It all comes round again

This year's Cropredy Festival was just the most brilliant few days I've had in a long time. Wall-to-wall sunshine (apart from at night, of course. That would be silly). The whole thing was just fantastic. The weather, the company, the food, the beer and of course, the music.
Waiting for the kick-off.

An imitation of that well-known Belgian statue, the Mally'king Pis.
Stu did some very impressive juggling with various artefacts of different sizes and weights, but for some reason declined my offer to throw an axe at him to incorporate into the flow. No idea why - he was wearing his boots after all. Be careful with that axe, Eugene mallet, Stu.

After a busy session of signing CDs, Richard Digence seemed rather pleased to be able to use bigger writing on an LP sleeve.
Some of the line-up I've heard before - some I liked and wanted to see again, and some who kindly gave me an opportunity to catch up on sleep! Then there were some that were new to me; Mad Agnes stood out as having a wide range of styles and seemed more than competent. Hummingbird were well worth listening to (Maris, Edwina announced she was trying to keep her voice deep because last time she was told she sounded like Minnie Mouse!). Jools Holland was great and Lulu can still do 'Shout'.

After being voted the Most Influential Folk Album Ever by Mike Harding's Radio 2 audience, the surviving Fairports of that line-up reformed and performed the album live, with Chris While standing in for Sandy Denny - a real treat. The final day was opened, as usual, by Richard Digance who never fails to get the crowd 'warmed-up'.

The high point of the whole festival (incidentally all tickets were sold out a fortnight ago - the first time that's ever happened) was of course Fairport Convention's own closing slot. They came on stage shortly after 8pm and kept up the most amazing energetic enormously professional performance for four hours. This year was the first time they've had a back-screen showing the performers themselves, which meant that everyone got close-up views of just how stunning the musicianship was. They also had the lyric for their famous (!) hit "Si tu dois partir" so that everyone could sing along;

and the film produced for the enhancement of "Matty Groves" was a sheer delight! The weekend was brought to a close by the traditional finale of "Meet on the Ledge".

Other memories: much Thinging was done on Friday night, with several new Favourite Things thought of but forgotten by the morning; the burger-stall's music system, which thankfully couldn't take the pace and died on Saturday morning; Cropredy Virgins' amazement at the standard of the 'facilities'; watching what must have been the space shuttle (a bright orange light that traversed the sky from horizon to horizon every 20 minutes or so) with Mallers; Beattie being an absolute star - I'm not sure she really enjoyed it (she had to stay up well past her usual bedtime) but it was better than not being with us, and there were loads of trodden-on chips to hoover up when we relaxed our guard; Stu's paddling pool that he kindly shared; Mally's super-soaker that he not-so-kindly shared (!) ... it just goes on.

It was the best time!

Whatever happened to the heroes?

Well, one of them lives at Genie Towers. A bit of background; several years ago we noticed that the paint on the fascia of the gable at the front of the house was starting to flake and, because it's very high and we don't like going very high we started contacting decorators and asking them for quotes to do the job. How many do you think responded? That's right, none at all. Year after year we searched for a tradesman wanting work but obviously they've all won the lottery and don't need customers. It's not even as if it was a very big job - just very high. No way on this earth would you get either Ned or me up a ladder that high even though the painting would be a POP.

So the job was left and left, with the paint getting shabbier and shabbier, until a friend bought a scaffolding tower which he offered to lend us. We borrowed it, hoping to do the work over the May bank holiday, but it rained, and whenever we were free to do it the weather wasn't co-operative. But this week the sun shone, so we got the elements of the tower out of the garage and started.

If there was a flat, solid surface in front of the house the job would have been much quicker, but there's lawn and flowerbeds, so first we had to find bits of timber and blocks for the legs to stand on securely. A second problem was that the platform was too narrow to do the whole lot at once, and, when fully constructed, the tower was too heavy to move. So each complete coat meant the tower had to be constucted, the work done on as much as could be reached, deconstructed, moved a couple of feet, reconstructed and the work done, deconstructed, moved again, reconstructed, the last bit of work done, then deconstructed for the last time that day because the paint had to dry before the next coat could be applied.

Occasionally we had the base fractionally too close to the house when we built the tower, only to find we couldn't put the topmost sections on because of the eaves and had to take it down and start again. Those were not happy times.

But at last it's finished! Those of you who went GoAping with us know exactly how pathetic I am with heights, but few realised that Ned's only marginally better. So for him to go that high, even with a reasonably steady platform to stand on, took a huge amount of courage. He's my hero.


Of course, the problem is that now the guttering looks shabby, and could really benefit from being taken down, sand-blasted and repainted before being replaced. I'd better not mention that yet.

If you leaf me now

Oh dear.

In all my years of gardening (I started dabbling when very small, with a little patch of the garden of my own) I've never been stricken with blight on either my potatoes or tomatoes. This year the weather conditions have been ideal for it and we've had both. The spuds had to come out a couple of weeks age, with some of the crop salvageable; yesterday I noticed the tomato plants - even the ones in the greenhouse - were looking decidedly dodgy and this morning there was no getting away from it. They were infected too and have had to come out and be destroyed. It's a rotten shame because the crop was looking promising. Of course it also means that the soil in the greenhouse is infected so we won't be able to grow toms straight into it next year, and we'll probably have to take a couple of years out from growing spuds at all. Damn damn damn. All that work and nothing to show for it.

Apparently it's the same all over the country, so watch out for huge price rises for home-grown veg this winter.

Today is only yesterday's tomorrow

The good news is that the swelling from the bites is subsiding. AA neighbourhood doctor recommended antihistamine tablets (okay, can manage that) as well as sitting with my legs raised and holding cold compresses on them. That would be quite a challenge at work, so had to go by the board. Although the information about the tablets said that they don't cause drowsiness, they certainly make me woolly-headed; so much so that yesterday I quite forgot I was meant to be doing both shifts, and it was only a slightly petulant phonecall from the vet asking if I was on my way yet that got me there at all. With Ned's co-operation at giving me a lift into the village I managed to get changed and into work within 4 minutes of the phonecall, but it meant I hardly knew which way was up, and by the time the afternoon shift was over I was totally wiped out. I'm not sure which is worse - the discomfort from the bites or the muddle-headedness.

A(-), you're Adorable

I never even saw the vicious, beastly, bloodsucking insects that on Saturday decided that a hefty serving of blood group A Neg was exactly what they needed to get themselves through the day. And why they chose the backs of my knees (delightful though they are, as I'm sure you'll agree) for their feast I don't know, but I now have swellings about the size of my fist at the back of both legs, which makes walking or sitting down very uncomfortable. They both itch and hurt, which is a curious sensation.

Oh, and one had a chomp at my foot as well.

Stay away from my back door too

I don't know if you've heard about the Ashtead Nimbys. These are the residents of an area close by the Headley Court rehabilitation centre where, for decades, injured servicemen have been sent after Selly Oak has stitched them back together to continue their recovery. They include amputees, burns sufferers, brain injuries, loss of sight or hearing, and psychological damage. Some stay for mere months, while others have to stay for years. This is the only specialist centre in the country, and because servicemen come from all over the country their families often have to travel long distances to visit them - and the visits play an important role in the healing process.

