cards as soon as the holidays are over, advertisements for flowers, chocolates and cuddly toys appear everywhere and the inevitable conversation between The Bloke and I happens at the end of January:

“Are we doing anything for Valentine’s Day this year?”

“We can if you like, but I’m not that bothered.”

“Me neither. Shall we just stay in?”

“Yeah, fine by me.”

“Are we doing the card thing?”

“Yeah, we can do the card thing, but let’s leave the presents. The vet/car/council tax bill is due next week.”

“Ok.”

brucesallen.com

Most couples always start with good intentions and the excitement of the ‘Honeymoon Period’ is all consuming. I’ve been there on several occasions and those times have been the most exhilarating of my life. The first date, the first kiss, the first ‘I love you’ and everything else in between is a magical experience and everything the new spouse does or says is music to the soul. Family and friends start to roll their eyes as you regale them with yet another story of how wonderful/funny/sweet this person is and the passing of time seems to drag when you aren’t in their company.

However, after a while, life inevitably gets in the way. The cute little underwear bought to impress starts to morph into enormous knickers and sexy night dresses become flannel pyjamas. The hair goes up and the make-up comes off. What is left is essentially the real versions of ourselves.

While I love love, I condradict myself in that real life I am not an overly romantic person and I resent the fact that on this one particular day I am expected to be, in essence, ‘romantic.’ Yet February 14th has no connection for me and The Bloke – our anniversary is in November. What if we’re not in the mood that day? What if one of us is ill, or we’ve had a bad day at work. What if I have a stack of marking that needs to be completed?

I appreciate that the positive message behind it is that it is important to take the time to show your loved one that you care and before I start receiving indignant messages I am certainly not begrudging or judging anybody who wishes to go all out on Valentine’s Day, but the real us shouldn’t have to wait for a specific day of the year to demonstrate our feelings in the form of a hurriedly bought gift that has been picked up on the weekly shop. Of course, I’m generalising here, but shouldn’t we try to show our other half how much they mean to us as often as possible rather than on a day that has been created for the purposes of consumerism?

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Here’s a poem,
Now shut your face.

Dryicons.com

The Bloke runs me a bath in a morning before work. When I’ve had a crap day he cooks me dinner and rubs my feet. He would buy me flowers, but the cats take it upon themselves to eat them. He records TV programmes that he think I’ll like. We surprise each other with little gifts, cards and date nights. My family and friends like him and the cats worship him. On the rare occasions when I return home from a night out after consuming my entire body weight in alcohol he politely ignores my endless wittering and then brings me breakfast in bed the next day to help with my inevitable hangover. We’re occasionally grumpy and can snap at each other, and at times he’s the most irritating person I’ve ever met. We’ve seen the best and the worst of each other. It isn’t perfect, but regardless of whether the day has been good or bad, I know that he’s the person that I want to wake up to each morning. I am an extremely difficult person to live with, he’s a very patient man and I’m very lucky.

However, I don’t need the validation of being given a card once a year to prove that I am worthy of being loved.

So Valentine’s Day, quite frankly, can kiss my foot.

What about you guys? Do you go all out for Valentines’s Day? Does it depress you every year, or do you just simply ignore it?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @suzie81blog

Work to Live or Live to Work?

Posted on February 2, 2014 by suzie81speaks

To say that this week has been tough would be an understatement. I received potentially bad news about my little friend earlier in the week, the kids at work were a nightmare, a set of external moderators have requested work early and to add the proverbial icing to the cake we were informed that the dreaded OFSTED would be present next week, this news reaching us just two weeks after we had very successfully undergone a similar inspection with a different group of people. At one point, my whole body felt like it was buzzing and my brain was on the verge of exploding. Those of you that follow my blog regularly will know that I don’t deal with stress very well and I feel like I’m performing a balancing act to get everything done.

Stuffonscoutshead.com

However, I decided that the best thing would be to tackle the workload head on and went into work yesterday and today. Despite having to work all weekend I am pleased that even though I am nowhere near finished I have certainly made decent progress. So, for the next couple of hours I am going to make a little bit of time for me.

When I initially qualified and started teaching at my very first school I remember being amazed at how tired and cynical a lot of the older staff were and I often heard them loudly complain about the various objections that they had with the British Education System. Unfortunately, eight years down the line I find that not only am I tired, but I understand their cynicism.

