A day in the lives

Bell's going to ring Hear the alarms

2011-09-24T19:06:00.004+01:00

They tell us that the economy's in a state, that jobs are at risk and that we should all do all we can to help avoid a double-dip recession. That's all well and good, but what can you do when tradesmen can't be bothered to accept a large job?

Our house needs rewiring; that's quite a big job, and will earn an electrician several thousand pounds, so you'd think people would be keen to take it on. We're always told to get at least three quotes, so we asked our friends for recommendations and also looked in the phone book. We generally prefer to use local independent businesses rather than franchises, and five out of the six companies I called were just that.

We were very surprised that three of them never returned my calls (I rang several times over the course of a month in case they were on holiday), and of the three that came to survey the job only one has submitted an estimate, despite the other two both saying they'd "put it in the post on Monday" when we chased them after waiting a week to hear from them. The only one who seems to want the work is the electrician from the franchise, so the job's his.

The electricians who lied to us and wasted our time are N.J.P. Electrics and M.G.F. Electrical. Don't offer them work - they're not interested.

You've got to pick a pocket or two

2011-08-14T18:48:00.004+01:00

Poor old Piggy; what a thing to happen to a gentleman of mature years! We opted for the surgery, and it was done on Monday. We were terribly anxious, especially as the blood tests showed that his liver isn't functioning quite right, but as his kidney function was normal (very good in a dog his age) we went for it. He was, not unnaturally, rather sorry for himself that evening when he was home (his expression reminded us of the Skecksis from the Dark Crystal) but luckily seems to be making a good recovery. He looks very strange from behind, because he used to be quite a well-endowed fellow, and now is rather ... flappy. But that should improve with time. I hope.

Son, you are a bachelor boy

2011-07-25T14:47:00.005+01:00

The son in this instance is Piglet, about whom we have to make a decision. Daisy, you see, is a little girl who will, in a few months time, become a Big Girl in an interesting condition, which will make having the two of them in the same house one of the visions of hell. There is absolutely no way that Piggy can be allowed to gain his manhood, but I have little doubt he'll disagree and will work himself into a terrible state of stress which would be very bad for him at his time of life.

We've been running through the options:

1. Piglet could be boarded somewhere for those few weeks. The disadvantages of this are that I wouldn't trust just anyone enough to look after him properly; Piglet's tricky at the best of times and being away with strangers ... I don't think so. He's never been in kennels - I don't think it'd be fair. Boy might be able to have him at his place - he's the only person I'd trust.

2. Daisy goes away - I know from experience how careful you need to be with in-season bitches; not many people do. Kennelling would be out of the question for her - the trauma to the other dogs there of such a tantalising aroma adding to the usual kennel stress would be very unkind.

3. One of two options for Piglet; chemical or surgical castration. The surgical option is the most certain, but at nearly 12 he's not a good anaesthetic risk although he's very fit and it's not a long operation. It would, after a few weeks, guarantee that he wouldn't be able to sire pups, although the desire and ability to try aren't always lost.

The chemical option - an implant called Suprelorin - is supposed to be good; I've had both good and bad reports of it. It takes between 3 and 6 weeks to take effect and lasts about 5 or 6 months before fertility starts to return. Again the desire isn't always lost.

I'm dithering about what would be best longterm. We can't possibly have puppies; just keeping them apart will be a nightmare of noise and stress; but I don't want to risk Piglet's health. We've got about a month to decide.

Another pleasant valley Sunday

2011-07-24T22:07:00.006+01:00

Daisy had a really good day today, despite starting it at 5.30 which had this result by 9 o'clock ...

She still hasn't overcome her carsickness, so we're trying to do short journeys which end in something fun, so that the car begins to be associated with Good Things. She's stopped the desperate salivation at the mere sight of the car keys, so that's an improvement.

Today the weather was gorgeous so we decided to indulge ourselves; a ploughman's, with a well-kept pint, in a pub garden sounded ideal. The dogs were loaded in the car and off we went to Wroxton, a chocolate-box village near Banbury. When we arrived (before she'd been sick, hurrah!) we reckoned a walk in the fresh air would cheer her up - luckily we know the footpaths (to several geocaches!) fairly well, and both dogs enjoyed running through the long grass and flowering Ladies Bedstraw, stretching their legs after the albeit short car journey. We met a couple walking their dog who was only 8 months old, and she and Daisy had a wonderful game whilst Piglet looked on, doing the canine equivalent of rolling his eyes and sighing heavily.

By this time the pub (the North Arms) was calling us

and we made our way to the only empty table in the beer garden. Now, normally when we go anywhere with the dogs it's to the accompaniment of children's voices crying "Ooh, dalmatian, a dalmatian, look, a dalmatian!" sounding very like a flock of seagulls. Which is why were surprised to hear a child say "Oh no, I don't like dogs". Tough luck, we thought - they're on the lead, behaving perfectly - shut up and deal with it. The child's mother, on the next table, told us he was afraid of dogs. "Oh dear, that's a shame" I said, smiling at the brat, saying "Don't worry, we won't let them off the lead so you'll be perfectly all right." And he was - it was his mother who was teaching him her fear; the child was actually quite interested in them, asking all sorts of questions ("Do you know how many spots they've got?" "If she's 4 months old, how old is that for a person?" and so forth). I hope we helped him override his mother's influence even a little bit.

By the time our food was ready (the ham took a while because it had only just been cooked and had to cool down slightly) another table, with an umbrella against the hot sun, had become available so we took our quiet, calm dogs and moved away from the noisy disruptive children to enjoy our lunch in peace.

By this time Daisy was quite tired and full of the lunch I'd brought for her, so was on a charm offensive, gently kissing everyone who wanted to say hello to her, and offering them a paw, and won everyone over. Poor Piggy didn't get much of a look in; nobody notices the elderly gent when there's a pretty little girl around.

She wasn't sick on the homeward journey either, so the good experiences of the outing (a fun walk in an exciting new place but with Piggy for security, playing a proper game with another puppy, watching children and learning they're not Dangerous, making friends with Strangers - all of enormous benefit when learning about Life.

Let's watch the flowers grow

2011-07-23T19:14:00.008+01:00

"The stately Lady-Hollyhock
Has graced my garden-bed for years,
Sedately stiffened in a frock
All frills and ruffles to her ears."
— Sarah J. Day

Several times in the past I've tried to grow hollyhocks; they're high among my favourite cottage garden flowers, tall and stately and beautiful colours. But every time I've failed; they've either been eaten by slugs, or hit by frost before they were established, or didn't like the soil or succumbed to rust. However because they flourish in the village, even growing in cracks in the pavement, i knew the soil suited them, so two years ago we collected seed from the feral plants and sowed them. They dutifully germinated, were hardened off and planted out last year when we'd finished the new fence.

And they survived! They were sprayed against rust every so often but otherwise pretty much let alone. They coped with the harsh December with its sub-zero temperatures for weeks on end, and valiantly flourished in the warm spring. One even reached a height of at least eight feet.

Because they were random seeds we had no idea what colours they'd be; among the parent plants were yellows, whites, reds and many shades of pink; and of course being hybrids they could turn out any colour, which made planning the colour scheme a real gamble. But it paid off. The four plants made a very pleasing row of dark red, cerise, salmon pink and pink blush in order of density of hue.

The front garden's only tiny but I can't tell you how much pleasure the success of the hollyhocks has given me.

Give me your answer, do

2011-07-16T19:14:00.004+01:00

She's growing up.

Daisy, 4 weeks

Daisy, 6 weeks

Daisy, 12 weeks

Daisy, 15 weeks

She wouldn't have a Willy or a Sam

2011-06-19T22:35:00.004+01:00

No pictures - I had enough to cope with, doing a journey of more than five hundred yards with a car-sick puppy to worry about a camera - but today was a satisfactorily complete day, although nothing went entirely to plan, which in itself made it just right.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the departure from this stage of existence of our friend henry, so a few of us decided to make an Expedition to his first ever geocache and visit the spot nearby where his ashes are buried. For us this involved taking a car-sick puppy on a long car journey, followed by a long walk (when she's only been allowed outside the garden for 2 days, and is limited to 15-minute walks). We delayed our departure till three hours after her breakfast, so that she got some of the benefit of it, and fair play to hre she lasted for an hour before she threw up the first time. By the time we eventually arrived at the meeting-point (Nelly, you did say meet at Tanner's Lane, I've triple-checked) she'd bee sick a few more times and was feeling very sorry for herself. So was I.

Once we'd located each other with the echoes of "Why does nothing ever fuc 'scuse me, doorbell" ringing in our ears, finding the cache went smoothly ... until we realised that the bottle of cider (of which more anon) had succumbed to the law of gravity and emptied itself downhill ... (Why does nothing etc).

Then we set about locating henry's resting place to plant a replacement tree for him, the original one having failed to thrive. For an hour we searched, first with muttered curses which gradually became more audible as the frustration levels grew. We rang his sister to double-check the location - yes, we were in the right place - and the search continued. By this time I was sitting on the ground ("Am I sitting on him?") and finally called out "Come on henry, where are you?". No more than 20 seconds later Andy cried "Victory!!" a mere four feet from where we'd been standing around for ages. If only we'd asked him sooner where he was! I bet he was chortling at us! The cider? The last few drops were sprinkled onto the tree as a libation, sending our good wishes to our friend.

I didn't know what day it was

2011-06-08T18:51:00.006+01:00

May 15th

Heathrow Terminal 5 is a disaster. Despite being built only recently it's shabby, dated and user-unfriendly. It was obviously designed by someone who flies a lot and so knows the ropes, and who is wealthy or well-connected enough not to have to fly cattle-class. They really should have tested it out on guinea-pigs like us who haven't a clue - and we weren't the only ones getting confused.

1. Why on earth would you have direction signs for Baggage Reclaim (which you're not allowed to go to before being dealt with by immigration) before you get to the signs for Immigration?

2. Why on earth aren't the signs for UK/EU passports and Other passports clearly differentiated?

3. Why don't the new biometric passport-recognition machines, designed to save time, work? (To be fair, passport photos are bad enough, but after a 10-hour night flight you look even worse than your picture.)

4. Why, once you've negotiated Immigration (1 person manning two desks, with two people on another, isn't efficient) and make your way to Baggage Reclaim (the directions for which are harder to find now that you need them) is there no large, clear sign as soon as you enter the huge hall as to which carousel your luggage should be deposited on?

After the comfort, cleanliness and efficiency of Vancouver airport, this is an embarrassment.

Trains and boats and planes

2011-06-05T12:39:00.016+01:00

May 14th; Day 15

Our last day in Canada; this is a lovely place and we're rather sorry to be going home. We checked out after breakfast, leaving our luggage at the hotel to collect later because our flight isn't till this evening. We took the car to fill it up (Ned cleverly guessed very accurately how much petrol we needed) and returned it to the hire company. Delivering it took more time than anticipated because four enormous cruise ships had docked in the same area and were disgorging 19,000 passengers into the city. Thankfully there were plenty of traffic controllers managing the umpteen cars, coaches and taxis.

That done, the rest of the day was our own. It was a bit showery so we strolled through the shops. The Granville Street/Canada Place area is similar to Regents Street/Oxford Street in London; lovely stuff but we could only afford to window-shop, and then only if we didn't stop for long. We were delighted to find the Hudson's Bay Company shop still has an area, albeit small, where they have their famous blankets ($350!!) and canoes. Ned took some convincing that we wouldn't be able to take one as hand luggage.

There was a very extravagantly-decorated VW beetle parked at the side of the road;

obviously the owner is a Canucks (Vancouver Ice-hockey team) supporter. To be fair, though, I think it's compulsory. The Stanley Cup is on (it seems to be on a par with the FA Cup) and every bar has a TV showing ice-hockey.

By lunchtime the sun had come out again and after indulging in a Starbucks we spent a very pleasant hour sitting on a bench in the sun at English Bay, soaking up the sun and listening to the waves on the sand.