Because of the importance of family visits and the difficulties the families face, the charity SSAFA (Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association) have bought a house nearby to the facility (which incidentally recently opened a new 30-bed annexe to cope with the increasing numbers of patients), with the intention of converting it into a home-from-home for the visiting families. It's in a good state of repair; a wheelchair ramp at the front door will be needed but not much else structurally. It's anticipated that about eight people would stay there, with an upper limit of 12. So SSAFA applied to the local council for planning permission for a wheelchair ramp, and change of use.

Guess what. The local council received 83 letters of objection from the local residents, claiming that the "increased traffic noise" and "additional pollution" from a 'short-term, multiple-occupancy hostel' would lower the value of their houses, and make them a "soft touch" for "those awful terrorists". If it were a halfway house for sex offenders or junkies or similar they might have more of a point (not in respect of noise or pollution, obviously, but regarding the desirability of possibly unsafe neighbours), but here we're talking not about criminals, whether or not they've served their time, but about ordinary families whose lives have been torn apart and will never be the same again. They could be you or me - anyone who has a husband or son old enough to be called up.

Shame on them. It seems nothing's changed since Kipling wrote 'Tommy' all those years ago, condemning the hypocrisy of so many civilians regarding those who're prepared to risk their lives. I don't know anyone who agrees with the wars our troops are fighting, but the people to take it out on are the politicians, not the troops themselves.

"For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;"

No Heroes In Our Backyard, eh?

However someone's got up a petition to protest at this disgusting behaviour, and it's doing quite well. Please feel free to sign it.

Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking

You just know you're not going to get away on time when, with only a quarter of an hour of surgery time left, the boss suggests that a client should 'pop back' and get their other animal for examination, and the client lives twenty minutes away ...

If only overtime was paid at a higher rate.

Water music

With only two and a half weeks to go till Cropredy we thought we'd take a look to see if they've started the preparations yet. The short answer is 'no'. The residents of the festival field itself are still there, doing their best to get the grass short enough.
As far as the camping fields go, the good news is that there won't be a lot of effort needed to push in tent pegs. Sewn-in groundsheets will probably be a good idea, and wellies are definitely recommended.
More good news is that the waterlevel's fallen a lot and is still draining. Nobody had told a fish that we saw trying to make its way into the field!

It looks as though the emergency camping fields will be used again, as they were in 04 when the conditions were similar. They're higher and drier, but not as peaceful; they adjoin the railway line. At least at midnight on Saturday the trains go onto Sunday service.

Like a bridge over troubled water

It took Ned nearly four hours to get home from Stow last night - a journey which normally takes about half an hour. He had to go via the back lanes of several counties but eventually won through. Lots of people didn't, judging by the number of cars littering the verges. Boy's car still won't start though.

Apparently we had three times July's usual rainfall just yesterday, so having made sure the roads were mainly passable again (with care) we went to have a look at the result. On a normal summer's day you could expect to see the weir on the river Leam in the middle of Leamington looking like this:

We went to stand on the far side of the bridge in the top picture to record the spectacle:

I think the caches we'd placed nearby might need replacing ...

We didn't even attempt to get to Stratford to see how they're faring. Rumour has it Wellesbourne (next village on the Stratford road) is cut off, and TV reports show that the Avon has burst its banks and the centre of Stratford is under about seven feet of water. Of course all this water is heading downriver, so the towns downstream, already inundated, have got more to come.

Ain't climate change great?

In July the sun is hot. Is it shining? No it's not

It's been a tad on the damp side today, giving rise to memories of Easter a few years ago.
Luckily this isn't our driveway; that's meant to be a stream going under a bridge, not a stream going over a bridge.
You can get a hint of the speed of the flow from the fields and ditch to the left on the drainage on the right of the road.
In fact it was so damp that instead of the really busy afternoon I'd been expecting it was deathly quiet, because the vet couldn't get to the village for aftrnoon surgery and I had to ring and cancel all the appointments - the ones that hadn't already rung me and cancelled because they couldn't get to the village either ...

Oddly, however, there was a lot more traffic than usual in the village, and I got my entertainment watching juggernauts and buses causing gridlock in the narrow main street. Apparently there were landslips onto the M40, so that was closed, and all the long-distance traffic was having to use the lanes again. Boy tried to get to a friend's house about eight miles away and only managed to get four miles away before his car died and a pal towed him home. Then they went out again in a 4x4, no doubt hoping to make a few quid by towing people out of puddles. At least they're together and shouldn't come to too much harm, surely?

Now, as soon as Ned gets back from Cheltenham (he set off at about 1.30 and it's now ... ooh let me see ... 7 o'clock) I'll be able to relax.

Tell me something I don't know

Frankly, I'd complain if they didn't.

On the road again

We drove and we drove and we drove.We drove to Coventry to collect a dalmatian for rehoming (not as emotional as I'd feared) and we drove down the M40 to hand her over to her adopters. She came away with us in the car quite confidently, although as time went by I could see she was starting to get a bit bewildered and missing her 'mum'. But as we waited for her adopters to arrive she tucked her head under my arm for a cuddle, and then kissed Ned's ear for some attention from him. She was a sweetie who, although by no means ill-treated previously, I think will have a better life in future, with more time and attention being given to her.

Once all the paperwork was completed and she was handed over we drove across country to MMM's place, via several very interestingly narrow obscure winding lanes thanks to Henrietta, to help rid her of surplus possessions in preparation for her international flit. (Omally, we have stuff for you too.)

Then home. By this time the combined effects of an early rise, emotional stress of the dog-move and the unexpected heat of the day (anyone would think it was summer) caused me to lapse into a semi-coma and it took the application of several restorative cups of tea at home before I felt almost human again. I think an early night is called for.

*looks at time*

Oops.

Auf Wiedersehen, adieu

Phew! The locum quickly proved to be totally unsuitable and was given the order of the boot before being due to come to the village surgery for 'my' shift (and after I'd been brushing up my Greek - Ouzo, retsina, "exo skilio" - too). So normal chaos is resumed.

Ocean of motion

Things seem to be lurching from bad to worse at the vets' since the practice changed hands. in the Old Days there were three vets; the practice owner and two others who shared the workload and all knew what they were doing. Now pissups and breweries spring to mind. First the new owners (both vets) were unaware that they needed to renew certain licences so no Pet Passports or farm work can be done, thus hacking off all the farm clients. Then they said that because they live miles away and don't want to disrupt their children's schooling they can't do all the hours that the boss used to do, so the others must cover. (Very popular as you can imagine.) I hear that one employee burst into the local where a chillingly polite meeting was going on (public place for safety) shrieking that she couldn't cope any more! Now they've employed a locum who not only doesn't speak English but also can't work the computer, so we untrained receptionists are going to have input everything that this vet does so that invoices are correct. This will have to be done in the consulting room at the same time as we're in the reception dealing with the clients out there. As there's only one of us on duty at a time this could be interesting.

