Jim Fulton
Musician, propagator & planter of native trees on our 27 acres, housemate of elderly greyhounds, cyclist, skeptic, lover of grammar. My partner is a PhD in crime history, making for interesting small talk. Live in rural NZ but from Scotland a long time ago
- Three years ago today, we got Art, our first foster greyhound. Nov. 5th (fireworks night in NZ) was possibly the worst day for us newbies to get a dog who was hyper terrified of everything. Still, thanks to Art taking a keen interest in his own social media, he found himself a home in no time.
- The toast rack: place your deliciously hot toasted bread in this cooling device so it quickly becomes difficult to spread and unappetising to eat. If there's a dumber invention, I'd like to see it.
- An auspicious milestone. We've had Wanda the epileptic greyhound 1 whole year. It's been 7 months since her last seizure. She's still slightly mad but has morphed into the loveliest and funniest of creatures. Best of all... she no longer does vertical take-off when the toaster pops up.
- My son's been a coffee roaster in Scotland and Australia but been back in NZ roasting for the two Glens at Rocket coffee for nearly a decade. FWIW Rocket were #62 in world-wide rankings this year, the only NZ coffee outfit on the list. Hah. A great place and great people. I'm well chuffed for them.
- Wanda has a drippy nose, and the happier she is, the more it drips. I wasn't able to catch it on camera, but today she had a double drip, meaning she is extra contented. I love it when she gently boops our hand or leg with her wet snoot. Tomorrow tho' is vet day, so no drips are forecast for then.
- Summer is here and the cicada and whale nymphs have emerged from the soil and are shedding their skins on the trees.
- A life hack: the perfect tool for rescuing your phone from the 1.5m deep septic tank you dropped it in is the hitherto unused 3-pronged garden hoe you inherited a decade ago from your mum's estate. Photo is from my annual skills maintenance session. Tank lid is closed in the interests of propriety.
- I really wish I could know what is going on behind those eyes. Wanda is still very complicated, still frightened of us at unpredictable times, her seizure frequencies remain unchanged despite increased meds, but every day she grows a little more brave, a little more loving, funny and cheeky.
- For any other dog, this photo would be unremarkable, but in 6 months of living with me and Deb, this is the first moment Wanda has shown unsolicited affection to me, the "scary" man of the house. I have not moved for 55 minutes, for fear of breaking the spell.
- A stunning photo of Cedric, our 11-year-old greyhound, accidentally looking remarkably hunky and infinitely Instagramable. He looks deceptively dreamy here, when in real life he’s a bit gormless and goofy. It’s kind of like his dating app profile pic versus...
- ... the reality of being an old guy with almost none of his own teeth, dubious spatial acuity, a slapstick-era sense of humour, and a snoring habit to boot. We named him after a debonair French friend of ours, but he turned out to be more of a Baldrick than a Cedric.
- An underrated aspect of NZ summer is it signals the end of bird strike season. The oily smudge on this window is from a chunky kererū (wood pigeon) that recently hit with wings akimbo. The smudge also revealed it hit with eyes wide open. [insert lame Specsavers joke here]. Bird and glass survived.
- Cedric and Wanda. They are a great team, but even though roughly one third of our floor space is covered in dog bedding, the slow-motion battle for THE best spot is always ongoing. And always polite, respectful and deferential. What a wonderful breed of dog greyhounds are.
- Our previous foster greyhound Breeze accurately reflecting our (pleasant) surprise and astonishment at the news that New Zealand banned greyhound racing today. I don't think anyone will have seen that coming.
- Wanda is the least reactive greyhound we've owned or fostered. She adores Cedric. Cedric on the other hand is constantly pushing the boundaries - in this case pushing his paw into the boundaries of Wanda's face. What could possibly go wrong?
- Cedric with bandaged foot, and Wanda refusing to look at it, let alone acknowledge she was in some small way responsible for it.
- Bought recently from a Te Awamutu charity shop for a whopping $2, I snapped up this magnificent abomination – surely the most cynically unplayable ukulele ever. It's as if it was put together by Salvadore Dali while experiencing a migraine. If there's a worse uke out there, I'd like to see it.
- This is Wanda, our new stunning 6-year-old greyhound. We fostered her to start with, but after 3 months, her epilepsy meant she'd never be rehomed and she was to be euthanised. So we kept her ourselves. The future is still uncertain, but she's already repaid us many times over. Best decision ever.
- That time in 2011 when the Salvation Army trialled a rebranding of their name by using customers at their Hamilton thrift store as their focus group. It failed to get market traction, for some unknown reason.
- I'm guessing this is a tree wētā. Or is it a ground wētā? Sadly, I don't know the difference. Whatever species it is, I can confirm wētā do indeed jump some distance when threatened, but not as much as I did when I nearly grabbed it by accident.