On our way back to collect our luggage to head to the airport we stopped at the weird, creepy set of statues on the corner. I don't know what they're supposed to be about but I think they're horrid!

We were slightly puzzled to discover that the Skytrain (an excellent underground/overground rail system, spotlessly clean, and totally automated so there's no driver. The unions here would never allow it) tickets are $7.50 from the airport to the city, but only $2.50 from the city to the airport.

Things we've learned about Canada:

1. The natives are friendly

2. The drivers are courteous; they give way to pedestrians, obey the speed limit and hardly ever use their horns

3. The light switches are upside down

4. People are capable of either using litter bins or taking their litter home for disposal

5. There are lots of TV channels but not much worth watching (unless you like ice hockey. Needs must, and we got quite keen)

6. Recycling and 'green' concerns are very high on the agenda; even TV adverts stress the eco-friendliness of the products

7. The buses have cycle racks on the front

8. We like it and want to come back

I would walk 500 miles

2011-06-04T18:01:00.012+01:00

May 13th: Day 14

Friday the Thirteenth. We had a disturbed night last night; at 4.30 am the phone rang in the room next door. And rang and rang. And rang some more then stopped. Then it rang again a few times then stopped. Then it did it again. Then someone started knocking on their door. Honestly, if you've arranged an alarm call the least you could do is acknowledge it.

As it was another beautiful day we drove over the Lions Gate Bridge again to North Vancouver and after visiting a Wal-Mart (just to see what it was like; yes, it's Asda) we went to Lynn Canyon. Many people have heard of the Capilano suspension bridge, but there's another one here which has far fewer visitors. It's slightly smaller, but still wobbly enough to give me the heebie-jeebies!

This is a beautiful place with lovely trails along the river which gushes through a gorge and over rocks.

We thought about dropping off the hire car on our way back but had quite a lot to carry so went back to the hotel to unload. We strolled to a little shop around the corner that was advertising 'Bubble tea', which we'd heard about years ago and were intrigued to try. It's very strange; imagine iced milky tea with large purple tapioca 'bubbles'. You have to suck really hard and then the tapioca bubbles suddenly shoot up the straw and nearly choke you. Interesting, but not something I'd choose to repeat.

Then for some reason we chose to carry on our stroll to find out where we should drop the car off; behind the commercial streets there are lovely residential areas, so it made a pleasant walk. We found out where the car needed to be left, and located a garage to fill it up (another challenge; in BC the law is that you pay for your petrol before it's been dispensed, so when you don't know how big your tank is but it needs to be completely filled you have to be good at guessing). Then of course we had to walk back to pick the car up again. That was too much for me - I'm surprised my feet weren't bleeding. We'll drop it off tomorrow.

I walk the line

2011-06-03T20:13:00.011+01:00

12th May: Day 13

Today the weather was beautiful again - it certainly isn't boring and predictable! - so we decided to drive inland to Harrison Hot Springs up the Fraser River, both to see a bit of more rural Canada and hopefully visit some of the places that RWH would have known. We only got lost once finding our way out of Vancouver (although we thought we must have got lost when driving through the town of Langley when, instead of the main Highway 1A that we were on - and was a straight road with no turnings - we were in a narrow shopping street. But no, it was still the main road. Bizarre.) Once at Harrison we enjoyed a wander around (failing to find a couple of caches) and visiting the hot spring itself. And yes, that water is really hot - the sign said it's 140ºF coming out of the ground.

All around the edge of the public pool, which says it's fed with water piped from the hot spring but it seemed to be low tide for our visit, there are memorial benches placed so that people can sit and enjoy the view over the lake.

Only two of the people remembered on the plaques were older than us. How depressing.

On the return journey we made a slight detour to a place called Sumas, right on the Canada/US border. RWH wrote a letter home from here on 5th May 1859, so we nearly got the date right for the anniversary. I can't tell you how thrilled I was to be able to get to 'Boundary Road' and take a photo to show that the cleared border line is still maintained. It seems to be colder in America than in Canada, judging by the snow!

We didn't have time to visit Fort Langley - a settlement that RWH knew well and which has been reconstructed on the original foundations; that'll have to wait till next time.

Tonight we went round the corner to eat at the Banana Leaf on Denman Street, a Malayan restaurant. You don't make reservations; when you arrive you write your name and number in your party on a blackboard by the door, and when a suitable table becomes available it's your turn. An odd system but it seems to work well; and the food was lovely. Thoroughly recommended.

When you're on the street

2011-06-01T10:06:00.009+01:00

11th May: Day 12

A damp, drizzly day to say goodbye to Vancouver Island and return to the mainland. It was a very calm crossing and the short drive from the ferry terminal over the Lions Gate bridge (gosh, that's high!) into Stanley Park and back to our hotel (the same one as at the beginning of the holiday) was wet but uneventful. It's funny; when we were here last week the hotel seemed quite swish. Now in comparison with some of the others (the last one in particular) it seems almost ordinary - although it's still very comfortable!

After checking in we went for another explore, despite the rain, this time taking the little ferry (very like the ones we saw in Victoria) over to Granville Island, watching cormorants fishing for weed then flying up to build their nests beneath the road bridge high above the river. This odd little place is home to a great number of art galleries and up-market craft-type shops.

We saw lots of wonderful stuff, but you need to be rich! It's very much an outlet for quality artisan products, not tat.

Then rather than take the ferry back we managed to find our way through a housing area (stopping to read the notice warning about the presence of coyotes!) to the steps up to the road bridge - gosh, that's another high one - back over the river to the main part of the city.

Some people might say my life's in a rut

2011-05-31T10:59:00.011+01:00

May 10th; Day 11

It was cooler today, our last full day on the Island and we decided to go and visit the local(ish) caves at Horne Lake. We were told that we needed to leave the Highway at Exit 75, and as we got on at Exit 60 we were prepared for a long drive. However it turned out to be the next junction; it was only at this point we realised that the exits are numbered according to how many kilometres they are from the start. This must be a cause for great confusion for Canadians visiting the UK!

The cave tour was great! There was only Ned and me and the two guides, Miles (from Alberta) and Sean (or Wayne - why is it I always get those names muddled?) from Australia. When they came out to meet us you could see their spirits sinking at the prospect of taking a middle-aged couple who'd probably be real drips. They soon changed their minds when, on the steep hike up to the cave entrance Ned and I set a brisk pace and the boys got out of breath trying to keep up; we were quietly amused.

It wasn't a cave tour like Wookey Hole, with walkways and ropes and atmospheric lighting. This involved helmets and headtorches and scrambling ("Make sure you always maintain three points of contact and don't touch the calcite"). We were very proud to uphold the honour of the Empire and didn't slip or get claustrophobic or scared in the dark!

Many of the stalagmites and stalactites are given names, some being more fanciful than others. The 'howling wolf' was okay at the right angle as was the 'bacon slices'. There was one unnamed one that reminded me very much of Nursey (from Blackadder)'s fancy-dress cow outfit.

The 'Buddha' formation (if you look carefully)

Miles and Sean/Wayne were very impressed and told us that we'd have been fine on the longer tour that involves a lot more squeezing, but I'm not sure they were right!

Something that struck us as being rather odd. They do several types of tour of the cave systems; the 'family' one that we did, the 'Wet & Wild Adventure', the 'High Adventure' and 'Extreme Rappel' and, bizarrely, night caving. Bearing in mind that it's pitch dark in the caves even in the middle of the day I really can't see the point of going at night.

And all that rat-race noise down in the street

2011-05-30T16:56:00.007+01:00

9th May: Day 10

Another beautiful day, so after breakfast (everything is so 'healthy' here - everything is multigrain this, organic that) we decided to walk a short local trail to stretch our legs after yesterday's drive. It was only about 5k through the woods and along 'Englishman's River' - naturally getting a few caches along the way!

Looking out for bears

Later on we got back into the car and drove a short way to the village of Coombs where in summer one of the attractions is

Unfortunately it's a bit too early in the season for them to have been put up there, but we saw them in the field behind.

So we had lunch instead. We shared a bun called a 'beesting' which, being full of cream and covered in toffee, restored our junkfood levels back to normal.

The store is wonderful and a proper little tourist-trap; it sells local groceries, speciality foods (it has a stand of English goods), quality toys and non-tat souvenirs. In the adjoining courtyard there are other small arts-and-crafts type shops; really nice to look around. The temperature was up to 17°C - practically scorchio!

On the road again

2011-05-30T16:12:00.009+01:00

8th May: Day 9

Today we left Tofino in brilliant sunshine to drive back the way we came to Parksville for a three-night stay. The sky was a clear blue and the sunshine was bright, which made the drive very pleasant. The road that had appeared to be downhill all the way didn't seem to be particularly uphill on the return - it seems hard to believe it was an optical illusion,but either that or this little car has a much more powerful engine than we thought. It was a shame that we had a few cars behind us so we couldn't stop and take photos, especially when Ned suddenly shouted "Bear!!". There it was, just on the other side of the concrete barrier at the side of the road. As the road is single carriageway, stopping to take a picture probably wasn't a good idea! But we were thrilled to have seen a real live wild black bear.

When we drove through the snowy area we did stop to take pictures:

but the snow was very crystalline and a bit rubbish for snowballs which is why the one I threw at Ned fell apart in mid-air.

Then we saw some poo on the snow; being in the middle of nowhere it was unlikely to be dog poo, but it definitely looked like carnivore poo. We got back into the car.

We found the Tigh-na-Mara hotel without a problem; our room here is amazing! There are a lot of little log cabins in the grounds, but we have a 'suite' on the top of a three-storey log cabin block.

(It only looks two-story but it's on a slope and the ground floor is lower than ground level, if you see what I mean.)
We have a sitting-room with a log-effect gas fire, a fully-fitted kitchen as well as a beautiful bedroom.

And a terrific view from the balcony.

Canadian TV is strange; there's no discernible moment when an advert break begins or ends, and with some programmes that can lead to great confusion!

He bravely turned his tail and fled

2011-05-29T15:58:00.014+01:00

7th May: Day 8

The weather being rather better today we decided to explore a bit of the Pacific Rim National Park. The coastline is wonderfully rugged and unspoilt, and has marvellous long sandy beaches with trees coming right down to the shore.

The driftwood is rather different to what we're used to seeing ...

We were discussing how the scenery looks just like in the movies, where bears come to the shore to feed - this got us briefly edgy, but we soon put it to the back of our minds. I don't know why we were so surprised to come across this notice:

We decided that the onward path didn't look as interesting as we'd first thought, and that retracing our steps looked the much nicer option. Later that evening at dinner we were told that bears (and cougars! Nobody mentioned cougars!) quite often stroll across the grass just outside the rooms. It’d be wonderful to see one, but not meet one face to face outdoors! I'd be very nervous if we were at the campsite a couple of hundred yards away.

Later on we paddled in the Pacific - well you have to, don't you? - goodness it was cold! But quite nice once your feet and ankles had gone numb.

An Englishman Abroad

Driving back we spotted this sign. Hurrah!

One minor mishap occurred when, although teabags were provided there was no kettle, only a coffee-maker. Obviously a coffee-maker doesn't get the water nearly hot enough to make tea, and a request at reception soon resulted in a kettle being provided. Who'd have thought that Pyrex mugs wouldn't cope with boiling water? As he tea was brewing one went "pop" and neatly broke in half, pouring scalding tea over the floor. When we reported the breakage to the management we were told that using a teapot might be a good idea. We agreed - but what a shame we didn't have one!

What a beautiful spot.

Where the whale-fishes blow

2011-05-28T15:21:00.016+01:00

6th May; Day 7

This hotel, the Tin Wis (the name means 'Calm Waters', apparently) is different again from the others where we've stayed. It's mainly a two-storey building; our room is on the ground floor, with sliding doors onto a patio, from where you walk across an area of lawn to a beautiful Pacific beach.

Today was disappointingly wet, but that didn't deter us from doing one of the activities we'd been looking forward to; whale-watching.