*Goes to study the Sits Vac.

What a difference a day makes

Yesterday

Today
How to shed weight and years in a single day.

A strange glow in the sky

What's this I see in the sky this morning? Is it a UFO? Are we being invaded by aliens? No, hang on, it's coming back to me ...

Wait a minute, Mr Postman

My significant birthday's nearly over and the Parcelforce van still hasn't delivered either Mark Harmon
or Sharpe.

*starts getting anxious*

Floating in limbo

A thorough (well, as thorough as I dare) search of the external hard drive tells me that we did no backups between September 05 and April 07 - which isn't beyond the realms of possibility. But the latest backup doesn't show files and documents that I know were saved between those dates; that old diary, my CV, my list of the hours I work so I know how much to invoice my employer (eek!), squillions of photos etc.

But I think I've worked out a possible explanation. Between the last two backups, when all that work was done, we had an explodification and a tame geek managed to extract all that useful stuff and replace it when he'd scrubbed the hard drive. But when he loaded it all again he put on an earlier version of Windows (let's call it version A) from what we'd had previously but everything was hunky dory. Not so good in general but had features that we didn't have before so was okay. It was this version that was running when we did the April backup.

Then came the last explodification. This time we've reinstalled the later version (version B) which works much better but won't recognise the data that had been added when we did the backup with the earlier version.

I reckon if we were to find a computer that was running version A we could recover the data, put it onto a disk and then copy it onto this computer we could then do a backup (I'd also print it out onto hard copy so it's real!) and I wouldn't be fainting at the thought of redoing all those months of work.

Bang bang, that awful sound

Did I tell you we’ve had another computer explodification? No, I didn’t think so. It manifested itself by playing Ring-a-ring-roses when it was meant to turn on – it’d get partway there then restart. So I called our local computer-mender who kindly came out in the hour between packing and leaving for Heathrow for 3 weeks in Oz and Fiji. He fitted a shiny new hard drive, plugged our external drive into it and hastily copied saved stuff over. Except that it doesn’t seem to have copied everything over. Lots of documents are floating in limbo, including several months’ work of transcribing a diary from 1862 and the contents being inserted chronologically into previously-copied letters and other documents for future publication. Buggerbuggerbuggerbugger. I know we did a backup recently so where the sodding hell’s it all gone?

I still don't know what I was waiting for

I've jumped on the apparent bandwagon of work-related upheaval that seems to have recently affected so many people. For several months my vet-boss has been trying to sell the practice, and after many hold-ups and set-backs and tears and tantrums (and that was only the solicitor) the sale was finally completed and yesterday lunchtime I ceased to be employed by XYZ Veterinary Surgeons and became an integral part of ABC Veterinary Practice Ltd.

Now the fun starts. Because nobody knew when – or even if - the sale would happen we’ve been pottering along, business as usual, and we weren't allowed to mention the possibility of the sale to the clients. But now when clients ring up to book an appointment with the Old Boss we have to explain that he no longer works in the practice; unfortunately because it’s (apparently) so sudden they think he’s been struck off or something, so we go into the spiel about the sale and how the practice is merely under new ownership.

Some clients will no doubt leave because they liked Old Boss (there’s one with an appointment on what would have been Old Boss’s rostered day this week, who’s going to be stunned) and others who didn’t like him (he’s best described as an ‘acquired taste!’) might well return. The wife of the new owner, who’ll be doing the actual vet stuff, has yet to make an appearance!

The computer system seems not to have been changed overnight, although the credit-card machine has (New Boss explained to m’colleague that “it’s like the ones restaurants use.” To which she replied in a bewildered tone “I have a father and a husband. I don’t pay in restaurants.”), and we have to remember to answer the phone differently. That could take a while to get into the swing of, and I confidently predict that I’ll use my home number in answer before I remember the new name.

And we’ll need new uniforms, and all the printers will need the letterheads and label details changed, and new business cards, and all the notices will need redoing, and … and … and …

Chaos and confusion will be the order of the day for some while yet!

Goodbye, piccalilli

There is only one variety of piccalilli that we like, but it’s not easy to obtain. At first we could get it from farm shops locally, but one by one they stopped selling it until it seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. Every time we visited a different area of the country we’d stop at local delis and see if they had any, but although they all stocked other products from the same company, they never had piccalilli. We searched from Cornwall to Kent to the Lake District, and many points in between. Then a shop in Banbury thrillingly managed to get some and we carried home the jars in triumph, and ate them.

Then the shop couldn’t get any more.

After several more months had passed the company lowered its minimum order price from £200 to £20, so we ordered some for ourselves, and we’re eagerly awaiting our delivery. This morning a parcel was delivered – from a new deli in Battle (no, not New Delhi in India) containing six jars of this prize. My mother hadn’t realised we’ve ordered some and kindly arranged a surprise for us.

Piccalilli sandwich, anyone?

Dem bones, dem bones

Hurrah for Ned! This week's weigh-in confirmed that he's reached his target weight; a loss of 42lb since Christmas! I'm very proud of him and will now allow him a scraping of butter on his cardboard.

Where the sun shines brightly?

Well, we're back, and rather sooner than planned. The journey down was as expected and we got the tent put up in fine weather, which was lovely. So we took a little evening stroll down to the beach local to the campsite so Beattie could stretch her legs. The beaches down there are wonderfully dog-friendly, which makes a pleasant change.

Next day we got a couple of caches under our belt to break ourselves in for what we planned would be a mighty effort. The first required a fair amount of pushing and shoving and squeezing to retrieve ... but only minimal DNA was left behind on the thorns, so that was all right.

The Cornish have a different idea of what 'hedge' means - an awful lot of stone is involved.
Then it was back to the tent for a rest. Honestly, you'd have thought that for two people and a dog that two chairs, a double airbed and a dogbed would be fine, wouldn't you? Well that's wrong. You need spaces for three, because obviously Beattie isn't a dog, but she kindly allowed me to sit on her chair sometimes
and was willing to let me share the bed. Ned and I both fell off several times each night when she turned over or stretched.
Next day was fine and not too blowy, so we went caching in Boscastle. Guess where the cache is in this picture?
Some of the houses there are obviously only suitable for thin people with flat-pack furniture. This doorway is regular-sized, but the doors most definitely aren't!
Boscastle is still having reconstruction work done after the flood of 2004 but it's very much a thriving village again, which is good to see. We first went there in 2003 and I fell in love with this 14th-century building
which was totally washed away in the disaster. In the picture you can see the end of the building behind. The owner managed to salvage much of the stone when they cleared the harbour of cars, trees and assorted rubble and has rebuilt it. Sadly it's lost a lot of its charm.
A short drive down the narrowest lanes imaginable, where the car was scraping the undergrowth on both sides at once, and the grass growing in the middle of the road needed mowing, got us another couple of caches. Then the weather closed in.

