Fun in the Snow

Yippee! A couple of days ago I woke up to find our garden covered with snow.

Homer’s ‘White House’.



Man, I couldn’t wait to get out there!

Finally, Missus let me out into my winter wonderland.

Of course, I’m no stranger to snow now having spent last winter in Holland. Still, I always get a buzz from sniffing around in the white stuff.

I noticed Dad beavering away trying to clear the snow...

...so, I thought I’d try to help out by eating some.

Soon, Dad decided to make a fun game out of his snow-shovelling.

Here it comes...

...Woo hoo!

Unfortunately, the game wasn’t so much fun when the snow landed.

'Bah’!

Next it was time for some ball games.

Here I am playing ‘snow tennis’.

Dad was hot on my heels, but I soon gave him the slip.

"Run Homer, RUN!”

Then, we had a go at snow football. Of course, as you know, I’m a bit of a footballing legend .

I was the goalie. I already have some experience in this position .

Here I am, waiting to catch the ball...

...where the heck is it???

D'oh!

What shall we do next Missus?

I know. We’ll make a snowman...

A couple of ‘frosty faces’.

All too soon, it was getting late and time to say good bye to the snow.

Good night ‘Frosty’! Buona notte.

La Mia Bella Casa (My Booti-ful Home)

As I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, ever since we arrived in Italy from Holland we have been living in ‘temporary’ accommodation. Everything has been OK, but I must admit that I have missed the settled life we had with my big garden back in Holland.

Luckily, with the help of Paco, Milo and Maya’s mommy (Grazie millie Simona!), my humans have now found a more ‘permanent’ place for us to stay. It’s in a town called Lodi, which is on the outskirts of Milan.

Let me show you around...

Ta da! This is me in front of my new house.

And here I am in my big front garden.

The garden path.

Here I am taking a rest at the top.

Now down to the barbeque area. (Mmmm...barbeque...I LOVE barbeque!).

This is the back of the house. Man, this place has loads of places to explore.

Just one more part of the garden to show you...

...the drive, which leads back onto the front garden.

Now let me show you inside the house...

This is me admiring my booti-ful portrait in the hallway. “Bello!”

The first flight of stairs...

...and here I am at the top of the second flight.

You may remember, I used to have problems climbing the stairs when we first moved to Holland.

Not any more though. Now, they're easy-peasy...

...in fact, I can even fly up them!

This is me on the balcony outside of the living room.


Can you see me?


As you know from my time in China, I love to watch the world go by. Well this place is just perfect for that.


Finally, here I am in my new bedroom. I even let the humans sleep in here sometimes!

By the way, wishing everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! I love you all!

Ciao for now.

The Painting of the "Homer Lisa"

Well, me and Missus have now calmed down from the shock of receiving the portrait which Dad got Missus for her birthday. Despite Dad being so ‘sneaky’ about things, I can now reveal the whole process from conception to completion of the ‘Homer Lisa’.

First of all, Dad had to find an artist. Luckily, he managed to track down the best ‘Dog Arteest’ there is: Ms. Aimée Hoover. You can check out her work here. Aimée develops her portraits using photographs provided by her clients.

To make sure that we got a portrait which Missus really liked, he had to let her in on the secret fairly early on. Then the search for the perfect picture for my portrait began. Missus and Dad scoured the thousands of photographs in my extensive pawfolio. Having short-listed about forty potential candidates, my humans finally narrowed it down to a shortlist of three. Here are the ones that made the final cut:

The first two were taken recently in Milan...

This one shows my boyish innocence.

This is my profile shot. I look a bit more macho in this one.

This final shot was taken way back in 2007 when we were living in China.

And here are a few that didn’t make the grade:

What’s wrong with this photo? It shows me in all my glory!



If you're going to commission a portrait, you might as well get a bit of colour into it! Right?

Oops! Ahem...

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. The photograph which became the ‘chosen one’ was...

Ta-da. My youthful picture from China.

Now to the real story. Here are the pictures which Aimée took as she developed her/my masterpiece...

As always, Aimée starts with a bare canvas.




Here she had her ‘grid’ set-up and you can see the faintest outline of yours truly.




A sketch of me.




The first-coat background went in next...




...and then I started to get some colour in my cheeks.

Surely this isn’t me? I’m not green!

To add insult to injury (or should that be the other way round?) Aimée then gave me two black eyes.

Finally, booti-ful goldilocks started to emerge.

Getting brighter...

...and brighter.

Wow! This really is me.

A bit more background...

...almost done. And...

Voila! The most booti-ful boy in the world! (According to Missus).

If you want to see the process above described by a true expert, take a look at Aimée’s blog here .

To finish, here’s a photograph of my portrait taking pride of place in my human’s new house. (More on the ‘new house’ thing later).

Mama mia. Bellissimo!