Brrr!

There were only seven of us as paying customers on board a small vessel, and it was a good thing that Ned and I are both pretty good sailors because there was quite a lot of swell, and we would otherwise have been as miserable as the poor Japanese couple who spent the whole of the 3½ hour trip below decks enduring all the phases of seasickness known to man, and couldn't raise their heads to see anything. Ned did wonder whether they were overcome at the sight of all that food not being harpooned, but gave them the benefit of the doubt.

We up above in the fresh air were treated to a display of a group of three humpback whales blowing and banging their tail flukes on the surface, and another in the distance (too far for a photo) breaching.

It was such a thrill - the rule is that boats aren't allowed to go within a certain distance of the whales, but of course nobody's told the whales. Towards the end there were two, swimming side by side directly towards us, then they dived about 100 yards away. I was waiting for their tails to appear for an amazing picture but sadly they didn't. By crikey, it was cold! With all the excitement of actually seeing these beasts we didn't really notice the wet and the chill, but when we were returning to Tofino it really hit us, and I couldn't even put on my gloves because my hands had gone quite numb. On the way back we did a trip to see the sealions

but by then all I really wanted was a hot bath and to be able to feel my blood circulating again. Despite that we wouldn't have missed it for the world.

(And when we got back to the hotel there was an email telling me that Daisy-pup had passed her hearing test, so was ours!)

Over the hills and far away

2011-05-28T13:53:00.012+01:00

5th May: day 6

Today we left Victoria on the longest leg of the driving - about 200 miles to Tofino on on the Pacific coast. And it was the first journey where we failed to get lost! The scenery was amazing; towering pines, mountains, rushing rivers.

We stopped for a break about halfway along the route at Cathedral Grove, an area of original forest with Douglas firs and hemlocks, some of which are 800 years old.

They were fantastic; and many of the trees were covered in moss, looking as though they were furry. Fir trees looking like fur trees!

The second half of the drive seemed endless. And it was odd because we'd started at sea level in Victoria and didn't seem to climb particularly high, but on this leg we seemed to be travelling downhill all the way, even after passing a lake which, according to the map, was tidal.

Still we descended. This poor little car (a Kia Soul) will struggle on the way back because then of course it'll be uphill all the way! At least it's not a busy road.

We were surprised to drive through an area where there was still snow on the ground.

We'd heard it's been an appalling spring out here but didn't realise it was this bad.

Viva Victoria

2011-05-27T19:24:00.011+01:00

4th May: Day 5

The fire fairies have struck again; a building under construction in Richmond which we drove past when we were lost burnt down during the night ...

Our full day in Victoria was partly spent in the company of an internet contact who I met through a mutual interest in the early history of British Columbia; my great-great-grandfather was responsible for mapping the border between the US and Canada along the 49th Parallel - using astronomical instruments to decide exactly where the twenty-foot wide strip of forest should be felled to mark to boundary - all the way from the coast into the Rockies, in a dead straight line to the border with Alberta. This was one of the reasons why I wanted to visit the area. Anyway, this chap Simon is extremely knowledgeable about the period and very kindly drove us around to see various places my ancestor would have known. This small marker is the remaining one of three which were the starting point for the triangulation.

He was also very handy for giving us the correct pronunciation of the place-names in the area, which I only knew from my ancestor's letters. I'd always assumed that Esquimault was pronounced Eskimo, but instead it's Esk-why-malt. (In the 1860s this was a particularly insalubrious area, mainly populated by "Indian prostitutes and fornicating sailors". Luckily it's improved since then!) He also runs a very popular (judging by the length of the queue) fish bar on the harbour, called Red Fish Blue Fish and he treated us to excellent fish and chips.

As well as all this we splashed out (possibly the wrong turn of phrase!) on a floatplane sightseeing flight over the area, (somewhat smaller than the last plane we went on!)

as well as finishing yesterday's multicache by visiting Spinnakers brewpub then enjoying a very pleasant walk back into town for dinner, watching the funny little bumble-bee ferries buzzing from side to side of the harbour.

Hit the road, Jack

2011-05-26T21:14:00.012+01:00

May 3rd: Day 4

The weather's got its act together and is fine again. This has come as a great relief because today we picked up the hire car from downtown and gingerly drove back to the hotel to collect our luggage. We had a straightforward drive to the ferry port at Tsawwassen, if you discount getting lost in Richmond. The road signs aren't all as clear or as obvious as they could be to strangers. The road use, once you've come to terms with being on the wrong side of the road, is slightly different too. When the traffic lights are red and you want to turn right (so not crossing the carriageway) you can ignore the red light. However pedestrians will have been given the signal to cross, and you must give way to them. Luckily the speed limits are low so you don't feel hassled - and the other drivers are remarkably courteous - horns are hardly ever used.

Another slight hiccup was that the ferry company had never seen a travel voucher like ours, but after a phonecall to colleagues all was well (managed very efficiently and in a friendly manner). Phew! We're starting to feel like guineapigs for this tour company. They really haven't got their act together.

We reached the hotel in Victoria relatively painlessly; our room is on the 16th (or 15th when you take into account the missing 13th) floor and has a fine view over the southern part of the city.

The coffee-making facilities have improved and include a cooker, microwave and fridge!

We decided to make the most of the fine day and braved the chilly breeze to have a look around.

The Parliament building

Another hotel

We made a start on a multicache (geocaching is an excellent way of touring an area you don't know) but involved visiting brewpubs for clues (Swans and Canoe), and it would have been rude not to sample their wares (and get treated to free tasters of various unusual gins); we decided to complete the cache tomorrow!

We had dinner at The Wharfside which is supposed to do the best seafood in town. It was good, but not great.

What we find really annoying is the way purchase tax isn't included in the display price of goods. You budget for the advertised price and find the final bill comes as quite a shock. Thank goodness we don't do it that way.

The trees they do grow high

2011-05-26T20:36:00.008+01:00

May 2nd: Day 3

Fire seems to be following us around; we were woken at about 6am by sirens which we later learned (watching the news in bed - how decadent!) was an old house about 4 blocks away burning down; I don't think anyone was inside. The weather today was on the side of the firefighters - a steady light rain.

We spent the day walking round Stanley Park geocaching. When we'd seen Stanley Park on the map we imagined something similar to Hyde Park but with more trees. In fact it is surprisingly hilly and the forest astonishing. Some of the trees are massive; here I give a sense of scale.

It's a shame that the tallest have been topped at something over 100'; goodness knows how tall they want to be. Old trees have been felled leaving stumps about 8' high; leaf litter forms on the tops of the stumps and new trees seed themselves into this and eventually their roots eat away the remains of the stump leaving a new tree growing independently but with its roots starting way up above the ground.

To take a bit of shelter from the rain we visited Vancouver Aquarium where they have everything from jellyfish

and treefrogs

and an injured porpoise (who seemed to be as curious about us as we were about her)

and rather tragic beluga whales.

We found eight caches, failed to find two, and must have walked about 10 miles - I wonder how stiff our legs will be tomorrow! We also saw two black squirrels and a very pretty bird which behaved very like a blackbird. I later found out it was a North American robin, which is indeed in the blackbird family.

Finally, with the help of Eddy Chau at the hotel reception, we've sorted out the cock-up by either the travel agent or, as I suspect, the tour company, and we now have our vouchers to show we've paid for the hotels and ferries for the remaining part of the holiday, which we'd been told would be waiting for us in Vancouver - and they weren't. I feel a strongly-worded letter of complaint will be written in due course - we could have done without the stress.

Holiday, celebrate

2011-05-26T20:11:00.006+01:00

April 30th 2011: Day 1
Pack, unpack, repack, dither, worry. What are we going to need? What needs to go in which bag? Checked in online (a good innovation since we last flew), said goodbye to Boy and Piggy and drove to the hotel near Heathrow to avoid a mad rush down the motorway in the morning. Set the new travel alarm for a suitable hour and went to sleep, to be woken suddenly quite soon after by a loud bleeping. After beating the alarm clock hard and failing to stop the noise we realised the noise was actually the hotel fire alarm. We fell out of bed in a daze, threw on some clothes and emerged onto the landing along with the occupants of neighbouring rooms. At this point the alarm stopped, so we had a brief discussion ("Can you smell smoke? I can't smell smoke.") and all turned round and went back to bed.

May 1st: Day 2
Found a polite letter pushed under our door thanking us for our co-operation during the evacuation of the hotel last night. Oops.

Caught the shuttle bus to the airport. What a confusing place that is. The signage is pretty unhelpful, sending you up 4 floors, then down 3, then up then down again until you've completely lost your bearings. There seems to be so much 'Hurry up and wait'; queuing up for one procedure then walking substantial distances just to join another queue. We had to remove our boots to go through security, then had to sit and wait again, only to be herded like sheep (quietly bleating "baa, baa" as if at Cropredy) through the next section, with the voice over the airport tannoy reminiscent of Logan's Run.

The inflight movie system has improved since I last did a long-haul flight (in 1976!). Back then there were large screens at the front of each section of the aircraft with the sound coming through individual headphones. If you were unlucky (as I was) your seat position sometimes meant that you couldn't comfortably watch the screen in your section and had to watch the one in front - which wasn't quite in sync with your screen, making watching the film more of a trial than a pleasure. Now everyone has individual screens in the back of the seat in front with a wide choice of viewing options. I watched The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (very enjoyable) and The King's Speech (very well acted) as well as an episode of Upstairs Downstairs and listened to a Moody Blues album whilst dozing. (It was a long flight!) The view from the window was amazing; we had clear skies almost all the way - I wondered what on earth I could see below us, then realised it was the shadow of the plane and the vapour trail on the sea

and what we thought was the tops of clouds turned out to be the snow in Greenland.

Vancouver airport is very civilised and well organised, with helpful staff at the information desk who could tell us where to catch the train and bus we needed to reach our hotel. The girl would have been right except for the fact that there had been a marathon through the city that morning and the buses had been re-routed. We learned this from a very considerate political canvasser who took pity on us after we'd been standing at the bus stop for 15 minutes. So we decided to stretch our legs properly after sitting for so long and walked to the hotel; luckily it wasn't too far and all in a straight line so we couldn't get lost, and even in that short distance we passed five Starbucks in case we were in need of an emergency coffee.

After checking into the hotel we took another little stroll along English Bay, enjoying the sunshine

despite it being late at night as far as we were concerned. It's a very pretty area, and we were fascinated by the lengths people go to with their roof gardens:

I wonder how they've ensured its stability during high winds.

Cos you look sweet

2011-05-21T18:53:00.003+01:00

Our new baby has joined the family! We collected her from Oop North this morning, and she was only sick once during the long drive home. She was understandably a little bewildered when she arrived, especially when the only vaguely familiar thing (another spotty) viewed her with horror

as if she had recently beamed down from Mars. After a few minutes with her making all the right subordinate moves he started to come around, so I'm sure it won't be many days before he's more comfortable in her presence.

She does look very small in a Big Dog's bed!

Give me your answer, do

2011-05-19T08:22:00.002+01:00

The puppy passed her hearing test and we've decided on the name Daisy. This is her at 6 weeks of age.

We collect her on Saturday! I wonder how Piglet's going to react.

I really wanna know

2011-04-25T14:17:00.006+01:00

Last time I was looking for a puppy it took ages. I spent about a year getting my name on waiting lists and visiting litters, but although all the puppies were sweet there wasn't one that said "Hello, I'm yours" to us. Then we heard of a litter where there were six dog puppies and one bitch; it was essential that the chosen pup was a bitch, so I didn't hold out great hopes for this one. Still, nothing ventured and all that, so we went to see them. I scanned these seven puppies on the floor, and my eye was caught by one in particular. I bent down to pick it up - and it was the bitch. So we had her - and Clover was a very much loved member of our family.

