2010

Snow is cold and white and wet, except when it is very cold: then it feels dry, or if it has been around for a while, then it is generally more grey, nearly black some of the time. I like the dry white kind of snow, undisturbed, no foot prints, no tire tracts, most importantly no cigarette butts.
Snow in the city is great, - when you don't have to be anywhere, and it is night, with a full moon or so. The mix of reflective light pollution and moon light gives everything a gentle amber glow, the sounds are also softer, the snow as an acoustic dampening blanket with just crunch, crunch, crunch, of footsteps for company.
Don't mistake my words, I'm not in favor of light pollution, just used to it. I went away in to the country once, where there was no light bar the stars at night, I was not keen, I have to admit it scared me, also it was a while ago so no need to charge things with little red lights, the only power point was powering the lamp, which just made the shadows worse, so I had just the dark ... the same with eyes open or shut, not keen at all.
Dog likes the snow though, plays, rolls, eats, even chases the snow, if a snowman is built he'll eat it, and it would be with a metaphorical anthropomorphised smile on his face ... or turn the snow yellow, that proves it is his, don't y' know!

Anyway, Happy New Year

emb come home

and Ulrick and I are very happy.

Down But Not Out

I took Ulrick for a walk.

On my own.

Lead to unexpected events ... like me falling on my face

Being pulled onto my face to be more accurate, I'll set the scene.

lady, dog, stick ... a stick which Ulrick wanted to play with. they were in front of us as such didn't know we were there.

Stick was thrown, Ulrick went off to get that stick, leaving me lying on my face.

ow, doubel ow, oh so ow.

Got him back, shouted at him, was so not happy, hurt myself, not just my pride.

little bugger ...

Collar problems

I had to take lady’s collar off today, it was pressing on the tumour, so she was having trouble breathing. Not good, but she seems a lot better now. She’s still having trouble breathing but it’s not so bad. Have to say that it’s not looking good though.

Having said that, she was given 4 weeks to live in April, so she’s doing ok. We just got to see how it goes

new side effect alert! (continued)

Stomach ache & anxiety (manifesting as a nightmare from which I wake up screaming)

there's lovely

When emb came to see what was wrong Ulrick had his front paws on the step but his back on the floor. He's not allowed upstairs you see, he came up with the emb. There is nothing better a scarring away monsters than a husband and a very big dog

Day 20 - same as CBB

W.ii splat

Ow, now that hurts – boxing has broken me

The plan this morning was to stay in bed late, only Ulrick started whining at about 07.00 which woke me up, thought he was playing up but went down to check anyway, he’d managed to shut the door between him and the rest of the house, as such was trapped away from everyone else. He has abandonment issues, but on opened the door; all was well with the world again.

As I was up I fed them from their new bowls, “gifts to the granddogs”.

Let sleeping dogs lie

Dogs woke me up with barking at 07.15; think there was a vicious squirrel or something. Anyway, it took me a few seconds to remember the emb was away, so I got up, checked we weren’t being invaded by anything obvious. (they were barking at the roof of Camelot) then having checked the safety of the house I fed them both, & the chickens (cold!), I’m back in bed now, before 08.00 & the bed’s still warm, bonus!

Adwyth epa bachgen i mewn Borth

EMB’s gone away for a bit, for some space & sleep, he just called, in a gone midnight “I love you” kind of way.

He arrived at 22.00; it’s now 00:30.

So far he’s had to much to drink, gone to a lock in, had fun with a harlequin(!) great dane bitch & arranged a play date for Ulrick. Now those would be puppies worth seeing.

Anyway, now going home to a bacon and egg sandwich, which was prepared earlier.

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Ulrick watching me at the computer

sorry mammy - so what does it say?

Check Up

I seem to be a little fixated on my dogs, so here is another post on them, well him to be precise.

He had his first annual check up with the vet today, which was nice. He’s in near perfect health. His lungs, hips and teeth are good and he’s in the middle of the recommended weight range, but now to the purpose of the post, his weight

Which is: 45 kg = 99 lb = 7 st 1 lb = 1 heavy dog!

First Day at School

Not quite school, more training, dog training in fact. EMB and I took Ulrick to a training class. He was so excited! To be technically correct it’s the second class he’s been to, but the first one they were mean to Ulrick, not letting him join in. It was a GSD class and they called him a devil dog (which to be fair is a name sometime applied to Akitas), after which he was home schooled for a while, EMB was quite upset by the whole thing to be honest.

Anyway they let him join in; although they did spray him with water when he started to bark (normal for training) he did enjoy it, licking the hand of the lady who sprayed him. There was also the most barking I’ve ever heard from him, which was a lot. He only went seriously off track once, when he was let off the lead, he ran towards EMB, and then veered towards everyone else, & their dogs. Sniffed some bottoms and then EMB got him back.

Made me anxious but we ended up ok. Going back in the New Year, paid up front. It’s something to make a Sunday afternoon.

Insurance

We just got the years insurance premium request for the dogs, which we’ve now paid £665.99, the retail number of the beast (apologies Mr Fry). This is, I grant you, a lot of money. But we’ve already had £2k worth of treatment for lady, and this means that what ever happens, and I’ve heard a lot of horror stories, involving rat poison and cars to name but two.