Teaching is a rewarding, inspiring and mentally challenging profession. It is also stressful, fast-paced and at times can be utterly soul destroying. The idea of a work/life balance simply doesn’t exist – I know that I could work for 24 hours a day / 7 days a week and I still would have a million things that need to be done and it isn’t uncommon for me to receive emails at 11.00pm most evenings and the over the weekends. With marking, data, reports, external moderators, filing, and planning I have now reached the stage where I lie awake in the middle of the night worrying about things I have or haven’t completed. I thought that going part-time would change the situation, and it did for a little while, but the feeling of anxiety has started to creep back in and I have started to find myself working on my day off.

Stuffonscoutshead.com

So, I have decided that the end of this week is the time where I need to start taking my life back and working to live. This doesn’t mean shirking my responsibilities within my professional life, just creating more of a balance, just like Scout here. In the same way that I prioritise my workload and follow a timetable in my professional life, I am going to start scheduling in time to do things that make me feel good – having ‘date nights’ with The Bloke, blogging, reading the books I bought at Christmas, watching the films I have yet to see, spending some quality time with my friends and family, and most importantly, giving myself the opportunity to relax.

Why? Because life is short (the loss of people close to me over the last few years has taught me that) and I owe it to myself and those around me to live it.

What about you? Do you find that work is taking over your life?

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @Suzie81blog

January Round-Up: My Favourite Posts and a Party!!

Posted on January 25, 2014 by suzie81speaks

January has been one of my most productive blogging months since I started Suzie81 last April. There are three posts that I am particularly proud of and so as part of the the ‘Zero to Hero’ Challenge I thought I would share them again with you in case you may have missed them. You can see them by clicking on the link or the accompanying picture. As always, I’d love to know what you think!

However, as it is the weekend, I’ve decided to turn this into a Blog Party that you can all join in!

23 Things You Should Actually Do Before You’re 23

23 Things You Should Actually Do Before You’re 23 was written on the January 3rd, in response to a rather controversial Freshly Pressed post that went viral. Since then it has been viewed several thousand times, it has been reblogged several times and has been shared more than any other post I’ve created on Facebook and Twitter.

The focus of the post is about things that you could possibly achieve before the age of 23. I’ve tried to keep it as balanced as possible and avoid judgement.

Blogging Worries and Paranoia

Blogging Worries and Paranoia: Are We Limiting Ourselves? was created on January 20th. This has also received a good response and I’ve had some really great discussions with various people about some of the subject content.

The general idea of the post was to highlight the worries that bloggers may have when writing something new, and discussing the idea of holding back from saying what we actually think to avoid offending others. This has been something that has bothered me for a while, and I was relieved to find that lots of others felt the same way.

Why We Should All Love Justin Bieber

Why We Should All Love Justin Bieber was written yesterday in response to the ridiculous outpouring of love for the train-wreck that is Justin Bieber at the minute. I normally try and stay away from controversial subjects, but I got increasing frustrated with my Twitter feed being clogged up with news about this moron…

In a ridiculously short space of time this post has started to be shared across Twitter and Facebook and to my relief I haven’t received any Belieber abuse yet, although give it time!!

Instructions for the Blog Party.

Choose your favourite post from your own blog – preferably from January but any post is fine. The subject of the post can be anything you like – blogging, food, parenting, life, travel, thoughts, photography… Note: This should be only one post or it will get sent straight to the ‘spam’ folder and I may not be able to find you for a while.

Paste the link to your post in the comment section of this post.

Enjoy! Relax, pull up a chair, meet new people! Find new blogs, comment on their posts, follow, reblog and share. Let them know that you met them here! This is a really useful way of discovering new blogs, particularly if you are new to the blogging world and when I have participated in similar things I have really enjoyed them!

You don’t have to follow me to participate, you don’t have to be an established blogger – you could have written just a single post – and feel free to invite your friends! While you’re there, check out the winners of my New Year Week 3 Competition – their buttons are in my sidebar!

The party will remain open until this time tomorrow… Have fun!

You can also find me on Twitter and Tumblr @Suzie81.

Ghosts of December 23rds Past

Posted on December 23, 2013 by suzie81speaks

I moved to Birmingham in 2001 and so I have travelled up by train on the day before Christmas Eve every year since. Over the years my younger sisters have moved out and have preferred to spend this day with whatever boyfriend they have had at the time, so it has traditionally become a day for me and mum.

My tree this year

Today’s experiences have been very similar to those of the last five years. I got an early train, managing to avoid the mass exodus of half the population of the city, I battled against the high velocity winds and rain that always seems to accompany a visit to Manchester and I witnessed an old lady getting accidentally slapped in the face with an extremely large sausage roll. It wasn’t anything sinister – a woman was eating it, the wind blew it out of her hand and straight into the face of an unsuspecting elderly lady walking past. I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did. (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m a bad person). I arrived at my mum’s house to be greeted by her three hyperactive and rather smelly dogs. I immediately changed into a clean pair of jammies, plonked myself on the couch and laughed at the dogs gleefully shredding the stuffed animals that I had brought them from Christmas. Mum made some lunch and after we had eaten we put on a James Bond film and that was the last thing that I remember – I slept for several hours and awoke to Noel Edmund’s ‘Deal or No Deal’ blasting from the TV.