And stayed closed in. The gales blew, the rain lashed down across, the tent rocked madly in the powerful gusts. And the forecast was for more to come. After a wakeful night waiting for the sound of ripping fabric as the tent was buffetted from side to side and groaned like a ship foundering on the rocks we decided discretion was the better part of valour and disappointedly packed up and came home. It was a shame because we'd been so looking forward to the break but we'd have been too afraid to leave the tent to visit anywhere in case the tent left as well!

Maybe we'll go back to finish the holiday in September - hopefully not coinciding with the equinoctial gales!

PS. It appears from the TV news that Boscastle has today been hit by a similar, though thankfully smaller, inundation. Perhaps we'd better not go back there ever ever again.

No more working for a week or two

We're off on wallaby in the morning. Be good while I'm away.

And it will be my last

Watching 'House' alerted us to a fab band. We hadn't heard of zero 7 before. Off to the record shop!

Dipping in the pocket of her raincoat

An eventful day at work. The morning shift included a woman who turned up randomly with her dog to see the vet a full 20 minutes after the vet should have left, but luckily we'd been having a cuppa and a gossip so there wasn't a problem. Within 10 minutes the dog had been referred to the nearest eye specialist (an hour's drive away) with the owner in utter shock. Two days ago the young (3½ years) terrier cross was fine - today it's blind in one eye and the other is affected. Tomorrow it has to have the blind eye removed and is on medication to try to save the other. Primary Lens Luxation is hereditary - don't believe those who tell you that crossbreeds don't suffer from hereditary conditions. That's total tosh.

In the afternoon another woman burst into the waiting room in a panic, asking for a vet to come out to a dog she'd run over in xxxxx Road. I live in xxxxx Road - my automatic response was "What sort of dog?" - not the question she was expecting. On being told "A spaniel" I could cope (phew, not mine!) and all went smoothly from there. (Not a great prognosis, apparently.)

I'm emotionally drained.

Fools rush in

In the field this afternoon Harry and Piglet were systematically hunting along the hedge as usual where all the rabbit holes are when they both suddenly stopped and concentrated; stepped back in puzzlement then went in again. The next thing was that Piglet tore along to the end of the hedge, through the gap and sprinted back along the other side to where Harry was still engrossed. Assuming one had flushed a bunny and the other was going after it I was surprised when a buzzard slowly flapped up from the other side of the hedge from Harry. I blew the whistle and was very pleased to see Piglet reappear unscathed - but was slightly taken aback to see that he was carrying a freshly-dead woodpigeon. It seems he'd mugged the buzzard for its kill and won! Even more pleasing was his triumphant return to give me the trophy.

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye

It seems that you don't hang around long after you die in America. My dear aunt died on Friday and it's her funeral today. Is that short time usual Over There? It doesn't give much time for more distant relatives to attend.

Art for art's sake

What to do on a wet weekend? We'd planned to paint the fascia around the extension, but the weather put paid to that. So I took this photo, tinkered on the computer then got out my oil paints ...

... and turned it into this.

It still needs some work, but it's not too bad.

Don't leave me hanging on the telephone

Why is it impossible, with a landline phone, to hang up and get a clear line when someone's called you with a mobile? Boy didn't believe me, but I showed him that, if the caller with the mobile doesn't cancel the call, the landline phone can't get a clear line again, no matter how many times you hang up the receiver. It's infuriating when it happens to your home phone (when your Beloved has the mobile in his pocket and all you can hear is the sound of his rhythmic stride), but it happened at work and I had to spend a full 20 minutes shouting and whistling and desperately trying to attract the attention of the mobile owner. Silly twit had accidentally speed-dialled the vet's number without realising. I hope nobody wanted to contact the vet urgently.

He's got the key of the door

Twenty-one candles on a cake generate a lot of heat ...

... and need a lot of breath to blow out!

Happy birthday, Boy! Where did all the years go?

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!

You put your right leg in

Just as we left the house to go shopping I noticed a scrumpled-up piece of paper on the hall floor, and rather than sensibly picking it up at the time I left it where it was to deal with it on our return. As the return involved carrying in armfuls of shopping I walked past the piece of paper and opened the kitchen door to put said shopping on the table.

"Don't let the dogs out, mum, there's a fiver on the hall floor" says Boy.

Not any more there wasn't. In the time it took Boy to say that short sentence the scrumpled piece of paper had vanished. Harry had a toy in his mouth so is probably innocent. All we can think of is that Piglet or Beattie's next poos will be expensive.

*kicks Ned for carelessness (dropping it)
*kicks self for untidiness (not picking it up when I first saw it)
*kicks Boy for stupidity (leaving it there, knowing what it was)
*kicks dogs for purposes of equality.

I don't have no time for no monkey business

When I got home from work at lunchtime there was a small cardboard box* by the front door. It was wriggling slightly and a muffled sobbing seemed to be coming from it**. I carefully carried it indoors, cut the tape that had been securing it and released a young primate, who seemed to be very relieved to breathe the fresh air. He was taken upstairs and carefully introduced to the rest of the group. He seems a little nervous.

I hope they don't fight.

* Thanks Stu! :D
** May have been my imagination

To Sir, with love

I had a letter published in the Daily Telegraph yesterday! I write to them several times a year (musings always pithy, witty and to the point of course!) but have only once before had one published. Yesterday’s offering read:

Sir - As J. P. Floru (Letters, May 5) believes that state funding through taxation for public transport is a bad idea because it means that those who choose not to use the rail system are still paying for it, I assume he believes that state funding for the National Health Service through taxation is a bad idea for the same reason. The fact is that the NHS relies on everyone's contributions, whether we use it or not, to enable it to be available when we need it. Likewise the rail system.

It’s a shame they edited out my last sentence, which basically was my whole point:

In fact if the rail network was subsidised by all of us through taxes the fares might be lowered enough for those not as wealthy as some to be able to afford to use it, thus getting more cars off the roads, reducing traffic congestion and cutting pollution.

Later that evening I had a phonecall from a bloke in the village who’d had his letter to the paper published on Friday! We shall have to start up the Kineton Telegraph Letter-writers Club.

The oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree

If you're a straw-chewing rustic you'll be well aware of ye olde country weather prediction:

"Oak before the ash, we're in for a splash,
Ash before the oak, we're in for a soak".

After the overnight drizzle cleared we went caching and came across this splendid example of the state of the two species, one to one side of us, one on the other.

Oak

Ash

It looks as though it's going to be a dry year.

Oh, and one of the caches was in the traditional ivy-covered tree.

A case of do or die

In order to write a sensible shopping list and not buy stuff we already had, and forget things we needed, I was checking through the cupboards. Lasagne - needed. Dried apricots - needed. Cereal - okay for. Rice; basmati, plenty; long grain, should be okay ... ooh what's this? A don't remember buying a box of Uncle Ben's Florentine rice, I wonder how long it's been there. Ooh look, it's got a price ticket from the shop near the old house, and we've not been there for ages. Being TOGs and proud of it we take not a jot of notice of trivia such as sell-by dates and associated nannying, but a lot of squinting located the best before date, which caused a dilemma.

