I do not have kids. I do have dogs. Here is a picture of my (our) two dogs and my mum and dad’s dog, Ned. Ned is the big one looking at a bone in the distance, and not at the camera. As you can see, my dogs have an eye for the lens.

Ned is dead. Before Ned was dead, he was a great dog. My husband called him a ‘great big mong’. Which he was. Ned was also like Lazarus. My parents had written him off several times, as had I, thinking he was on the verge of heart failure. But every time (nearly), he came back from a little attack of ‘Nearly Dead Ned’ as right as rain.

Of course, one time he didn’t come back, and the local vet had to do that horrible task. Due to other fibs my mother has told family members about the ultimate resting place of the family pets, I asked if she had brought the big mong back from the vets that day. At first she said : ‘Yes! And your father has dug a hole in the front yard for him!’ Seconds later she says ‘Well, no. Ned was a bit too big so he was left at the vets’. Well, of course he was.

Gee, I hope the young ones in family don’t read this and piece together where Max is…

We miss old Ned.

The Burbs around here need more dogs like Ned and less dog-whingers.

Why The Burbs?
I have a lot of friends living in exotic places and doing exciting things. I don’t live in an exotic place and rarely do exciting things. Although last night, I did go fishing with some friends. We didn’t catch anything. I did not even hold a fishing rod. I sat on the beach with a beer minding the dogs while the men folk did the hunting. They aren’t very good hunters. We had toasted sandwiches for dinner (sans poissons).

But back to The Burbs. These friends, those that live in exotic places and are doing exciting things, have set up web logs and web pages so that I can see what exciting things they do in these exotic places. I am not the only person not living in an exciting place and not doing exotic things (although I did have a mojito recently). It is time our story was told. The story of The Burbs.

I must be honest. I did once live in a semi exotic place and I did do exciting things. I can prove it from the photo around here somewhere of me and my husband at the top of a mountain we walked up in France (we got the ski lift down. Phew). The grass is always greener. When I was away, sometimes, all I wanted was to sit on the beach at home. Like in the other photo of me with my sister. Now I can sit on this beach every day, I am a little bit over it and jealous of friends living in exotic places and doing exciting things. But for now, I am in the Burbs, and I do like it. I love my garden and my tomato plants. And last night, (notwithstanding the utter lack of fish), the beach was beautiful.
So for those of us that don’t live in exotic places and don’t do exciting things, The Burbs is the antidote. Read it and weep.