Well, I'm not really sure how it happened - one casual email has had a rather surprising result. I expected to go through months and months of fruitless enquiries but I seem to have paid a deposit (refundable if the BAER result is unsatisfactory) on a four week old baby:

we walked into the room they were in, and all the puppies were asleep except for one, who was sitting near the door looking up at us; and this was the only available bitch, the one the breeder had suggested we might be interested in. I bent down to stroke her face and she seized my finger and started sucking on it.

All being well she comes to us at the end of May. But she needs a name ...

I know I'm not super hip and I'm liable to take a slip

2011-04-10T22:48:00.005+01:00

There I was, happily putting in extra-curricular hours designing advertising material even when the sun was shining and there were a squillion things I could be doing outside, absorbing UV rays and converting them to strong, healthy bones so that I don't crumble to dust in the next puff of wind, when I realised that I was actually concerning myself about whether 'the market' gave a tinker's cuss about the shape of the background.

You see, I realised the Evil that is Political Correctness has insinuated itself into my mind, and I was actually troubled about whether using a 6-pointed star background to advertise pet food might offend Jews or whether a 5-pointed star might might indicate witchery.

I must bleach my this contamination from my brain. It is utterly intolerable, not to say appallingly patronising, to start wondering whether random pretty shapes might prove offensive to anyone. That suggests that they don't have the intelligence to see that a shape is just that, and contains no subtle meaning behind it. If anyone's offended by a shape, get over yourself.

I never thought I'd sink so low.

Thankful for her Fine Fare discount, Tess co-operates

2011-04-04T18:50:00.002+01:00

I'm sure we all remember playing The Tesco Game until that particular promotion came to an end. But all is not lost - there's a new, updated version! Hooray!

I think it was originated by Asda, but now Tesco have stepped up to the mark with their version. It does rely on you having access to a computer, but all you have to do is enter the row of numbers at the very bottom of your till receipt, give them your email address, and wait a day or so for the reply. Their system checks the price you paid against Asda's price for the same items, and if Asda were cheaper you get double the difference.

The first two receipts I tried were failures; my shopping bill was 75p and 23p cheaper than they would have been. Third time lucky, however; I was told I'd paid £2.52 more than necessary, so I now have a lovely voucher for £5.04, carefully stapled to the original receipt to make it valid.

I'm very tempted to copy this chap who's taken this new Tesco game to a professional level. Henry would have been in his element, making a profit out of other people's litter.

Although I hoped we weren't very far away from the end

2011-04-03T17:18:00.003+01:00

A third weekend's work has seen the second and last of the variable vegetable beds (as opposed to the permanently-planted ones, with currants and raspberries) reconstructed, turf dug and relaid and even a few potatoes planted!

And done without needing to move the leeks and garlic.

The paths still need to be properly laid - there's another weekend's work there - and it'll look fab.

Cut not its earth-bound ties

2011-03-25T22:41:00.005Z

Last spring our poor bay tree was looking very much the worse for wear, but struggled manfully and pulled through. A second hard winter of substantially sub-zero temperatures delivered the coup de grâce and there's no hope, despite the saying that a tree's only dead when it's been dead for a year. When the main branches have split as badly as this

there's only one thing to do.

It had to come down. It had got some mighty roots (which we were fascinated to discover smell like sandalwood, not bay), but it eventually gave up the struggle. I've planted our pot-bound plum tree in its place; it looks rather puny but with luck it'll feel happier there and might even have proper-sized fruit.

I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away

2011-03-22T19:06:00.004Z

Last year, despite the apricot tree having several flowers, it only set one fruit (which turned out to be the most delicious apricot in the history of the world); we'd hoped for better things this year - one fruit each, perhaps, instead of having to share. It duly developed several flower buds which swelled promisingly, and in the last few days of mild weather and sunshine they started to open.

They are no more. Today they were all systematically removed by this little so-and-so:

Having stripped the tree he then spent the next seven hours of daylight battering at the window, fluttering from the top of the frame to the window-ledge at the bottom and up again, and getting into most undignified positions.

I wonder what roast bluetit tastes like.

Can you dig it

2011-03-20T17:18:00.006Z

Almost as soon as the weather becomes tolerable - and this weekend has been lovely - everyone acknowledges their guilty consciences and starts tidying the garden ready for the summer. In our case this year it's rebuilding the deep beds for the third (and final!) time. Growing vegetables in deep beds is so much easier than on a traditional open plot; because the beds are narrow enough to never be trodden on the soil doesn't become so compacted and digging it over is a much quicker task. But it's worth taking the time (and spending the money) to construct them properly from the outset.

The first bed walls we made were of plywood from machinery packing Ned had at work; it cost nothing, but despite being timber-treated they fell apart after only four or five years. So the next lot were made of proper timber boards, 1" thick. They lasted a lot longer but were too narrow to support the growing weight of soil against them and despite various quick-fix supports collapsed sideways, making it almost impossible to get between them. To be honest, it all looks a bit tatty.

So this year we've invested in boards similar to scaffolding boards to run the full length of the beds, and hopefully these will see us out.

Spare paving slabs, with weed-suppressing membrane beneath them, laid between the beds will not only help to support the sides but also mean I won't have to try to squeeze the mower up the pathways and then strim the edges; it's going to look very much tidier. I'll let the dug-over soil in the currant bed settle for a day or two, then get the gooseberry bush out of its pot and planted out properly. There's a few weekends more hard graft to go (and I need space to put my potatoes!), but at least we've made a start.

*Wonders if it's time to start the guerilla-gardening in the village.

With rings on his fingers

2011-02-26T17:54:00.006Z

Although I seem to remember it was listed as someone's Favourite Thing, I don't agree that DIY surgery should be recommended, if Ned's attempt at the artform is anything to go by.

For years he's been complaining that I must have secretly swopped his wedding ring for one a size or two smaller because he couldn't take it off (why was he trying?) but I just blamed overweight fingers. On Wednesday he finally succeeded, via the judicious use of a forklift truck. Resting your hand in a particular way whilst raising part of the vehicle causes the jewellery item to bite into the flesh of your finger before finally snapping (if you've been traditional and gone for gold, and not modern steel, which won't break before the finger's come off too), necessitating a morning spent in A&E being stitched up.

All credit to the NHS; the accident happened at about 9.30am; he was driven 10 miles to the Small Injuries Unit at Stratford hospital, where it was examined and dressed, but because they weren't sure if there was any tendon damage they sent him to the larger A&E unit at Warwick Hospital where it was examined more fully, declared sound, stitched and redressed and he was sent on his way after being issued with a course of antibiotics. He was back at work by 12.30 and all for the sum of £7.20 for the medication. Excellent service.

Broken ring

Repaired finger

If I could get hold of some gold tattoo ink and rub it onto the wound he'd be permanently branded. What a silly chap; he doesn't get away that easily.

Let's take off in the blue

2011-01-22T21:55:00.006Z

We've booked a holiday! For years and years we've both wanted to visit British Columbia and thought if we procrastinated any more we'd never get around to doing it, so we bit the bullet. We got brochures and decided what seemed most like what we wanted to do; booked it and paid the deposit. It should be great: sight-seeing in Vancouver for a couple of days then touring Vancouver Island, walking and cycling and bear watching and whale watching (which is why today we bought new hardware - being indecisive can prove very expensive - to take pictures of things that are actually there, not pictures of where they were two seconds ago) and geocaching and paddling in the Pacific and visiting the actual border which my great-great-great grandfather determined and all stuff like that.

Then BA cabin crew voted for strike action.

If they cock up our first forrin holiday for over 15 years I'll be very, very, VERY cross.

Oh, baby, you'll freeze out there

2010-12-26T13:51:00.003Z

It's up to a positively balmy -5C today.

Three wheels on my wagon

2010-12-22T18:44:00.004Z

About three weeks ago Piggy started favouring his back left leg when we were out - not limping exactly, but being slightly careful with it, so after checking for thorns in his pads, and all that sort of thing (nothing) we reduced his exercise a bit. This didn't seem to help, and after another couple of days there was a definite limp, so I gave him the standby painkillers for a few days as well as more rest. After 5 days of no improvement at all - in fact he started to go on three legs completely - we went to the vet, and he was gently manipulated to try to find out where it hurt. There was slight stiffness, but when something hurts you tend to tense and 'guard' it, so that was only to be expected. As the usual painkillers weren't affecting it we started him on something else, and dramatically cut his exercise - on-lead toilet breaks only.

A week later he was no better - in fact he'd started crying when he first got up, and wouldn't put any weight on the leg at all. We had to make sure that when he needed a wee that the chosen recipient was on his left side so that he could put his weight on his right leg and not try to cock that one and so collapse in a heap. So yet another type of painkiller was added to his cocktail of drugs, and we decided to sedate him and x-ray to check for severe arthritis or a bone tumour, and also manipulate a relaxed dog to check for damaged tendons.

Nothing wrong with these hips. In fact for an 11 year old dog they're very Mary Poppins (practically perfect).

Then we took a lateral x-ray to look at the knee-joint. That also showed absolutely no sign of any damage (but did show that he was very hungry - his gut was completely empty!).

However there is some spondylosis at the lumbo-sacral joint (where the spine enters the pelvis; if you look carefully you can see a semi-circle of bone beneath the vertebrae. It's possible that this is overgrowth is pinching a nerve, but spondylosis is (apparently) very common in older animals and usually causes no problems at all, and is only discovered on x-rays for something entirely different, like a fractured leg. So that could be completely coincidental.

Manipulation showed the tendons to be intact as well. So although it's good news that there's nothing obviously seriously wrong, we're really no further forward. He's still going on three legs, although when he's been walking slowly for a few minutes he's starting to use the leg again which helps stop muscle wastage, and he can use the leg to scratch himself without trouble. And he'll wriggle about on his back and stretch his legs quite happily with no sign of discomfort. It's just the weight-bearing that's the problem.

Baby, you can drive my car

2010-11-09T19:54:00.003Z

Things are done differently in the country. When Boy's pick-up needed some work done he was lent a courtesy vehicle, as you'd hope. I don't think it would have been the same in town ...

Took some time to celebrate

2010-10-23T15:58:00.014+01:00

We went on holiday to the Lake District. I was determined that October was too late in the year to go camping, so we threw caution to the winds and rented a holiday flat in Hawkshead for a few days. It was ideal; not too much luggage to take, and all mod cons. What was especially good, however, was the dog-friendliness of the whole area. It's an unusual pub that doesn't allow them in, even when people are having meals. It made a refreshing change not to be treated like a leper simply for bringing our family with us.

The weather was variable: okay for most of the time which was good for walking and climbing

(Piglet was a brilliant pathfinder through the bracken!),

sometimes not so great

One day it couldn't make up its mind

and one day it was utterly perfect.

(I finally remembered how to work the timer on the camera.)

We found a very big tree!

Some of the walks involved caching (we found 8), but others didn't - we also had pubs to cross out of our Country Pubs book. Luckily some expeditions could be combined ventures.

After we left the Lake District we crossed over the top from one coast to the other, calling in at the Tan Hill Inn (which was both in our pub book and has a cache, where we placed a new Travel Bug - I hope he doesn't languish there for too long) on the way eastwards. My, that's a remote spot and an 'exciting' road to it - but great beer and a wonderful welcome. Highly recommended.

And we went to the seaside as well.

Put your head down to the ground and listen to your mind

2010-10-10T13:21:00.004+01:00

Lemongrass, week 8 update, and it's still flourishing.

And lookit! I planted a piece of root ginger a few weeks ago, and it lives!

I see rainbows in the evening

2010-09-26T12:45:00.002+01:00

Lemongrass update: after 6 weeks it needed potting on again.

That one is only poor Only if they choose to be

2010-09-21T09:17:00.005+01:00

I've been researching the source of the 'Persian costume' as we've always called it. The watercolour was described as "A Gabr woman"; googling tells me that Gabr has come to mean Zoroastrian having gone through various degrees of rudeness about non-Muslims, and Wiki has this photograph of a 20th Century Zoroastrian family:

Another site has this picture of a costume:

And here's mine:

Despite googling I can find absolutely no mention of the Persia edition of the 'Peeps at Many Lands' series of books; it apparently never existed; and I yet I know it did!