The BBD was The Boy's birthday. The original one. Do we have the rice to celebrate their joint 21st anniversary on May 20th or shall we keep the packet as an heirloom?

As I was a-walking one morning in May

Most years it's been a struggle to find some hawthorn (aka 'May') in bloom for decoration on May 1st. This year there's no problem - it's been in flower for at least a fortnight.

So now that the May's out we can cast our clouts willy-nilly.

Sumer is icumen in

The May Queen by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

YOU must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year;
Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

There’s many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;
There’s Margaret and Mary, there’s Kate and Caroline;
But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,
So I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break;
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see
But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree?
He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday,
But I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white,
And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light.
They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

They say he’s dying all for love, but that can never be;
They say his heart is breaking, mother—what is that to me?
There’s many a bolder lad ’ill woo me any summer day,
And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green,
And you’ll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen;
For the shepherd lads on every side ’ill come from far away,
And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

The honeysuckle round the porch has woven its wavy bowers,
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers;
And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray,
And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass,
And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass;
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day,
And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

All the valley, mother, ’ill be fresh and green and still,
And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,
And the rivulet in the flowery dale ’ill merrily glance and play,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear,
To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year;
To-morrow ’ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day,
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

...................................................................................

The Boy just can't believe that we had to memorise poems like that at Junior School. They don't seem to have to learn anything by heart any more. It's a shame.

Happy May Day everyone!

They laugh a lot behind the green door.

It sounded like a good idea. The greenhouse needed a bit of tidying and cleaning, so why not move it two feet nearer the house while we were at it? That'd give us more room behind it to relocate the toolshed, then we could have a more attractive one by the patio to store the garden furniture and plant a magnolia alongside near where we felled the enormous Leylandii and it'd be lovely.

Part 1 of the plan was successful. 74 panes of glass have been removed and washed, and the superstructure unbolted from the base and shuffled sideways so that we could then unpeg that and move it two feet to the left. The ground was dug over and levelled, the frame shuffled back and the sparkly panes reinstalled. A barrowload of well-rotted muck was transported from our neighbour's heap (please take more!) and dug in, and everything that had previously been in the greenhouse (apart from the rodents' nests, slugs, snails, bindweed etc) was rehoused.

I don't think there's a part of either of us that doesn't hurt. Even the very tippy-ends of our toes hurt. But we accomplished what we set out to do, so we not only laugh behind the green door, but behind the entire green house. Plus, not a single pane of glass was broken, and neither of us have needed to visit the Casualty deparment for stitches or anything else. A win, I think.

Don’t ask me what I want it for

My tax return arrived today. I haven't had to fill in (fill out?) one of these for years. I predict much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Such a digital lifetime

I tried to use the credit card in Asda today, because they don't accept cheques any more. I tentatively put the card into their machine, and the screen told me I had one more try left to get the PIN right. I checked the number, carefully moved towards the buttons ... when Ned leaned over my shoulder and put in the wrong number before I could stop him! So the PIN was blocked and the card useless. Ned then promptly forgot the PIN for his other card, and the lengthening queue behind us started getting restive, so we decided to hand over cash instead and beat a hasty retreat.

On my return home I phoned the credit card company to ask them to unblock the PIN. The woman at the other end was a little surprised at this request because it wasn't showing up as being blocked in the first place. Neither had they any record of declined transactions - not today, and not from the shop in Coventry on the 3rd. She went the formality of unblocking it for me anyeway, and I have to go to a hole-in-the-wall and unblock it myself as well. If it still doesn't work I'm going to get very very cross indeed.

You know I need someone

“Mother, help me!” she called, but there was no response. Where was Mother, now, when she was needed so desperately? Maggie suddenly remembered that Mother had gone away a long time ago and wouldn’t be coming back. It had been very hard at the time, but as the years passed she had become independent and the terrible loss eased to a dull ache, until she was so used to it she rarely noticed it.

She’d managed very well, she thought. She’d found herself a lovely man, and their marriage had been long and very successful, with children and grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. At the time it had been a wrench to leave all she knew and come here with him, but there had been letters and visits, and Hank had done so well, working his way up the company until he'd bought it, that she’d always known that she only had to pick up the phone and she could get a flight whenever she wanted.

The trouble had started gradually. At first the pain was merely niggling, soothed by gentle exercise, but it steadily got stronger, and the painkillers needed to keep it at bay did likewise. Eventually she agreed that all the insurance money they’d paid should be put to good use and she signed the consent forms for the surgery that should fix the problem for good. What a shame it didn’t work but actually made things worse. The painkillers got even stronger, and the operations (because they could do them, not because they should, she thought) more frequent and more involved. She'd felt rather like a guineapig at the time, but they assured her it'd all be worth it in the end. Now she realised they meant it'd be worth it for them because of all the money they'd make, not worth it for her. She still needed the drugs, more and more, and the weakness extended. The diapers were just another humiliation, and she realised what she'd lost and could never regain.

This was when the fear started. She was no longer the master of the drugs, and had become their servant, and she couldn’t do without them. And now she was unable to just pick up the phone to arrange a flight to the past because no airline would take her. She badly wanted to go ‘home’ just once more, to hear the old familiar accents and smell the air, and see the small houses and the cars on the left, but she couldn’t even leave the hospital to go to the home where she’d raised her family. She was trapped here forever, and she panicked. But they don’t like you to lose control, and they shut you away.

“Help me Mother, please help me!” she screamed, as they locked the door.

Every time I thought I'd got it made

I seem to have sussed the enpiccification now (although our front garden is very small, it looks and smells lovely right now so I thought I'd share), which is good. What is bad, though, is that even though I saved the right page to Faves, I still had to sign in three times to be able to compose a post.

I loathe and detest this new 'improvement'. It's pants.

You know it ain't easy

So, we suffer a Great Explodification which means I can no longer access new pictures (there must be a way of transferring them from Camedia to My Pictures, because they did prior to the GE, but they don't now). And while I was away Blogger's changed and I was forced against my will to get a Google account so there's much more logging in involved in blogging. To quote one of the great thinkers of our era, "Why does nothing ever WORK?" I may yet throw a hissy fit and have a hutters incident.

They don't want your name

My PIN confirmation arrived in the post today, and I was using the right one all along. So something's up with the machine at the Coventry store.

You'll see all the wonders of No Mans Land

Being computerless for a weekend due to a major explodification did at least mean that we got a lot of gardening done. Once I'd stopped hyperventilating, that is.

Now all that remains is to find everything again, although some things seem to have gone for ever.

Living by numbers

Boy and I went into Coventry so that I could dust off and exercise the credit card and get him some of the kit he needs for the next stage of his course. Naturally his feet are the wrong shape for the standard boots (German feet are wide) so he needed more expensive Italian ones which are made narrower. The trousers aren't cheap either, but then neither are his legs, so they too went on the list, topped off with a helmet with built-in visor and ear defenders. The sales-child told me the total price, and once I'd regained consciousness and stopped hyperventilating I inserted the card and did the pin. Which was rejected.