Sorry, digressed, what ever happens we will never have to say we can’t afford treatment. We may choose not to take treatment, as with lady and chemo, but we’ll have the option. Which is, if not nice, at least reassuring.

lazy sunday afternoon

It's Sunday, I'm sleepy.

M&D came round earlier, they brought cakes and dog treats, for the grand-dogs. M showed her new (Billy) bag (www.billybag.com) (see your very own direct mention) & we talked about Christmas, both gifts and logistics. Also showed them the new home for my wittering. It is quite strange to hear someone read out words you've written but only ever seen on a screen.

which leads on to a digression - long time ago, my sib's and I were talking around the film "Fahrenheit 451". Premise being that book are illegal and the printed word is baned, as such you have an evil totalitarian regime controlling all. Anyway trying to explain this to Fuego, who had never seen the film, to him there was no link between the printed word (ink on paper) and the control of information, all hail the interweb.

time for a nap!

miracles do happen

So here we are, a little while later, have eaten far to much chocolate, however I should now stop, because:

a) its very bad for me,
b) it has no powers of reincarnation & its not going to bring them back,
c) the diet is working &
d) its chocolate, not love!

So on to happier news, as you may know, lady had cancer, nasty, aggressive dead in 3 months cancer, she had it when we got her from the dogs home. However the dogs home had given her a clean bill of health, which was worrying when you realize that she had a tumour the size of a golf ball in her mouth.

In a way it worked out as when we got them we got them both fully insured, I could honestly say they had no outstanding medical conditions which I know about. The reasoning being the insurance being we never wanted to have to say that, if they needed treatment, we couldn't afford it. Which was a good thing, as we paid £600 for the pair & lady has wiped that out on her own in just 6 months! (never mind when Ulrick found broken glass on Christmas eve.)
As part of her treatment she was referred down south to an animal hospital which was better equipped than any NHS hospital Ive ever heard of, had its own MRI for goodness sake. Having done biopsy & other such things we told she had two types of cancer. Unfortunately they could only treat one type. (pause while you laugh at the image of a dog after chemotherapy, you're allowed) . So, after discussion with the uk expert on small animal cancer, we decided not to have treatment.

I know you're waiting for happier news, stay with me, nearly there. She went to the vet the other day, he was a little shocked he pronounced that he was confused. He checked his notes, he'd done a biopsy, he had all the test results and then looked at her again.
Here's the happier news, the cancer in her mouth has gone, the vet said it was a miracle, the actual vet! There is no trace, not even a scar, it's probablyonly temporary but still cool. Vet says hes going to write a paper ! Happy time now!

why I hate hot weather

Not written for a while, not been to happy, we had a couple of tragedies, not end of the world, just ends. Do you remember the day it was really, really hot? It'd been hot for a while but then there was one really hot day?

We have an ant nest in out dining room, which is a glorified junk room & corridor. Its next to the kitchen any way, EMB went out for the day to somewhere with no mobile signal. Maybe 30 min after he'd left the ants, who had been dormant since last year decided to swarm. I hate flying bug type things, really hate, bees, wasps & flying ants, which were now making there way across the kitchen! Did I mention EMB had gone out?

So I sent the dogs out the back shut the door, checked the fish tank was all shut up & laid down ant powder. Did I mention I hated ants? So then I realised the powder was making me dizzy & a fit & poison is never good. (ask DuLa about rat poison, lockers & river island). So I opened the back door, lady tried to come in & I sent her away. At which point tom went out to sit with them on the new swing seat. I forget, did I tell you about the swing seat? It was toms birthday present . Any way then I started to Hoover them up, the ants, not the dogs.
Brushing them together, I was kind of fixated on this when movement caught my eye, I looked up & saw Ulrick licking up a combination of dog fur, flying ants & most worrying ant poison! I shouted at him & as I did I heard the voice of my mother shouting down the years. I think its the sound you make when some one who's your responsibility does something which could really course them harm. He ran in to the garden, frightened & whining, & then hid. Not an experience I'd want to repeat.

That was Saturday, were now on Sunday, Janet in my friend & lady of Camelot, she'd gone to a civil ceremony -ing on the weekend, she made the cake, it had sugar flowers which she made also, including pansies. I had no idea about such things but she still asked my opinion, how many time can I say yes, add more glitter! I was much fun!
Anyway Janet got back & there was lots of (vegetarian) food left, mainly cake to be honest. Any way, I digress, I tipped the cake out into the coop & 7 chickens can running, they love cake! They love food in general, if you've never seen chickens eat grapes it is a sight to see!
Any way as you probably noticed 7 chicken, not 8, so I thought that was unusual & checked the nest box. Chickens who are laying or broody will prioritise that over all else. So I checked the nest box & discovered a dead chicken, heat exhaustion. Looks like shed gone in to lay and it just got to hot, poor girl. That was not a nice thing to discover. EMB sorted it out, I didn't want to go see them for a little while, I'm over that now though, well mainly.

Moving on to Tuesday morning, it had been a very warm night I got up, fed the dogs & noticed there had been some kind of strange algae bloom in the tank. Thought that was strange, and opened the lid to feed them, they were two dead fish floating on the surface, we had 3 fish, so I put some feed in, & cleared the filter. Fed the chicken & told EMB, not sure what else to do. EMB called me at work, told me they had all gone. That was very sad. We now have an empty tank.

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Tank (Empty)