After a bad couple of weeks, our dog Meg has today passed away, she was around 14 years old or 98 in dog years, she has always been a true and faithful friend to all the family, and our friends also, so her passing is a great loss. I have selected a suitable location to bury her here at Parlington, following in the long tradition that the Gascoigne family undertook with their pets, as far back as the nineteenth century at least, to my knowledge.
I am sitting here typing this with tears welling up in my eyes, pausing from time to time to blow my nose, and trying to look positively to the future. Although at the moment with my tax return still to do, days away from the deadline, it all seems a bit pointless. My appetite has wained but I am fortified by a glass or two of Blossom Hill, Californian wine.
Death is a sobering moment, and this last year with the passing of my first wife back in June, and the consequent affects on my and her, three daughters, we have had enough to deal with! So after the discovery that Meg had a cancer also, it has been only a matter of time before the big “C” did its worst. Meg remained active until the very end, at Christmas she was jumping about catching snowflakes, and generally enjoying herself in the deep snow, helping or perhaps, hindering, the building of a snowman, which coincidentally only finally melted today!
I decided that a burial in Parlington at a suitable private location would be the best bet as she so enjoyed the open spaces here. Her grave may one day be discovered when Parlington becomes a golf course, a theme park or whatever else is in vogue at some point in the distant future. They may also discover the carefully sealed CDROM with these same pictures and the following note:
Megan and Life at Parlington
A family pet with an abundance of enthusiasm for everything, always friendly and full of life. She came into the family when she was about three years old, from a pet home for abandoned animals, in 1997. Thereafter when we came to Parlington Meg enjoyed the wide open spaces and chased everything with much gusto. Her time here was everything a free running dog could want for. So she now rests in her beloved landscape until who knows when!
The pictures on this disc are just a few of her enjoying life. One for example although only showing Meg as a shadow along with me, epitamises the many occasions we were out together around Parlington, enjoying the scenery and on that occasion the sunset. The picture deliberately taken to provide our two shadows against the raw soil looking at the sunset, Meg was standing at my right side.
Brian & Helen Hull and my daughters Pippa, Mandy & Chloe.
Also Helen’s daughters Victoria and Laura, and Richard, who are also saddened at Meg’s death.
Parlington 2010