Eh? I was certain I had the right number as I'd made a very careful note of it. I checked it - yes, it was right - and retried. Again it was refused. If the third go was refused the card would be blocked so we had to do it as an 'over-the-phone' transaction without the pin. That was successful so off we went.

Once home I double-double-checked the pin and I'd been right all along. The credit card company are sending me verification of it, but I suppose it would be sensible to change it for another one for me to forget. It was much better when you signed.

A thought: perhaps the well-thumbed Bible beside the credit card machine should have given me a clue that perhaps things didn't always go smoothly.

The final countdown

It was a bit rubbish at work yesterday. I had two condolence cards to write for people whose pets had died, handed over a dog's ashes to its very tearful owner, and then helped put a much-loved elderly cat to sleep and console her owner, who was in bits having lost her own mother four days ago. At least the cat's passing was quick and painless, and she died being gently stroked and told what a good kitty she was. The final gift we can give to our old friends.

I felt a bit glum and lonely when I got home, although the dogs were all delighted to see me. I'm glad Ned's coming home tomorrow.

Like we did last summer

Does anyone know why teeshirts have a compulsion to emulate corkscrews once they've been washed? They're a mongoose to iron and fold.

You're all alone

Ned's gone up to the Lakes for a few days with his chums and I'm here holding the fort. It's awfully quiet. I've tidied and cleaned and dusted and gardened a bit (but there's a cold wind blowing so I've come in) and now I'm at a loose end. I think I'll go and find a sunny spot somewhere and read a book.

I bet Ned won't be sticking to cardboard-and-water while he's away so neither shall I, especially as I'm not the one trying to lose weight! I think I'll indulge in egg and chips for supper tonight. Mmmmmmm, chips ......

This song has no title

I fairly often do experimental cookery, depending on what's available in Mother Hubbard's cupboards. Usually the results are okay, sometimes they're quite dramatic failures. Last night's bash was so splendidly successful I've actually written down the recipe. I just don't know what to call it. It has a sort-of Chinesey flavour - any suggestions?

4 pork chops/steaks
1 onion
Garlic
1 tin chopped tomatoes
3-4 tbsp hoi-sin sauce

Chop onions and garlic and soften for a few minutes in a little oil. Add the pork and lightly seal meat, then remove meat. Add tomatoes and hoi-sin sauce and heat through. Put half the sauce into an ovenproof dish, place the meat on top and pour on the rest of the sauce.

Cover and cook at 180°C (350°, gas mark 4) for 1 hour.

Serve with rice, or noodles, or boiled potatoes, all with steamed vegetables.

Serves 4.

Now and then just like before

Twelve noon came and I left work. The electricity man hadn't been. No surprise there then.

Can you hear me?

Sometimes I wonder why I bother. On a forum someone's posted in a panic that her dog's brushed against some wet masonry paint, what should she do? I ascertained that it was water-based and told her to wash it off before it dries. Too late, it's already dry. Basically the only option is to wait until that hair moults out in a few weeks. Cue weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Then comes the next post - her other dog has just come in, and she too has paint on her, and it's still wet. "Ho hum" she says "It looks like I'll be bathing both of them tomorrow". I've just pointed out that if she baths them tonight, before the paint dries hard, it'll come off much more easily.

Can you hear me, Mother?

A very merry unbirthday to me

I got back from walking the dogs and on the doorstep was a package. A bomb? No, it was from Jane across the Pond, responding to my plea regarding Merkin cups, and contained a very fine set of US cup and spoon measures, in a lovely sunny-Californ-eye-ay colour. The timing was perfect because Piglet had just run out of his biscuits and I was going to have a bash at another batch. This time I could get the quantities correct! As I went through the recipe measuring out the various flours and meals I also weighed them. I was pleased to find that I'd guessed quite accurately with some, but there were some that were definitely out. I hadn't suspected that half a cup of soy flour is only fractionally heavier than a quarter cup of cornmeal. The resulting dough needed a lot more milk than the previous batch to make it hold together when I rolled it out.

Very many thanks, Jane, from both me and Piglet!

Something in the way she moves ...

... or fails to.

Don't you just hate it when someone picks up your Travel Bug, promptly stops geocaching and fails to respond to emails? Come on Zobags, pull your finger out!

Oh it all makes work for the working man to do

You remember how I stressed on the phone that the electricity meter could only be changed between 9am and 12 noon? According to the card through the door the electrician called at 12.45. When it was confirmed that the times we gave were on the jobsheet m'colleague gave them a rocket . They're trying again next Tuesday, and now we've limited them to between 10 and 12. Can you guess who's drawn the short straw for that shift? Watch this space.

Whatcha got cookin'?

Recipe for a Jolly Fine Weekend:
Good food, good beer, good wine, good company, good conversation. Marvellous.

Mallers and Maddy came up to stay, bearing a fantastically thoughtful and gorgeous gift, for a weekend of detox on the cardboard-and-water diet and to set the world to rights. In brief, ‘king Omally chased a sheep and later annexed an unsuspecting state to add to his realm; Croc shoes are both hideous and uncomfortable; Kouros decided not to dangle by his midriff from a crane; medium tee-shirts can double up as casual frocks; organic gardens ("I remember when all this was fields") are best seen when a) plants are growing and b) there isn’t horizontal hail; and board games are now off the agenda. If anyone mentions “just one point” there’ll be trouble.

Back to work tomorrow. Ho hum.

A big question mark

A few weeks ago Ned's rather unloved - because it was a replacement for his adored surprise birthday present one that got stolen - chainsaw seized and nearly broke his shoulder when he tried to start it. "Pah, rubbish chainsaw, I never liked it" was his attitude, and he searched the net and eventually splashed out and bought a Quality one which he likes much better. And it starts too.

Then the other day, whilst searching for some Very Important Papers that had been put in a Safe Place, he found the delivery note and warranty for the broken one, and much to our surprise the guarantee still had several months to go. So we boxed it up and called the manufacturers to find out where it should be taken. They organised a courier and it was collected on Monday. Today the doorbell rang and a driver from DHL (remember that) wanted a package signed for. It was addressed to us and from the chainsaw company, but was rather on the small side for what we were expected. Anyway, we opened it ... and discovered a dimmer unit for a marionette theatre.

We phoned the chainsaw people to tell them that the wrong parcel had been sent, and we phoned the marionette theatre people that we had their dimmer unit - did they have our chainsaw? No they didn't, and luckily they were only in the next village and came to collect their package. We managed to piece together part of the story; both our packages were collected on Monday by the same courier - from Target, not DHL - and it seems both were delivered to the chainsaw factory in Droitwich. It was realised that the dimmer unit should have gone to Birmingham for repair, was repackaged and by some insane logic, sent to us. The chainsaw people assure me that the saw is still in their workshop being repaired and should be back with us next week.

