It’s my new year! It started yesterday (16th) but
as usual my human Mummy - Jane - and me - Ted had to wait for her human daughter
– who is also my human sister – Emma - to lend us her hands – cos Jane is an
angel so her hands don’t write anymore and I am a dog, as well as an angel, and
have paws which don’t hold pens - so we can write about it. You get a different
one each year but it doesn’t start on 1st January which is when
people who are ‘from the West’ sing about old acquaintances being forgotten and
do fireworks that scare me and other animals so we hide away. Instead the
Chinese one ‘from the East’ starts with a new moon and can be in January or
February and it gets celebrated for a longer time – 15 days not a few hours -
and there’s usually dragons and lanterns and lots of nice bright colours –
especially red – which is for luck - and gold and green - and dancing and
parading and Emma and Jane say the food is very tasty too. They both love
Chinese food. Jane likes ‘pork balls’ which are sweet and sour. Emma likes sauce
made with black beans and fried noodles. Every 12 years it’s the year of a
different animal and this year it’s all dogs or people who were born 12 or 24
or 36 or 48 or 60 or 72 or 84 or 96 years ago – if you are a human being that
probably includes all of you dogs cos you are probably not still alive if you
were born 108 years ago. You are also loyal, faithful and courageous like me
and all other dogs. If you were born 12 or 24 etc years ago next year you will
be a pig, then a rat, after an ox, next one a tiger, after that a rabbit, next a
dragon, and one after a snake, then next a horse, then a goat, after that a
monkey and last one after that a rooster. Emma is a goat which means she is kind,
sensitive, polite and creative and she is - and Jane and me are both dragons.
So I am a dog dragon. It means as well as being loyal, faithful and courageous,
I am confident, witty and ‘dominant’. My human Mummy is certainly very witty
and I make everyone laugh so I think that’s right. My human Daddy - who is a
rat with ‘excellent intuition’ and very adaptable – he is! - always said I was
head of the household so maybe that is the ‘dominant’ bit. I’m confident with
humans but not so much with other dogs. Chinese people smile a lot and do a lot
of bowing to each other. They travel long ways to do what they also call their Spring
festival, which is also called that cos they clean their homes at the same time
and that’s why cleaning is called spring-cleaning even if it’s not in the
spring. When they come together they are usually related but people who are not
related can also be there too. They wear new clothes – like my new hat - and
give each other things – I got these bones. They eat their food with sticks
which chop – chopping is very difficult with paws and also if you are a human
and normally eat with knives, forks and spoons. Mine kept crossing over and
missing each other and then I dropped my bones. I had to hold them up with my
back paw. If you think I don’t look as tubby as usual it’s cos I didn’t get
many into my mouth. But it’s important to be polite so I kept trying. Chinese
New Year is a lot of fun cos it has eating and whirly dancing and being with
and loving people but there are still fireworks in this sort of new year. I’d
like it better with no loud bangs.
To read my other stories
please visit my blog http://tedterrier.blogspot.co.uk/ or you can get my books, The Journal of Ted Terrier, The Second Journal of Ted Terrier and The
Third Journal of Ted Terrier – with different pictures and stories - from any
amazon website: http://tinyurl.com/q6a49tx (First One in Colour) at .com or http://tinyurl.com/o3pjra8 (First One in Colour), http://tinyurl.com/jxegs3b (Second One) and http://tinyurl.com/jnyjpy3 (Third One) at .co.uk or read about it as well as other dog
books at http://wooftasticbooks.com/2013/11/26/the-journal-of-ted-terrier/ .
The Blog of Ted Terrier © 2018 by Emma Knight
The Blog of Ted Terrier © 2018 by Emma Knight