Any dream will do

2010-09-18T17:39:00.004+01:00

Back around the time of the First World War a branch of my family lived out in Persia, as it was known then. My great-aunt was a talented watercolourist and produced many very pleasing pictures of various scenes, and when the family returned to England in the early 1920s she wrote a book about the country and used her own pictures to illustrate it.

The picture on the cover is particularly colourful, and as a small girl I was thrilled to learn that the actual costume was still in the family's possession. I longed to dress up in it and copy the pose in the picture, but circumstances meant there was never a good opportunity to get it down from the loft. Until we were emptying my mother's old home, whereupon I seized the trunk it was in and bore it, and the original watercolour picture, away to Genie Towers for safe keeping. Today I decided the circumstances were right for dressing up!

I shouldn't have too much difficulty getting into these!

The fiddliest bit was trying to get the headgear right, wondering which of the squillions of pieces of silk in the trunk were the right ones, and trying to drape and knot them correctly It would have helped to have someone who knew how these things worked, but Ned made a very good model's dresser, and eventually we decided we were ready for a shoot.

All in all I'm very pleased with the result, and I had such fun fulfilling this childhood ambition!

Yes you did, ya told 'em once before

2010-09-18T09:46:00.001+01:00

This week's update on the progress of the lemongrass:

Still growing!

Don't you tell it to the breeze

2010-09-11T18:24:00.005+01:00

As well as trying to grow unusual plants I like Thai food, so my latest gardening experiment is to grow lemongrass. The idea was given to me when watching Gardeners' World (compulsory Friday night viewing for Oldies!) - it hadn't occurred to me before that it could be done. You can get packets of lemongrass seeds in garden centres, but googling showed me a far more interesting way of propogating it; simply buy some from the greengrocery section of the supermarket - yes, the pallid, naked sticklike things that have been trimmed to within an inch of their lives - and stand them in a jar of water on the windowsill. I tried it, and couldn't believe how fast the roots started to appear from what looked like a hopeless stump.

After one week in water

After two weeks in water; time to pot on

Transferred to pots

After one week in the pot; doing okay!

After two weeks in the pot the roots are still developing

Four weeks from when I bought them - starting to sprout out.

They're growing at a tremendous rate - about a centimetre a day at the moment! Soon they'll need potting on into bigger premises and hopefully by next year they'll be quite nice ornamental clumps for the patio.

In spring I'll be having a bash at ginger as well ...

Oh, and by the way, are you laughing now?

2010-08-26T13:06:00.007+01:00

Piglet's always been a strange dog; he views Life very seriously. He's never seen the point of toys (unlike Harry who adored toys) unless it was to take Harry's favourite toy to annoy him, or playing games for pleasure. The concept of 'fun' has passed him by, and he totally missed out on the sense of humour gene (which Harry had in spades and was one of the many traits that made him so endearing). Piglet's always been more self-sufficient and anxious; I can see many characteristics in him that, in a human, would suggest a degree of autism. However in the months that he's been an only dog he's started to choose to be around us and seek our attention much more, which is nice.

Because he's never bothered about playing with our other dogs he's also never wanted to interact with dogs that we meet when we're out. He likes to ignore them if he can - he'd rather they didn't come too close unless he's met them amicably several times; if a strange dog pulls towards him he'll lunge and snap to drive it away. There were a couple of tricky moments at Cropredy when he felt pressured by dogs coming close (in a very crowded pub, for example), especially if they reminded him of dogs he knows he doesn't like (collies - they stare - and very hairy dogs mainly). However at Cropredy he also displayed a behaviour we've never witnessed before. As we were walking along past dogs of various shapes and sizes which were glanced at and ignored we saw another dalmatian; the first he's seen since Beattie left us. Piglet's ears pricked up, his tail started wagging and he pulled me towards it, squeaking with excitement. When we got close he knew it wasn't Harry or Beattie, but he was still keen to be sociable. His reaction brought tears of sympathy for his obvious loneliness; perhaps we ought to get another one sooner rather than later.

It was his and Harry's 11th birthday yesterday.

Watching flowers in the rain

2010-08-24T10:44:00.003+01:00

Some people like gladioli, some people like dahlias. I like lilies, and they've been quite successful this year. I bought a few cheap bulbs from a DIY shop, not expecting great results, so was pleasantly surprised by the size and quality of the flowers that were produced - and they're sweetly scented to boot. This white one bloomed a few weeks ago and we could enjoy the scent when we sat outdoors.

This pink one is flowering at the moment, so I've brought it indoors where it's scenting the sitting room, and not being rained on.

There's another one (of a totally different variety that has much smaller, unscented flowers) that's been living outdoors for donkey's years, and is still managing to bloom each year despite the onslaught of the horrid lily beetles (which at least have the courtesy of being bright red so you can pick them off and squish them), which has the curious habit of producing little bulbils on the stem, which produce leaves and roots while still attached to the parent plant.

These bulbils can be picked off carefully

and potted on to eventually reach flowering size. Not wanting to count chickens but with luck I'll have a lily-beetle banquet in a few years.

She'll put a spell on you

2010-08-17T09:16:00.007+01:00

"When shall we three meet again?" "Well, I can manage next Thursday." I think I'm being invaded by witches. Yesterday when I was locking up to go to work I found this little character on the back step trying to get in

Then in the evening when I was telling Ned about it a black cat strolled nonchalantly down the hallway and appeared in the kitchen, and was hastened out of the back door (rather faster than I imagine it had entered!) before Piglet woke up; the mess that would have caused doesn't bear thinking about! Goodness knows how long it had been in the house, but it was one familiar too far. They say black cats are lucky - that one certainly was, to have visited our house and left unscathed.

At a bar called O'Malley's

2010-08-01T17:12:00.003+01:00

In the past I've often tried growing a pineapple plant from the tufty leaves at the top of a bought fruit, but never succeeded. However our latest attempt seems to have been successful!

As you can see it's already slipping baby plants, which we might try snapping off and growing on when they get large enough.

I know that they used to be grown in the 'big houses' but I assumed that you'd need a hothouse if they were to fruit. But then we came across this site where a chap from Surrey has catalogued his endeavours, which has given us hope that it might, just might, eventually bear fruit.

We're not holding our breath though!

"Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?"

2010-07-25T13:46:00.007+01:00

This year, as well as growing them in the ground, I've been experimenting with growing potatoes in containers. The reasons are numerous: you can grow more without having to dig, the compost is clean so the risk of blight is minimised, and because the containers are moveable they can be grown in otherwise idle corners. This year my containers have been of the cheap-and-cheerful variety; I bought some growbags, cut off one end and emptied the compost into a spare bag. I then turned the growbag inside out so that the black side was outside in order to let the compost warm up quicker (and it looks tidier). I rolled the open end of the bag down, punched a few drainage holes in the bag and added a small layer of stones for additional drainage. A six-inch layer of compost was replaced and a couple of sprouting potatoes placed on top and covered with compost.

As the potato plants grew they were earthed up and the top of the bag unrolled a bit to give more depth. They're very thirsty plants with all that top growth to maintain as well as growing tubers underground, but they don't like boggy conditions, hence the drainage at the bottom. Anyway one day after they'd flowered (and I needed some potatoes for supper) I thought the time had come to empty one bag and see how they were doing.

There was a lot of top growth

and a fair amount of success was evident.

Okay, so the local greengrocer isn't going to lose any sleep over the threat to his business, but they were fresh, organic and delicious.

Please release me, let me go

2010-07-20T18:26:00.004+01:00

I'm very annoyed. In fact I'm more than annoyed, I'm very very cross and fed up. Yesterday I was silly and clicked on the Friend Finder application on Farcebook. I know, I know, you should never click on anything on the right hand side, but I believed its lies about which of my friends had used it, and now all my real friends are going to get the spam emails like Ned's had in the past about how X, Y and Z are suggesting he joins Farcebook himself. Seeing that some of the invites have been from me, and I haven't sent them, I know it's all spam.

But worse than that I now can't fully sign out of Windows Live after using my email account. All the Hotmail accounts on this computer, even ones that Farcebook haven't heard of, give the same message after signing out - that it's failed to log out of the following site: h ttps://ssl.facebook. com/accept_token. php (I've put in a few spaces to try to stop it making a link). When I paste that into google I find it's been happening for years, with various suggestions of what to do to fix it. The ones that aren't too complicated for me to understand are clearing cookies (done, no effect) and contacting Windows live help (done, no answer).

Does anyone else have any ideas? I'm really not happy.

I'll bet you think this song is about you

2010-07-17T21:52:00.004+01:00

It must be ... ooh, two or three years ago I bought an apricot whip (that's a baby tree, by the way) that was guaranteed to fruit in the second year after purchase. Duly, in its first season it grew but didn't flower. Last year it flowered, but we had late frosts and no fruit resulted. This year it had plenty of blossom

but despite my best efforts with the pollinating brush and throwing bees at it only one fruit developed. This was nurtured; the tree, still in a pot, fed and watered copiously to encourage it to ripe fruition. This baby fruit was cherished and admired, and woe betide anyone who did anything to hinder its development. It swelled satisfyingly and the heat of the past few weeks blushed its cheeks to a delicate pink.

Then yesterday it fell from the tree in its ripe perfection. It was carried indoors in triumph and reventially halved and shared. The verdict? I have never sampled any fruit so sublime. Juicy and sweet and warm, like no other apricot can ever have tasted. Perfection. :)

She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers

2010-07-15T18:48:00.001+01:00

At last someone's pointed me in the direction of the version I really love ...

Your sweet face seems to haunt my dreams

2010-07-15T12:53:00.002+01:00

My 'lilium regale' has excelled itself this year; so many beautiful flowers and a fabulous scent.

Hear the dogs howling out of key

2010-07-08T22:32:00.004+01:00

And they think this is 'home', do they?

Acksherly it could be worse

What's 'caching'?

I don't know what a durdle is, and there's no sign of a door anywhere.

A castle full of maidens? Where?

I could be asleep, you know.

Where did that fat bloke go?

So that's a holiday, is it? I wonder if I'll get my 5.30 am walk tomorrow.

And I will give to you summer wine

2010-06-30T08:15:00.003+01:00

After the required 48 hours had passed I dutifully strained the elderflower cordial through muslin to remove all the flowers and lemon and decanted it into sterilised bottles.

I was rather surprised this morning to find that it's started fermenting, which isn't at all what I'd intended; my plan was to have a soft drink and not an alcoholic one! It's been put in the fridge to slow it down for the moment (I really don't need glass bottles exploding!) but the fridge isn't really very big, so that can only be a temporary measure. I don't really want to haul out a demijohn and all the winemaking paraphernalia to fail to make a drinkable wine. I might have to add a little vodka or gin to stop it, but again that rather defeats the object. Drat.

To adorn and perfume those sweet meadows in June.

2010-06-27T10:03:00.007+01:00

I love this time of year. The honeysuckle's in full bloom

and filling the air with its sweet scent; it's especially lovely in the cool of the late evening, round about ten o'clock when it's not yet quite dark. It's a shame that it's determined to flower at the back of the trees and not the side facing the house, but there you go. The roses are glorious, as well as the lavender, although the philadelphus (the variety we grow smells exactly like Juicy Fruit chewing gum) is dropping its petals, like confetti in a churchyard after a wedding.

Following the blackthorn blossom of early April and the hawthorn (mayflowers) of May, where the hedges looked as though someone had thrown muslin curtains over them now in the hedgerows there are the wild dog roses - some white, some palest pink and some really quite determinedly rosy. Not forgetting, of course, the foamy umbrella flowers of elder with their cool scent,

so many this year that we decided to seize the moment and have a bash at making elderflower cordial; grown-up squash which is a delicious long drink, with ice, on a hot summer day.