There’s something extremely comforting about being here, even at 32 years old. It’s warm and cosy, the dogs are asleep and as I write my mum is in the middle of her soap opera marathon, which she delights in telling me the storylines, despite the fact that she knows I don’t watch them. There’s an opened box of chocolates between us, the remnants of what was a teddy bear shredded on the floor and I keep getting a hint of pine from the enormous tree that is standing proudly in the corner of the room.

It is this scent that is quintessentially the essence of Christmas, evoking hundreds of memories from years gone by.

The dog shredding his present, with White Christmas on the TV.

We’ve always had a real tree. The house that I grew up in had a large living room and we would buy a seven foot monster and spent hours decorating it, adding to it every year with the various toilet roll based decorations that we had created at school. The 23rd December would be an excruciatingly exciting time – we had bought and wrapped our presents but weren’t able to put them under the tree as we had a beagle, Patch, that once took it upon herself to eat everything, including the bath salts, which she promptly threw up later in the day. Our activities often depended on the weather – it would occasionally snow and my sisters and I would build a snowman, we would watch all the Christmas specials on the TV, we would order a takeaway- a special treat – from the local pizza place and I would spend every December 23rd watching the clock and desperately wishing for time to pass quickly.

As a teenager I attempted to be a little more ‘cool’ about the notion of Christmas, but secretly I was just as excited about it as I was as a young child. I counted down the days, then the hours and then began clock-watching on the 23rd. As I grew older I got a part – time job at McDonalds (not the most exciting job I’ve ever had) and so December 23rds were spent working, after which I would return home with offerings of left over Big Macs and Veggie Burgers, much to the delight of my father.

After I turned 18 and was legally allowed to drink, my sister and I would go out on the day before Christmas Eve, and this was a tradition that lasted for several years. We indulged in many silly activities, but one in particular stands out for me: We had enjoyed a brilliant night at Bar Juice and after eating pizza in a kebab shop we got a taxi home. It had snowed, our house was at the top of a hill and the driver was unable to drop us off outside, so we had to walk the rest of the way. Unfortunately, we were wearing high heels which wouldn’t grip in the snow and in our drunken state we ended up crawling up the hill on our hands and knees, laughing all the way. When we finally managed to make it into the house we were greeted by our less-than-impressed mother who became even less impressed when we both promptly threw up in the bathroom. Classy ladies.

As an adult December 23rds have been difficult over the years. My family split up and consequently relationships have been strained, and in some cases are now non-existent. We’ve lost various little friends – our beagle, Patch, and later our retriever, Ollie, but we’ve been lucky to find three more little friends to share our lives with. I am grateful for being able to spend this day with a wonderful mother and her smelly dogs, and I hope that there are many of these in the future.

In response to the Weekly Writing Challenge

Blogging Tips: The Sequel

Posted on September 15, 2013 by suzie81speaks

I was going to call this post ‘Empire Strikes Back‘ as it is the sequel to something that I wrote a while ago (Blogging Tips), but then realised that it made no sense whatsoever to do so.

I’ve recently been getting lots of writers who are new to blogging that are asking for tips and advice. I’ve only been doing this myself for about five months and therefore hope that you don’t feel patronised by this, but rather than writing the same thing repeatedly I thought I would add to my previous list and create a complete post that may assist others when starting out. Please note: this is not a definitive way to blog – these are just tried and tested ideas that have proven to be successful for me. As always, I’d love your comments, feedback and feel free to reblog if you feel it is at all useful to you.

1. Contrary to other’s opinions on blogging, it isn’t necessary to have a theme ie. you don’t have to focus on fashion, or food, or films. Write about what you’re genuinely interested in and don’t concern yourself with the possibility that some readers may not share similar interests. Your passion and enthusiasm for a subject will always be evident in your writing style.

2. Write as frequently as possible – the more you write, the more opportunities the blogging community will have to see your musings. I try to visit my blog daily, although this has been every few days as of late due to work, moving house and sick pets. It takes lots of time to build it up and at weekends I can easily spend HOURS writing. However, remember that quality is always better than quantity.

