 |
| Champion tracker Miles may be long gone, but his memory lives on. |
How better to end a road
trip than at a beautiful house with a tiered, bushy backyard with plenty of
spots to sniff and pee. Unfortunately Pat’s backyard copped a fiery hiding last
week, and while Pat and her home were spared most of the neighbourhood was
razed.
Many
Winmalee residents lost their homes and, worse, their pets, in the disaster. It
will take months to recover.
But back to our little road trip. It was a joy meeting Pat and hearing about her life with dogs. Pat competed with her
beloved Weimaraners in tracking and rescue back in the 1970s, and she had
beautiful photos of some of her prize-winning dogs.
Pat is also a champion
knitter. And I don’t mean the odd pair of bed socks. Her skills are frequently
called upon to create hand-made masterpieces for humans and their canine
companions.
By the time we arrived on
her doorstep, Pat had knitted and hand-beaded three beautiful winter jumpers
for Phil.
 |
| Phil scored a hand-beaded stylish knit, Alice scored a tiara. |
Sofi and Phil spent the
morning walking around the pool
 |
| Sofi and Phil do laps around the outside of the pool. |
...chasing bugs...
 |
| Sofi chases bugs near the window. Note the bushland outside the window. |
...and reading books about dogs in knits.
 |
| Emma and Sofi peruse "Dogs in Knits". |
After relaxing by the pool
we attempted to capture an awkward family photo in Pat’s fantastic drawing
room.
 |
| Pat, Anne and Sofi, Alice and Phil. |
 |
| Pat, Emma and Sofi, Alice and Phil who was having a little sneeze at the time. |
Pat doesn’t have her own
dogs currently, but it is clear she absolutely adores them. She showed me
photos of a Christmas tree she had made just for dogs. Each branch was spiked
with a doglicious piece of cabanossi, kibble or a meaty treat. The dogs at the
party were each given five minutes to take their pic…but many were just so
overwhelmed by the selection they couldn’t choose.
As we were leaving, Pat
offered to hand-knit me a sweater, and produced a photo of a cable-knit number
that was so complex I thought she was joking.
She was dead serious.
I asked if I should send
my measurements. She half closed her eyes as if they were lasers calibrating,
looked me up and down and pronounced that my arms were 17 inches.
“I’ll check,” I replied,
having no idea at all about the length of my limbs.
Pat then produced a tape
measure and proved that she indeed has laser vision. Spot on.
She asked me to choose a
colour from her wool chart. I picked aqua blue.
“It would look better in
this colour,” she said, pointing to a shade of beige.
Phil, Sofi and Alice were
tuckered out, and slept all the way home.
Two weeks later I received
in the mail not only the most exquisite cable knit sweater in the history of
time – with stunning buttons -, but a matching, equally cable-knit number for
Phil. And she was right about the colour.
 |
| The contents of the amazing package I recieved in the mail. |
 |
| Phil and I in our matching cableknit Starnovsky sweaters, doing our best impression of Country Road models (NB that isn't mist in the background - its smoke from the fires). |
