Boys will be boys, bad boy, bad boy

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!)

Wee'll meet again

The weekend nearly went according to plan; Piglet knows how to choose his moment! He'd been a real grumpy-bum for the last couple of evenings, so I'd wondered what was wrong - I found out when I was setting out with them for their afternoon walk and noticed he was cocking unsuccessfully.

Panic stations. Back home (with the dogs protesting about the rubbish walk) to ring the vet and say we were on our way. This was at 2.30; surgery closes at 3 on Saturdays, and Leamington's 10 miles away. Isn't it always the way that, in an emergency situation you get stuck behind Mr Forty-five-mph-is-plenty with no opportunity to overtake, and all the traffic lights turn red at your approach? We parked as close as we could to the surgery and ran, which seemed to help a lot because, as we paused outside the vet's Piglet cocked his leg again and the floodgates opened! No rodding required thankfully. He was given a quick check over (because it would be rude not to), while the vet nurses sulked at not being able to add catheterisation to their list of accomplishments.

So home, in a more relieved mood, to find the lovely Omally had arrived to help us install our new computer. This, of course, involved copious imbibement whilst downloads were uploaded and uploads were downloaded (I think), finally calling it a day having watched White Horses, the Clangers, Ivor the Engine (psshhtaka, psshhtaka) and Noggin the Nog at one in the morning. Astonishingly when I went into the living room to get the dogs to go to bed all the cheese was still untouched on the coffee table; even Ned's favourite stinky ones. So no worries about a) squits or b) impaction from the clingfilm. What good dogs!

We all felt a little fragile today, and I forgot to thank Om for being wonderful.

Some sunny day

We had a lovely time at the Jane mini-meet. Newcastle-under-Lyme is a long long way from the coast, so we were certain that only a TOG would have named their terraced house there 'Sea View'. Lots of things happened, like Marshy getting a fit of the giggles at some innocent throw-away line and nearly pebble-dashing the table with Space Dust; The Monster (who was A Star: grown-ups sitting chatting for hours are incredibly boring and she didn't once kick up a fuss) managed to spill glitter onto the carpet in her corner which will no doubt be there for ever and ever (I even found a bit on my eyelid this morning); several people played pass-the-parcel with MMLS, who was almost as much of a star as her Big Sister; a couple of
local caches just happened to be nabbed, and then it was time to go home.

Watching NCIS that night we heard the most joyously well-written exchange between two of the cast. "What did Ducky look like when he was young?" asked the young woman. There was a pause, then "Ilya Kuryakin" came the reply. Magic!