The most curious bit of all this is why and how DHL (the worst company in the world to deal with, according to the poor chainsaw woman who was trying to sort out the muddle) got involved at all. The marionette people used Target. The chainsaw people used Target. Yet the package arrived in a DHL van, the delivery label was a printed DHL label, but with the Target sender reference number. Are they one and the same? Was the driver moonlighting? They must be in cahoots somehow, or else how on earth did the second company know anything about our shipment?

I'll show you how to walk the dog

So, that’s Crufts over for another year, and the TV presentation just gets worse and worse. The only improvement over last year was that they got Clare Balding back to try to keep that juvenile drip Ben Fogle more under control, and she managed reasonably well, though he did sneak in a few excruciatingly amateur moments when she momentarily dropped her guard. The main problem, though, is that the BBC doesn’t seem to realise it’s a dog show and viewers want to see the dogs, not the trade stands and listen to the presenters’ anecdotes. Imagine the furore if the Wimbledon coverage concentrated on chats with spectators, discussion of the quality of the strawberries and cream and a selection of the souvenirs available in the shop but only a cursory glimpse of the final game of the tournament. How narked would footy fans be if the only televised football they got was the edited highlights of the FA Cup, not even the whole match? There’d be riots in the streets.

To those who don’t know, Crufts is the only show that you can’t just enter – your dog has to qualify for entry by getting winning places in certain classes at a limited number of other shows throughout the year, so just being able to enter is an achievement. It’d be nice to actually see more of the classes being judged, and have knowledgeable commentators like Frank Kane explaining to the non-showing viewers what’s going on, what the judge is looking for, etc. A special programme about the other activities would be good; the gamekeepers’ classes, the obedience, the agility, the flyball. And, instead of Mary Ray’s now rather tedious and lack-lustre heelwork-to-music (I thought circus animal acts were considered to be poor taste nowadays?) as a warm-up to the final competition for Best in Show how much more interesting and educational (for example, not many people realise that the King Charles Spaniel and Cavalier King Charles Spaniel are two different breeds) would be a parade of all 208 recognised breeds with a commentary briefly describing the origins and history of each. That way the general public would get a better understanding of why the various breeds were developed they way they are; their functions dictating to great extent their form. Surely being taken seriously wouldn’t be too much to ask.

Please please tell me now

With Piglet being a weirdo and needing a special diet, the official version of which requires the relinquishment of several minor appendages for each purchase, I've been scouring the intermaweb for equivalent homemade foods. In the main it's been fairly successful and he seems to be doing all right*. But I have encountered one particular problem; the recipes are Merkin, and need translation into English measurements for convenience, so I started googling. This got me even more muddled, because it appears that, not only are our cups a different size to Merkin ones (ours hold 10 fl oz, theirs hold 8 fl oz), the weight of a cup varies according to its contents**. An American cup of plain flour weighs 4.3 ounces while a cup of rice weighs 6.5 ounces. A cup of salt weighs a whopping 10 ounces!

So this is where I'm calling upon my US friends for help. Please can you tell me the official weight of a cup of rice flour, a cup of soya flour and a cup of cornmeal. Also, is cornmeal the same as cornflour or not? And what on earth is 'unsulfured molasses'? Is there a similar product available on this side of the herring pond?

* crosses fingers, touches wood and spits over left shoulder
** stop sniggering, Mally

A town called malice

The phone rang, and the man at the other end told me that somebody had tied a dog to the railings outside his flat, and it was cold and wet; that neither the dog warden nor the RSPCA would come out and what should he do? There's no facilities at the surgery for taking in strays so I gave him the number of another dog warden, took his number in case of enquiries and left it at that.

About ten minutes later a very muddy, very tearful client - I'll call her S - came in to give me her mobile number because one of her dogs had been chased during its walk and had run off. She'd been searching for three hours and was afraid the dog had fallen into the swollen river; in fact she'd slipped in herself a couple of times and was soaked. I got on the phone and called back the man with the 'stray' and asked him to describe the dog. As I'd hoped, the description fitted S's missing dog, so I gave her the thumbs-up and took down the man's address. To my surprise her expression turned from joy at learning the dog was located to one of worry. "Oh dear, he's not a nice man" she said. "I hope he hasn't hurt her." And off she went.

Later on I heard more details which make me feel rather angry. It turns out that a couple had found the dog loose, looked at the address on her collar and taken her home. Of course there was nobody there because S was frantically searching the fields and riverbank, so the finders called the vet's main number on the other side of the disc, and were advised that the best thing would be to tie the dog to the banisters in the stairwell outside S's flat (indoors, out of the rain) and she'd be safe there.

I was very shocked to learn that the man who rang me, who'd tried to get the RSPCA and the dog warden to take the dog away, is S's next-door neighbour, and he knew exactly who the dog was and who she belonged to. The spite and malice of his actions physically chilled me.

It was on a Wednesday morning the electrician came

If only he had. It was a tumbleweed day at work. There were no appointments booked, which in some respects was lucky because we'd had a letter to say that an engineer would be call to change the electricity meter, so the power would be off for half an hour. We'd phoned to confirm a convenient time-slot and to stress that there would be nobody there between 12 noon and 3pm; the woman on the other end of the phone duly marked the jobsheet. During surgery hours the vet and I chatted, then she went off to another surgery and I waited. At noon I went home. When I returned shortly before 3pm to open up again I found the engineer's card saying that he'd called at 12.20.

During the afternoon I was telephoned by the company to arrange another appointment. We agreed a date, and then I was asked whether morning or afternoon would be most suitable. As both are extremely inconvenient (no power means no computer, so no being able to book appointments or issue medication or sell anything) I decided on the morning.

"So the engineer will call between 8am and 1pm, madam."
"No, there'll only be someone here between 9 and 12"
"Yes, between 8am and 1pm"
"No, 9 and 12. Those are the times there'll be someone here."
"I can only book between 8 and 1, madam."

Who knows of a good wall-repair man? I seem to have made a head-shaped dent in the one by the phone.

Living in a box

As the more intuitive among you might have guessed, one of my interests is dogs; their care, health, breeding etc, and one of the things that gets me warm under the collar is people’s less-than-appropriate treatment of them. The indulgence of ‘furbabies’ (now there’s a word that makes me want to vomit) is as much a form of cruelty as a whipping – dogs are separate species, not deformed hairy children, and should be treated in a manner suitable for their needs. A dog’s needs are really very simple; basically he needs food, exercise, shelter, medical treatment when required and, because he’s of a social species, he needs company. Having a single dog in the home is fine as long as he gets the opportunity to socialise with his own kind several times a week, as well as the company of his owners. This is one aspect where too many dogs are let down. Too many dogs are left ‘home alone’ while their owners work full time – and what’s worse, many are crated for these hours. Now a dog crate can be very useful – it’s a secure space for him when travelling and a familiar secure den if you and your dog are staying away from home. Crated dogs are more likely to be allowed in hotel rooms, for example, rather than the totally unacceptable alternative of having to stay in the car overnight. Crates are handy with a puppy – he can be popped into it if you need to go shopping, knowing that he can’t eat your furniture or electrocute himself on your wiring in your absence. They can be handy for house-training during the night; you have the pup in his crate by your bed and, because they don’t like to soil their beds, when he needs to relieve himself in the night the noise he makes in his discomfort will wake the owner who can then take him out to the garden before popping him back to bed again.