We decided to use a recipe from a blog I regularly follow, called the Cottage Smallholder; a real feel-good site.

So we gathered together all the ingredients

and put them all together.

Now we wait for 48 hours before straining and bottling it. Fingers crossed it will be as good as I hope!

Sitting on a fence is a man who drinks real ale

2010-06-19T18:39:00.004+01:00

So we took the rickety old fence away and wondered what would be the best replacement. With it open the garden looked bigger, but it made it easier for the local foxes to poo on the grass which isn't pleasant.

A hedge was a possibility but would mean I couldn't grown many flowers that I'd be able to see from the house. So a new fence was the best compromise - one that allowed more light to get the garden yet still gave us a bit of privacy.

The posts were duly concreted in (using markedly less concrete than the ones we removed!) last weekend, which meant that this weekend, weather permitting, we hoped to be able to finish it. The weather did indeed permit, so in the morning the rails were added to the posts

then in the afternoon the pales were nailed in place, and a great improvement it is too. A good day's work; now, where's that beer?

The football it has taken away the wee bit of sense he had

2010-06-13T19:39:00.002+01:00

Let's get one thing clear from the outset: I'm the first person to admit that my knowledge of, and indeed interest in, football is slightly less than zero and I have absolutely no intention of changing that, no matter what tournament is being ~~fought over~~ played for. It's a tedious winter game with no summer respite, but thankfully our TV is allergic to it and is incapable of showing any, other than isolated incidents shown on the news. So that's good.

Okay, having made that clear I have a query. In the world cup match against the USA I gather that someone from the England team scored a goal early on, and that later on someone from the US team scored. So why is the England goalkeeper being blamed for the TEAM failure to win, when there were another 10 members of the team who had 75 minutes or so to score again? Why were the rest of the team not preventing the opposition getting the ball down to the England goal in the first place? Surely the goalkeeper is the last defender, not the only one.

When your feet just can't keep still

2010-06-11T09:28:00.004+01:00

I thought a particular style of footwear was hideous the first time I clapped eyes on them a long time ago, and nothing in the intervening years has changed my mind on that point. But I thought that they might be useful for trudging across a dew-soaked campsite at first light rather than donning wellies, so I tried on a pair in the shop (as well as you can try on shoes that are fastened together with a security tie, making actual walking in them impossible) and my neuroma didn't immediately have hysterics, which was a plus. So I bought them.

What a mistake. Why on earth did I think that a normal-shaped pair of feet (yes, they are normal!)

would ever be comfortable in something designed for ducks?

Just look at the difference in width!

How on earth are they meant to stay on, short of actually stapling them to your feet? Yes, I know there's a heel-strap, but that's much shorter than the shoe itself

which forces your foot forward and makes them agonisingly uncomfortable. In fact the only way to get them to stay on your feet is to wear a couple of pairs of thick hiking socks ... which rather defeats the object, because the dewy grass will soak the socks.

Now, if I had feet shaped like this they'd fit like a ...

I wonder if I can get my money back.

Breathe, breathe in the air

2010-06-06T22:32:00.005+01:00

At last the year has begun! For the first time in 2010 there's been enough daylight and warmth for me to spend enough time out of doors to throw off the effects of SAD and start to live again. Perhaps this is why I feel so much better when we go camping, even if the weather's shit. When we come home the house is stuffy and airless and I feel trapped. But now my brain is clear, I can think as quickly as I used to (I'd begun seriously to think I was in the early throes of dementia), as if a fog has lifted. This is fantastic. The Real Me, who's been smothered under a suffocating blanket of nebulous nothingness, has fought her way free! Hooray! Hooray for sunshine! Hooray for air!

Sittin' in the mornin' sun

2010-05-31T22:43:00.005+01:00

An established bay tree is usually very hardy, and able to withstand cold weather without turning a ... I was going to say hair, but that's not right, and leaf doesn't really fit the bill ... anyhow, they can usually come through the winter unscathed. Last winter was particularly extreme, and our poor tree is rather the worse for wear.

The leaves should be a glossy dark green, not dry and desiccated. In places there are signs of life and regrowth

but despite waiting for months, others have clearly had it completely.

If we amputate all the dead bits I fear it's going to be very lopsided and unbalanced. The poor thing might have to come down completely.

Gentian, lupin and tall hollyhocks

2010-05-30T17:52:00.005+01:00

As is traditional on a Bank holiday weekend it was time to get working on the garden. The monsoon conditions of yesterday had softened the soil to workable levels from the solidity of its previous dryness, and today (surprisingly for a BH) the weather was absolutely perfect. Ned dug out the final enormous lump of concrete, and a friend's jack hammer made short work of reducing them all to more manageable proportions. Several trips to the tip will be needed, but soon it'll all be gone!

I took a barrow up the road to a neighbour's smallholding and relieved his fields of some of the molehills, which are the most gorgeous riddled topsoil and have filled in the holes beautifully so that it no longer resembles a poor parody of the Somme. One more barrowload should see the major earthworks completed.

Next job is to install the new fence, and then I'll be able to put in some plants so for a few brief weeks it might look attractive.

The concrete and the clay beneath my feet

2010-05-23T12:42:00.007+01:00

A long, long time ago when we bought Genie Towers, it was what would nowadays be called 'a project'. We did a fair amount of updating (some new wiring, new windows, redecorating, new kitchen, new bathroom, new carpets, etc - all of which are now past their best again - don't mention the bathroom) but pretty much just kept on top of the garden. This meant that as it became more and more 'established' it started to look a little neglected, if not downright shabby. So we've taken the bull by the horns and decided to replace the fence at the front, from a delapidated standard panel affair which was well past its best and was, frankly, falling apart, to (eventually) a picket fence. This means not only removing the panels which I think were being held up by the ivy, not the other way around

but also removing the rotten supporting posts. It was at this point that we realised whoever installed them intended them to be there for ever and ever. How much concrete does it usually take to support one 3" x 3" fence post? We didn't expect this much. I wonder how we can get rid of it, other than digging another hole and burying it ....

Elsewhere in the garden the lily of the valley is going feral. That I can live with because it smells just delicious in the sunshine.

Those were the days, my friend

2010-04-23T11:25:00.003+01:00

I remember when all this:

was fields.

*thanks Mallers! Please tell me how you did that*

Lord help the mister who comes between me and my cyster

2010-04-14T19:22:00.002+01:00

I did warn at least some of you ...

For some months I've been having a bit of trouble swallowing. My throat wasn't particularly sore, just a bit uncomfortable, but it felt as though there was something stuck, that coughing nor drinking would shift. One day, when peering annoyedly at my throat in the mirror I spotted something unusual that hadn't been there before, in the region of my left tonsil. Not being one to panic unnecessarily (when necessary I can panic with the best) I decided to take it to see the doctor for identification, and was 90% reassured when I was told that it was unusual but highly unlikely to be anything nasty, but that a specialist might like to take a look. So last week I went to the ENT department and was very pleased to be told that it was only a cyst, and it could either stay or be taken out; my decision. As I noticed it because it was annoying and it's unlikely to go away by itself I thought it best to get rid. So I was straightaway taken to book a suitable date and have my pre-op notes done. (I must say it all seems remarkably efficient. My initial appointment was for 11.30; we got there a bit early and I was examined, notes done and appointment booked all within an hour.) It was only when I got home I realised that my chosen date (on my day off because we're short-staffed at work) needed to be changed - I had to be at an important function the following day and didn't want to be the Guest From Hell! So that's all rearranged (for another day off) unless it decides to startle everyone and disappear of its own accord.

Anyway, here it is.

Your scarf it was apricot

2010-04-09T19:13:00.002+01:00

My little apricot tree is blooming beautifully. That guarantees a few more hard frosts to kill off the chance of fruit.

I still haven't found what I'm looking for

2010-04-04T11:23:00.002+01:00

Specially for Mally, the (very obscure) answer:

It seems even more appropriate now; an interloper tune for interloper plants. I wonder what they really are. Definitely a flowering climber; I'll wait to see what the parent plant does this summer before I consign them all to the compost heap.

Sweet sweet, the mem'ries you gave me

2010-03-31T22:24:00.004+01:00

Back in the autumn when Harry was injured and we were having to manhandle him through to the sitting room every evening so that he didn't feel abandoned, we rolled up and stored the nice rug to protect it from his unconscious incontinence; the situation was quite stressful enough, thank you. The horrid carpet that it was hiding (and had been in situ when we moved in 20 years ago) didn't matter, so life became a miniscule iota easier. Then it was a case of 'out of sight, out of mind' and after Harry left us the rug stayed rolled up in Boy's room out of the way until last weekend when, after the loss of Beattie as well, we thought we really needed to try to get back to what passes for normality around here. So we carried the rug downstairs and laid it down in the sitting room again.

It was heartbreaking to see Piglet pressing his nose to it and inhaling deeply, wagging his tail in joy at the scents of his remembered siblings, then drooping disconsolately when he looked around and realised they were still missing.

Your subtleties, they strangle me

2010-03-30T11:26:00.003+01:00

I hope these are wisteria seedlings. The seedpods came from a wisteria outside the library, but I'm beginning to wonder if there might not be another climber in amongst it, because they don't look as I'd expected. Time will tell!

PS: a virtual prize to the first person to identify the title.

You can't take a goldfish for walks

2010-03-20T09:51:00.003Z

Some months ago the Google Streetview car passed me when I was walking the dogs, and I'd hoped for internet immortality. Unfortunately, because it would have been lovely to see Harry and Beattie on there too, the weren't taking pictures at the time, but they did capture Piglet in the sitting room window when they passed the house, and if this works you should be able to see him too ...

One is one and all alone

2010-03-16T20:11:00.006Z

Yesterday evening Beattie started breathing really fast in her sleep; I thought she was having a dream but when she woke she was still panting hard. She tried to get off the sofa but her back left leg wouldn't support her at all, and she was getting very bewildered by it. We took it in turns to support her back end as she went round and round and round in clockwise circles - after 15 or 20 minutes of this we managed to settle her on her bed and left her to sleep, exhausted, wondering what would happen overnight.

This morning she was back on her feet again; even more doddery than usual and somehow not quite herself. She enjoyed her breakfast as usual, and came for her normal extraordinarily slow walk up the road - business almost as usual but in slo-mo. Every step needed a stop to sniff at where she was; we managed a couple of hundred yards in 20 minutes, and she only fell over once. She ate her lunchtime biscuit then needed help to get on the sofa for her afternoon nap - the back leg was playing up a bit again. But it was odd - the expression in her eyes was somehow different; there was almost an element of fear which there hasn't been before. We'd been told in the past "Better a week too early than a day too late" when it comes to deciding when a beloved pet should be helped to leave this mortal coil. Don't allow them to suffer. But it's so hard - you want to keep them for as long as you can, but you don't want to fall into the trap of keeping them alive for your sake, not theirs. 15 years is a long time, and you never want it to end.

I held myself together remarkably well at work, and at close of play Sarah came back and I cuddled my Beattie on my lap while she was given the final sleep, the way I wasn't able to cuddle Harry. She gave a few heavy breaths and slipped away from us. I'll never know whether I timed it right - whether it was too soon and she was still getting enough pleasure from life to make all the frustrations of her old age acceptable to her, but that's something I have to live with. There's no going back now.

For the first time in nearly 25 years we have only one dog. Sleep well, my sweet Beetle.

Whatever you want, the answer's NO

2010-03-06T14:49:00.004Z

You can't tell me they'd brought only the exact amount of tarmac they needed to fill the hole they'd dug, and didn't have any left over to mend the pothole a mere foot away.

Pathetic, petty Jobsworths.

What a tale my thoughts could tell

2010-02-16T12:52:00.007Z

On Sunday Beattie decided that she was going to go for a proper walk with Daddy and Mummy and Piglet. No being left behind for just a potter up and down the road; this was going to be like the Old Days, and when Beattie decides something there's no changing her mind.

