Whenever I take my dogs for a walk in town my puppy Freya thinks I’m taking her on a food hoover. There’s so many tasty things to find on the pavement and although I say ‘leave it’ and she does mostly some tasty things are too much to resist. Especially when there’s lots of things in a convenient bag or box – she’s a retriever so she loves carrying things in her mouth.
When she was the guest of honour at Welwyn Garden City’s Waterstones’ birthday she found a small box of Kentucky Fried Chicken (fortunately empty) and although I took it off her she did look very cute carrying the perfect sized box about.
The other morning she found something even better and because I thought it was just an empty paper bag and I was concentrating on Bella, my other dog who’d seen a cat and got very excited, I didn’t immediately take it off her and when I looked down I saw she was proudly carrying a bag of 3 huge donuts which I definitely didn’t want her to eat!
‘Freya – what’s this?’ I said, pulling out a dog friendly treat from my pocket.
Freya might still have wanted to hold onto the bag but Bella loved the treats I had with me and so Freya wanted to make sure she got some too and dropped the bag of donuts. I gave her a mouthful of treats and we walked briskly on before she’d even realised the donuts were behind her – although she did look back wistfully.
People throw lots of things away but it made me think of how important it is to NOT throw some things away. Things like your story ideas and notebooks with old stories in them but most important of all, I think, is not to throw away your dreams. And by dreams I mean ambitions – to be a write or a painter or an astronaut or a doctor or an environmentalist or an actor or comedian. Or to have the aim of changing the world or winning a Nobel prize or an Oscar. It can be anything at all of course but it’s yours and sometimes other people or circumstances make people throw away their dreams and that is such a shame. Don’t live your life wishing you’d followed them but didn’t. Put them away for a while and come back to them later if you must – it’s never ever too late – but please don’t throw them away 🙂