Trapped in ground-dog day!

When a young friend left Australia to study in France I knew he would miss his dog. Soon after he left he was due to celebrate his 19th birthday and I was racking my brains as to what gift I could send easily by air mail. My husband suggested I paint a watercolour of his dog. Luckily I had some photographs I had taken of the dog last time I had visited. It is a gentle giant of a dog - intimidating in size but kind and loving with soulful eyes and a coat of velvet. Capturing that essence was the challenge. I was pleased with the result, my husband framed the picture and we packed it carefully and put it into the mail express to France so that it would arrive in time for Isaac's birthday.

But it didn't. First I received a tracking notification that it had reached Paris and I expected it would be in the south of France in a couple of days. But then nothing happened. Weeks later, after numerous enquiries and more paperwork, the doorbell rang and there was our post lady with the package in her hand. The dog had visited Paris, seen the sights and come all the way back to Australia! Unfortunately, despite the careful packaging, the glass was smashed into a thousand pieces, but the painting was luckily undamaged.So this time we packed it up again just in the matboard and mailed it again.

Still the weeks passed and it didn't arrive. To make matters worse, this time I lost the receipt with the tracking number and so had no way of knowing where the dog was on his journey! I really expected that the post lady would appear at our door at any moment with the painting in her hands. I thought we were trapped in "ground-dog day", condemned to keep playing "pass the parcel" and forever repeating the experience of mailing the picture and receiving it back again!

But great news: it has arrived at last and Isaac loves it and I hope you love it too. Here is Ceb:

#watercolourdog