With a blanket over the top and the door open, an adult dog has a secure den where he feels safe.

However some people – and from what I’ve read on various canine internet fora, more commonly in America – misuse crates badly. Firstly, because they’ve heard that crating helps house-train, they assume that simply putting the pup into the crate means that he’ll magically be able to contain his bladder and bowels for hours, not realising that they’ll need to get up during the night to take him out instead of having him mess on the floor if he wasn’t crated. Forcing him to soil his bed only causes distress and sets housetraining back weeks. I've never used crates for my dogs - I dislike broken nights so I'd rather mop up the kitchen floor in the morning when I'm housetraining a puppy!

Even worse, too many adult dogs are locked in their crates, like a battery chicken, the whole day while their owners are at work. Then again if the people go out for the evening. Then the dog’s alone all night too, while the people are asleep. Some poor creatures spend 20 out of 24 hours locked in a space barely big enough to turn around and the owners think it’s acceptable! No, no, no! Misuse of crates like this is out-and-out cruelty. The maximum length of time a dog should be crated is about 4 hours, preferably less. As a rule of thumb if a dog has been crated the owner should release him before the owner needs to use the lavatory. If the owner's uncomfortable, the dog might be as well. It only takes a little imagination and consideration.

Why do so many people fail to realise that animal ownership (any animal, not just dogs) is a privilege, not a right? If they can’t give a dog the treatment it deserves they should rethink their options, and if they can’t change their lifestyle to suit the dog, they shouldn’t inflict such a miserable existence on the poor thing. It's not as if it's that difficult to pay someone to come and take your dog for a walk at lunchtime, and stay in of an evening if you've been out all day.

You get told "Oh, he's quite happy, he sleeps all day." Erm ... what are his options? He can hardly read a book, or watch TV, or surf the net, can he? He's trapped, and all he can do to stop going out of his mind with boredom is sleep his life away until he dies. The dogs are the victims here – they have no choice. It’s not very different to the existence that was, and in areas still is, inflicted on the Romanian orphans.

(By the way, that dog seen on the far side of the canal at the MongMeet, and that caused such curiosity, wasn't a Labradoodle or any of the other fashionable overpriced crossbreeds. It was simply an ordinary standard poodle.)

Twinkle, twinkle, little star

I just heard my cyber-friend Libs (real name Alison, but her Forum username was Liberty, after one of her dogs) has died. She recovered from the coma that she'd been in some months ago, maybe with help from all of you who wished her well, and was discharged from hospital. But sadly the recovery was short-lived.

She was one of the glorious people who, from the instant you meet them you feel you've known forever. We used to meet up at Crufts each year (I'm so sad I couldn't make it last year) and drink red wine poured from a Ribena bottle into plastic beakers, giggling like schoolgirls. Carla, Libs and I embarrassed another friend by whooping and cheering when she handled her Shar Pei to Best of Breed, and everyone else looked down their noses at us. I was so hoping there'd be another opportunity, despite her having been so very ill; she kept the details very quiet and was always unfailingly cheerful, never giving a hint of how seriously ill she actually was.

Bless you Libs. Although you'll be very greatly missed I'm glad your pain is now gone and you're reunited with your own absent friends. I'll raise a glass of Ribena to the brightest new star in the heavens.

Three wheels on my wagon

How cool is this? I wish the dogs were as well-trained! :D

Leaving on a jet plane

As we all know there are many concerns for the health of not only the population but also the planet. We're told the population is becoming more obese and we all need to cut our carbon emissions, and so Gordon has slapped a 'green tax' on air travel. (Do we think for a nano-second that the revenue will be spent on 'green issues'? Do we bollocks.) With a bit of lateral thinking both these problems can be tackled at once. Bear with me.

When it comes to the tricky problem of baggage allowances and excess payment due, would it not be much fairer to give a total weight allowance per passenger, person and bags, and not just the weight of the bags? The average baggage allowance for European flights is 20kg; a small person with full allowance would still weigh less in total than an obese person, but the porker is still allowed a baggage allowance on top, without penalty. How can it be fair for a light person to be given what is effect a fine for having a bag that weighs 21kg, when in total they still weigh less than a heavy person who can then add a further 19kg to the weight on the plane, and yet not get penalised? With a total weight allowance system the fat person would have to pay a surcharge simply to travel at all, and the skinny person could take another suitcase without penalty. A blubber-surcharge or the risk not being able to take any luggage would surely be an incentive to lose weight - especially for the return journey (no stuffing one's face and bloating on holiday)! If the options of losing weight or paying extra are both unacceptable then maybe fewer people would fly, so less carbon would be put into the atmosphere, especially at the altitude where it does the most harm.

The weather outside is frightful

A mere four inches of snow on an ungritted road means that nobody's going anywhere!


But some people thought it was very exciting to sniff out crumbs fallen from the bird feeder.


But then they got cold feet and had to come running in again.

Pounding away, pounding away

It was when Ned wanted to order some new clothes and we checked his measurements that he realised his belt had stretched (the tape-measure was checked against a metal rule), and his figure was less sylph-like than he thought, that we decided that the time had come to liberate the man I married from his tomb of too, too solid flesh. Accordingly I dusted off the diet books bought during my angst-ridden teenage years, Ned contributed his copy of the F-Plan diet, which involves eating the greatest amount of roughage for the lowest number of calories, and I started planning the campaign.

I'd always thought that the more roughage one ate, the faster things passed through one's system. Not so with Ned - his insides seem to have gone into a state of shock and have decided to hang on to all food in case no more is available. In other words, he's full of it. And no, it's not particularly blustery at Genie Towers either. Thank heaven for small mercies. Ned was a very naughty boy today though because after his walk with his gang they adjourned to the pub for lunch and he had ham, egg and chips and a pint. I thought he'd be coming home for lunch so I waited for him before I ate. By the time he arrived I'd gone through the hunger barrier so didn't bother. I don't think this is how other people's diets are meant to work. However it seems to be working, and he's lost 10lb in the past three weeks. Unfortunately I can't just give him his cardboard-and-water and sit and scoff other stuff so I've had to join him on the regime, and I've lost 5lb, taking my BMI down to 18.1 but because I still have wobbly bits I'm not panicking that I'll disappear quite yet. If he and I could just average out our BMIs (his comes in the 'Lardboy' category) we'd probably be all right. Because he's already had a main meal today I ought not to do our roast tonight, but I've not eaten so I'm going to. He can just have a teeny portion. But I won't do a pudding, and I'll drink the wine.

Each little bird that sings

Ned was wondering whether Bernard Matthews' next advertising slogan will be "Bootiflu".

A time for every purpose under heaven

I know there's a season for everything, but I never realised that it would ever be necessary to mow the lawn on February 1st.