3. Make sure that what you write is presented in a way that will entice others in. Punchy titles, interesting pictures and well-written paragraphs will not only spark initial interest, it will encourage people to follow you. While i’m on this subject, make sure that you do your best to credit any images and text that you have used that isn’t your own – I’ve seen quite a few examples where bloggers have enraged a photographer by using their pictures without permission.

4. This may sound a little snobbish, but make sure that what you post is well – constructed and well – written. Proof read things before you post them. It doesn’t have to be the ‘Queen’s English’ or of Ph.D quality, but don’t write as though you would text or answer your own jokes with ‘lol’ mid sentence. I instantly switch off after the first few sentences if they are poorly written.

5. Follow various challenges. I participate in the Daily Posts ‘Daily Prompts,’ every ‘Weekly Photo Challenge,’ and post examples of my writing on the weekly ‘Community Pool.’ It is a fantastic group to follow – they have wonderful writing and photography suggestions with over 50,000 members that are participating in the same challenges and I’ve found it a great place to read fellow bloggers ideas. I also like to particpate in ‘A Word A Week Challenge‘ hosted by Sue and Susie Lindau’s Travel Theme.

6. Take the time to visit other people’s blogs. Don’t go through every blog you find and ‘like’ something without reading it. If you genuinely are interested by what somebody has written, comment and let them know that you enjoyed it. Follow them if you feel that their blog is entertaining. Get to know them a little.

7. Share the work of others. Reblogging a post that you thought was well – written takes thirty seconds, but it provides the opportunity for others to view blogs that they may not necessarily see. I have a ‘Sunday Share’ where I highlight blogs that I enjoy reading and I host a monthly ‘blog party’ which allows people to share their favourite posts from their blog. This has also increased the traffic I’ve had both to my blog and others.

8. Don’t become obsessed with your stats. This may seem a case of ‘pot calling kettle’ as I check my stats daily, but you’ll find over time that they become less important. If you lose followers don’t allow yourself to be disheartened – I’ve lost quite a few, but I’ve gained several thousand and these are the people that matter.

9. Appreciate the people who take the time to comment and leave advice on your blog. While I haven’t been brilliant this over the last few days, I usually try to thank every person that has commented as it means a lot to me – they’ve made me laugh, cry (tears of joy I must add) and made feel much better about myself. I’ve been lucky to have met some wonderful people on here and now often receive e-mails and Twitter updates from some of them which is always lovely.

10. Use other social networking sites to promote your blog. I have opened a seperate Twitter and Tumblr account and although it is still in its early stages I have gradually started to include my posts and increase my following.

11. Invite Guest Bloggers to write a post for you. It’s a brilliant opportunity to allow talented writers to share their stories with others. I’ve done this many times and I still have quite a few lined up for the next few weeks…

12. Like any internet venture, protect yourself. Don’t put your personal information or photographs on your blog and don’t allow people to have access to your email address, your personal facebook and twitter or give out your home address unless you feel absolutely comfortable with it.

13. Be honest in your writing. Don’t be scared about telling your readers how you feel about something. I initially started my blog in an attempt to get rid of lots of issues that have been plaguing me for a long time and while I felt a little uncomfortable at first about sharing my true feelings and experiences, the feedback and support that I received was incredible. I call it my ‘WordPress Therapy’ and it has indeed been a truly therapuetic journey.

14. Most importantly, enjoy yourself! WordPress is a wonderful community that allows bloggers from all over the world to be able to meet, support, share, laugh and cry together.

Hope you find this useful! Happy Blogging! You can find me on Twitter @suzie81blog and Tumblr suzie81blog

Picture Credits:

What’s In A Name?

Posted on August 3, 2013 by suzie81speaks

Technically, her name is Lucy. When I first got her from the RSPCA I referred to her as my little ‘Bob’ (inspired by a Blackadder episode) and somehow it has morphed from ‘Bob’, to ‘Bobbly’, to ‘Bobbly Wob’ and has remained as ‘Wobbly’ for years. She’s registered at the vets as Lucy as I can’t bring myself to actually tell them what she’s really called. It’s a silly name, I’m sure she’s inwardly face-palming (or face-pawing) herself every time she hears it, but she responds to it anyway. Somehow though, it suits her. My friends and family have become used to it and ask ‘How’s Wobbly?’ without even thinking about it.

Today I came across an article about unusual pet names for dogs and cats from a pet insurance company and it made me smile. There are some truly great names… These are some of my favourites:

Sir Knuckles da Dragon

Winnie The Poodle

Wanksta

Squatter

HotRod Woofington

Poopie Boy

Pumpkin Head

Dong Dong

Hank The Tank

Captain Underpants

Agador Spartacus

Chue Man Foo