Beattie has two speeds - slow and stop - and Piglet was very good and didn't get too bored walking at a geriatric pace but was pleased to eventually reach the fields where he could be let off the lead to stretch his legs. Beattie bumbled along enjoying the pleasant sunshine, only occasionally having to be pointed in the right direction having been diverted by an interesting smell. But it took a lot out of her, and on Sunday night she wasn't comfortable. After a night's sleep (plus blundering about knocking over furniture) she was a lot better and had a quiet day, but by the evening she was very unsettled again. She wouldn't sleep on the sofa as usual but was staggering between Ned and me, wanting attention, and tangling her legs and falling over when she tried to turn round. We decided that The Time had come - that she was getting distressed with life.

So we had a crap night, and when the surgery opened I phoned for the vet to call in and Do The Deed. Piglet can certainly read my mind. All morning he was fussing and whining, and going over to Beattie and sniffing her, then coming over to me and trying to climb into my arms (not helpful when doing the washing up) and generally behaving totally out of character. During the course of the morning Beattie decided she was feeling much better, and went and lay in the hall again waiting for a walk, which is where she was when the vet arrived. When the door was opened she rose majestically, wagged her tail briefly at the vet and had to be restrained from wandering outside. Piglet greeted Sarah happily and pushed in while we discussed her condition, because by this time my nerve was failing me. Then the odd thing happened; Sarah asked directly "What do you want to do?" whereupon Piglet put his hackles up and he barked very crossly at her. Beattie bumped into the vet's bag, pushed it out of her way and strolled off nonchalently into the kitchen while Piglet put himself determinedly between her and the vet.

I bottled it completely and Beattie has a stay of execution to see if she'd just overdone the exercise on Sunday and was going to settle back to what passes for normality; Sarah left. Piglet's back promptly went down and he went and settled down in his bed - no more fussing me for attention as he had been doing earlier. He must have known that his sister was under threat and he wasn't going to let it happen. One day soon it will have to happen, that's for sure - just not today.

Happy birthday, fweet fifteen

2010-02-06T15:00:00.004Z

Fifteen years ago this puppy came into the world.

Not all the plans I had for her future were realised, but that's Life. There have been several times over the years where we thought we'd never see this day, but here we are.

Happy fifteenth birthday, Beattie!

When I'm calling yooooo oooo oooo ooooo

2010-02-05T09:53:00.003Z

Piglet has changed since Harry's death. Although he's stopped searching for him in every room in the house, or looking round for him when we're out on our walks, he's become less independent and confident and much clingier, and likes us all to be together in the house. Anyone going out causes distress, and now whenever Ned leaves for work he gets summoned to return to the group:

This can go on for some time. Luckily our neighbours don't seem to be bothered.

Computer-wise I managed (with a bit of help) to remove the old defunct commenty system; shame, because I thought it was very good. Unfortunately it means that none of the comments on previous posts show, and it looks like I'm a real Billy-no-mates who's been talking to herself for the past however many years. I was able to copy them all over to the hard drive, and if I have a spare few years I might replace them all, but as it'd probably mean copying them all individually I can't see that happening in the near future.

I can see inside your head

2010-01-25T18:34:00.004Z

For a long time now Beattie's normal daily routine, after breakfast and a visit to the garden, is to while away the morning sleeping on the sofa till lunchtime. All sorts of chaos can occur around her yet she slumbers peacefully through it. So yesterday, when I had to do a homecheck on prospective adopters for breed welfare, the plan was to leave her there and take Piglet as sole accompaniment. (When I first started doing this I used to take Clover and Beattie, then I changed to taking Harry and Beattie because he was bigger and potentially more of a shock to the people I was visiting - better that they change their minds before getting a dog than after - and then when Beattie got too frail for this Harry came on his own. This was to be Piglet's first go at home visiting; a more untypical dog would be hard to find, but needs must.)

So how did Beattie know what was going on? Just we were getting ready to leave she woke, descended majestically from the sofa and appeared in the hall, demanding to be taken too. So insistent was she that nobody was going anywhere without her that she stumped up to the front door and leaned her head against it. There's more going on in her head than we realised, and although she's incredibly wobbly she's not ready to give up on Life just yet.

Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy

2010-01-09T12:15:00.002Z

When the neighbours came round the other evening for beer and cheese (when although we laid on tons of food we still managed to have more at the end than when we started, despite all eating and drinking ourselves silly), the conversation turned (as it does) to the subject of urination, and how much one would have to drink to write one's name in the snow. Christopher decided that it wasn't physically possible (he could possibly manage 'Christop' but definitely no more), but we reckoned we had an advantage there. One of our lovely neighbours, who didn't believe anyone would do it, is also very trusting, so when we saw the bank of snow she'd cleared from her drive, we couldn't resist ....

(No, it's really yellow food colouring from a washing-up liquid bottle, but I'm betting her shriek of horror when she sees it will carry for miles!)

Now I'm here

2010-01-09T12:11:00.000Z

Now you see me ...

...now you don't!

And a partridge in a pear tree ...

2009-12-24T16:07:00.003Z

Sometimes Ned's experimental cooking doesn't quite go according to plan.

Chocolate truffle or bird dropping? You decide.

On the first day of Christmas ...

2009-12-16T19:27:00.003Z

When I was young (yes, yes, back when wheels were square and the world was in black and white) Advent calendars had festive pictures behind the doors, with a double-sized one for Christmas Eve. Nowadays the commercial ones all seem to contain chocolate (and not very nice chocolate at that) behind the doors. So it's interesting to see a new take on the theme ...

Run run run run run away

2009-12-07T17:22:00.006Z

If only I could. For years and years I've had a bad foot. One of them's fine and dandy, never a moment's trouble. The other one, though (the same foot from which I had a bunion removed several years ago - well, I think it's got bad genes. When it was only painful occasionally, and only in certain shoes, it was tolerable; now it's really started attention-seeking. The problem is that the toe next to the little toe will feel as though it's been bent right back up onto the top of my foot - almost as though it's nearly snapped off (tempting, believe me). As if that wasn't bad enough there's also the sensation that someone's put half a golfball under the ball of my foot, so that basically every step is agony. I haven't been able to walk barefoot for two or three years, and the number of pairs of shoes I can wear has gradually become more and more limited. Now that I'm reduced to hiking boots and slippers (most of the time) it's gone beyond a joke, so I took the foot to the doctor for advice.

Apparently I'm suffering from Morton's neuroma. And there are several possible treatments, one of which I was offered at the time - a steroid injection, which I thought sounded okay. It was only when I was told that he'd have to poke a needle about in my foot till I told him where it hurt the most so he could inject the right place that I totally bottled it and burst into tears. I think it'll have to wait until I'm feeling emotionally stronger - until then I'll suffer; but the longer I leave it the more likely the damage will be permanent. Bugger.

There's the sun, the moon, and Harry

2009-11-27T09:46:00.001Z

Harry (Dalcross Bandleader) 25/8/99 - 26/11/09

Once there was a little fat sausage

who became a beautiful puppy

who grew up to be a stunningly handsome dog

with a sunny, happy, clownish personality

who loved to run

and jump

and bounce

and then run some more.

Which is why I couldn't condemn him to a crippled half-life of indignity and frustration, although I would have loved to keep him with me forever.

Sleep well, my Baby Boy, my dog in a million. I love you. May your star ever shine brightly.

Cry me a river

2009-11-20T22:32:00.011Z

Here we are, two weeks on. Two weeks. (Two whole weeks. How the hell has that happened?) And there's really no change. My Harry still can't move his hind legs. He can't wag, even though on Monday we thought we saw the faintest ghost of a hint of a wag, but it didn't happen again, even when the Boy called in, which usually fills the dogs with joy. Until yesterday, when being stood up to be pottied and his bedding changed, if his legs were put in the right position he could support himself for a couple of seconds. Today he hasn't been able to - I hope tomorrow will be better. We can't go on like this for much longer, neither he nor us. My heart breaks every time I help him move, and he's such a valiant, patient, accepting little soul that he'll do anything I ask of him. Yes I know he's 'only a dog'. But he's my dog, and he's my special dog, and I don't care if it's silly to be so attached - I just am. Although I love all my dogs, out of all of them he's the second who's been so very special - the first was his great-great-great-grandmother who I lost suddenly in 1980. Now him. And I feel guilty for resenting the fact that it's not one of the others; we've been braced to lose Beattie, who we were told would be lucky to make double figures and is now heading for 15, or Piglet, who, if we're honest, is only here because nobody else wanted him when he was a puppy, so he stayed. Poor Piggy, always the bridesmaid - the eternally unwanted. It's not his fault. I can't let this nightmare, this living hell, go on for much longer; it's just not fair. Harry hates wetting himself and soiling his bed. It's hard work keeping him clean and dry to avoid urine scald, and turned to avoid bedsores. He's heavy, even though his hindquarters are so wasted through lack of exercise, despite the physiotherapy, that they're almost skeletal. He doesn't seem to be in any physical pain, but they're so good at hiding serious pain that it can ber very hard to tell. I hope he isn't. I couldn't bear to think I was making my lovely boy suffer.

Sorry for the incoherent, self-indulgent ramble. Grief and exhaustion do strange things to a person's mental state.

How fragile we are

2009-11-07T18:36:00.005Z

For many months now we've been psyching ourselves for Beattie's passing, so recent events have totally caught us on the blind side. Tuesday was a normal day; the only difference to any other day was that Harry squealed when playing his usual game with Ned - the game that they play most evenings. After the squeal he was waggy and perfectly normal; the evening followed its usual course and then we went to bed.

Harry was a bit subdued on Wednesday; still waggy and happy, but decided not to run when we were out on our walks, but trotted everywhere instead. Other than that there seemed to be nothig wrong. On Thursday morning he was a bit wobbly on his back legs, and he accidentally knuckled over on his right hind paw and was very slow to correct it, so to be on the safe side I took him for a check over. His spine was carefully felt, and his hips, and his stifles, and his shoulders - everywhere. He was still wagging and giving his trademark flippy-flappy kisses; we assumed he must have pulled a muscle or something, so he was given a steroid injection to reduce any inflammation and lead-exercise only for a few days was prescribed. Friday dawned, and his back legs were still drunk, and when he walked I noticed he'd started scuffing his hind toe-nails on the pavement; this is a sure sign of nerve damage, which was worrying. But he was still cheerful and settled down after their lunchtime walk (peeing was a bit of a problem because when he tried to cock his leg he toppled over so had to straddle like a girl) to sleep till we got back from work.

That's when the day turned black. When we got home he couldn't take any weight on his hind legs at all, and was dragging himself along the floor. As the evening wore on he was getting more and more distressed at not being able to move properly, and wasn't able to pee at all, even when supported. So at about 9 o'clock (apologising profusely for calling out of hours) I phoned the vet and arranged to meet at the surgery. There he was sedated and x-rayed; it seems he's prolapsed a disc (L2/3), with a very guarded prognosis for recovery.

The treatment is steroids to reduce the inflammation and hopefully allow the nerve function to start to recover, and cage rest for at least 6 weeks. The poor boy is so frustrated at being confined, and not being able to move (his back end is now totally paralysed, even his tail), and being shut away to be 'kept quiet'; he's been crying in distress and struggling to get out, which can't be doing him any good.

Those of you who've met Harry know that he's my dog-in-a-million; to see him suffering like this is almost too much to bear. If only we could explain to him what's going on, and that if he lies still he's more likely to recover. Of course, if the damage is permanent we'll break our hearts and release him from the suffering. It's so sad - when he's lying down he looks completely normal; but when he tries to move ...

Genie Towers is not a happy place at the moment.

I wish I could fly way up to the sky but I can’t

2009-10-25T15:49:00.006Z

Stu's latest Tuesday Challenge, should we choose to accept it, is "to come up with the most fantastic idea. What would you shoot if time, money and skills were no issue? Then work within your limitations to realise your dream. See what unique surprises occur."

At last, a reasonably straightforward one. If I had the time, money, equipment and skills I'd go off to Borneo and/or Sumatra and photograph orang-utans in the wild. I think they're marvellous creatures who are teetering on the brink of extinction solely due to Mankind's greed. Hundreds of square miles of their limited habitat is being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations, a product that it seems impossible to boycott in protest because it's in everything. And to add insult to injury, it's being promoted as a source of bio-fuel to 'save the planet'. What a ridiculous concept - its very production is directly destroying far more than it will ever save.

So if I had pots and pots of money that's where I'd go; taking supplies to the orangutan orphanages where they try to raise the babies whose mothers have been killed by the rainforest clearance companies and sold as pets, and if possible to buy land to donate to them as habitat to release them when they're old enough. Whilst there I'd take photos of them - lots and lots of photos. But I haven't yet won the lottery, so my limitations are many, making this photo the closest to my dream that I'm likely to get. I'm not sure about 'unique surprises', though.

La donna è mobile*

2009-10-24T22:33:00.004+01:00

I'm not a gadget person. I have a very basic Pay-and-go mobile phone, which costs me about £10 to top up every 6 months or so. I'm told it has games on it, but I CBA to find out. I've had the phone for years - it was sent to me for free because service for my last one was discontinued. I still have the instruction booklet in my handbag in case I need to actually do something with the thing - that's how much I care about gadgets.

I used it twice today.

The first time was when we were on the M69 going northwards, to tell Stu that we were going to be a teeny bit late. We'd set off on a 40-minute drive at 10.30, to get us there in plenty of time for noon. Unfortunately we'd forgotten about the roadworks at the Longbridge roundabout (they've only been there for a year) which meant that it took us almost an hour to travel half a mile. But we got there safely in the end, and judging by the amount of giggling, our celebratory photoshoot seemed to go very well; I can't wait to see the results! (That's got several Christmas presents sorted.)

Then on the return journey (with a diversion planned to avoid the roadworks), during a torrential cloudburst we saw a car stopped neatly by the central crash-barrier on the M69 southbound, facing north. Thinking that the driver probably didn't want to be there I phoned 999 (for the first time!) hoping that nobody ploughed into him in the meantime.

Two phonecalls in one day. Extraordinary.

* I've always associated a mobile with the name Donna.

Still crazy after all these years

2009-10-20T08:44:00.003+01:00

25 years ago we posed for this photo.

Now, I don't bother with birthdays (once you've reached 21 there's not much significance about them. Everyone has them,simply through failing to die in the 12 months since the previous one. Unless you have a serious medical condition or are past your alloted threescore-and-ten that's not really much of an achievement!) but I think successfully weathering the storms of a shared life and dealing with the challenges that inevitably arise, is something to be celebrated.

It sounds awfully soppy, but I've never once regretted marrying Ned, my soulmate, and look forward to many more years together.

Time it was and what a time it was it was

2009-10-18T22:13:00.003+01:00

You couldn't get a book between them.

2009-10-17T19:03:00.004+01:00

Harvest blog #2

I like growing things - I especially like growing vegetables. Unfortunately things don't usually appreciate the tender care I lavish upon them, and crops can be quite spectacularly poor. This year, however, the results have been, by my standards, amazing. Most vegetables I grow are unusual in that they're often unexpected colours - the varieties that are very rarely stocked by greengrocers or supermarkets.

The mange-tout peas were phenomenally successful, and with the rows being planted at fortnightly intervals meant a good succession and no glut; but I still managed to freeze a couple of pounds. The rainbow chard is now coming into its own (these photos were taken earlier in the year) and looks very attractive in the garden as well as on the plate. The cauliflowers did okay, but were small and allcropped together, meaning any that were left too long were munched by slugs. Bah.

Yellow courgettes are more visible on the plant and less likely to escape and turn into marrows when you let your guard down.

Historically carrots were white, with the orange colour being bred into them in the past couple of hundred years. So I decided to grow a range of colours (again for plate-interest), and these too have been astonishingly successful, and incredibly flavoursome.

The purple-podded climbing beans were again chosen for visual interest in the garden - the leaves are dark green and the flowers are a beautiful two-tone pink and purple. The beans themselves look amazing when picked (and are wonderfully tender and stringless) ...

... but sadly lose their colour in the cooking, which is disappointing. However it's all good and organic and couldn't be fresher - from plant to pot within 5 minutes.

Now's the time to clear up the beds (leaving the chard, leeks and parsnips because they're not finished yet) and spread loads of muck and compost to hopefully repeat the success next year.

Open up your mouth and feed it

2009-10-12T16:32:00.004+01:00

I mentioned on Facebook that I'd baked a batch of 'Appley-Dapplies', which intrigued quite a lot of people who asked for more details.

It's a recipe we came across years ago, and has been a great favourite with everyone who's tried them. We had to cut the amount of sugar from the original because it made our teeth try to leap out of our heads in shock, but it's still plenty sweet enough.

I've not yet worked out when is the best time to slice it up; when it's still hot in the tin it burns you and falls apart, but when it's cold it's more difficult to cut through the top 'crust'. So the slices don't always look quite as neat as they could, but who cares?

A slice showing the apple filling.

So here's the recipe ...

APPLEY-DAPPLIES

Ingredients:
450g/1lb Bramley Cooking Apples, roughly chopped
50g/2oz Raisins
50g/2oz Caster sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
zest 1 lemon

200g/7oz plain flour
200g/7oz soft light brown sugar
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g/5oz rolled oats
150g/7oz butter, melted

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 190 C/ 375 F/ Gas mark 5 for about 10 minutes before baking. Place the apples, raisins, sugar, cinnamon and lemon zest into a saucepan over a low heat.

2. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the apple is cooked through. Remove the cover, stir well to break up the apple completely with a wooden spoon.

3. Cook for a further 15 – 30 minutes over a very low heat until reduced, thickened and slightly darkened. Allow to cool. Lightly oil and line a 20.5cm/ 8 inch square cake tin with greaseproof or baking paper.

4. Mix together the flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, rolled oats and butter until combined well and crumbly.

5. Spread half of the crumble mixture into the bottom of the prepared tin and press down. Pour over the apple mixture.

6. Sprinkle over the remaining crumble mixture and press down lightly. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 – 35 minutes, until golden brown.

7. Remove from oven and allow to cool before cutting into slices. Either serve warm with crème fraiche or whipped cream, or cold in lunch boxes.

Going back to my roots

2009-10-11T17:55:00.002+01:00

Harvest blog #1

Looky! I've grown a successful parsnip!

*is very proud*

Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy

2009-09-30T19:33:00.003+01:00

The scallywags have obviously decided that there's a need for a litter bin by the bollard. Just in case, I suppose.

To hide behind the glare of an open-minded stare

2009-09-24T11:51:00.003+01:00

I gave a snort of laughter whilst listening to Ken Bruce announce that Mr and Mrs Whatever were celebrating their diamond wedding and were going on a tour of Switzerland. I couldn't help but wonder whether their children had got them a bogof deal at Dignitas.

(wonders if you can get gift vouchers)

In an English country garden

2009-09-22T15:11:00.007+01:00

Although I love flowers, I'm not a great fan of having cut flowers in the house; it just seems wrong somehow. Flowering pot plants are okay because they're still alive and can go back outside later, but cut flowers are doomed to wither and die. Almost all the flowers I grow in the garden are scented ones; roses without scent, no matter how pretty, are like tasteless food - they lack that which makes them interesting. I love wandering around our very own (the excitement about paying off the mortgage hasn't worn off yet!) small patch of England smelling the various plants that my lethal fingers have so far failed to kill, but there's not much left so late in the season. So I gritted my teeth, got the secateurs and brought in all the flowers to enjoy them indoors.

There are roses (New Dawn - the pale one with holes (not a breed characteristic btw) in the petals - has the most delicious scent, but is also seemingly clad in barbed wire; I can't remember what the other one's called); sweet peas; jasmine; the last spike of phlox; and a few sprigs of photinia to add a little leafy interest. My flower-arranging skills are only slightly advanced from the 'bung them in a jamjar' technique, but I think they look quite pretty.

And the sitting room smells divine.

I'll go back to black

2009-09-20T16:51:00.002+01:00

Tuesday Challenge #29 is on the subject of 'Black'

So here's my interpretation.

"Y'all remember to wipe your feet"

2009-09-19T15:30:00.002+01:00

I wonder if anyone knows what she and Billy-Joe were throwing off the Tallahatchee Bridge.

I've always reckoned it must have been a baby.

Whenever you stroll along with me

2009-09-17T18:41:00.006+01:00

Having a few days free I loaded Beattie in the car and took her to visit the Aged Parent; while we were there we found that the best place for exercising a dog with arthritic feet was the wonderful miles of sandy beach.

There's a pier

and around the base of each leg the sea has scoured the sand in an interesting way.

Beattie found she could step out quite briskly on the hard sand without hurting her feet

but didn't really enjoy the bracing sea breeze

so she tried to eat the camera when I laughed at her.

But she didn't try to eat the jellyfish.

But I might die tonight

2009-09-04T11:55:00.008+01:00

For the past week I've monitoring the growth of a random mushroom that started growing in the greenhouse.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

When I went to check it this morning I found it had fallen over (probably felled by the influence of the slug visible in picture 6) so I picked it.

Day 7

I'm slightly perturbed to see that the gills aren't the nice pinky-beige (aka 'mushroom'), or even dark brown, colour I was expecting, but are instead a rather unhealthy, pallid-looking white.

Boy reckons it's a Destroying Angel or something along those lines so I probably won't add it to the shepherd's pie.

Like the circles that you find

2009-09-02T20:00:00.003+01:00

As you know, there's a saying "It's a small world". I'm acquainted with someone who hates that saying, so it's worth repeating if only for that reason; not my favourite person. But I digress. The smallness, and frequency of odd coincidences was brought home to me a couple of weeks ago. Brother #2 had recently visited our mother in her new home Oop North, and was chatting at work (in Sussex) to a new student they have working with them. The first coincidence was that the student's father worked with Bro's wife; then it got surreal. Bro mentioned he'd just been to the Frozen North, and student told him that his grandparents lived in Yorkshire, on the coast. In a nice little town, in a quiet road ... which turned out to be the exact same town and the exact same road that Mother lives in. Spooky.

That weekend Bro and Sis-in-Law went to a dinner celebrating a friend's marriage after many years of widowhood. The groom was a nice chap, about Bro's age.To cut a long story short, it turns out they'd been to primary school together in Cyprus in the mid 50s - chap had been in Bro #1's class and remembered him well.

After a while this sort of thing can mess with your head.

There's room enough for two

2009-09-01T19:55:00.005+01:00

I was spoilt for choice regarding titles for this blog. I could have had "Right smack dab in the middle of town", or "It's peaceful as can be, or "I get away from the hustling crowd", but finally chose yet another line from the same song.

Luckily the holidays are nearly over and the village scamps will soon be back at school. Is it wrong of me to admire their ingenuity?

God didn't make the little green apples

2009-08-30T12:29:00.009+01:00

When The Boy was really quite small, he and I planted a pip from an apple he'd just eaten, on the offchance that it'd grow. Well it did, and was duly planted out in the garden. The years passed and it grew taller, but it never flowered - until this year.

The bees did their stuff, there wasn't a late frost to kill the baby fruit, and they gradually grew. Ned & I had always believed that apple trees that grow from pips don't produce 'real' fruit, but only sour crabapples, but Boy assured us (with all the weight of his arboricultual training) that we were talking a load of old toot, and that they'd be real apples.

And he was right. The fruit are still growing bigger and weighing down their branches, making them easy to pick when the time comes. Every time we thin out the crop to lighten the load on the branches we try them - they're certainly not too sour, but as yet lacking juice; hopefully that'll come in the next couple of weeks.

They're certainly pretty apples, despite some of them being a bit spotty (no sprays here!)

And getting to be a reasonable size too.

The size of the tree is a reminder of how long we've lived here - it came as a bit of a shock!