Holiday, celebrate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three wheels on my wagon

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

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

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

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

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

That one is only poor Only if they choose to be

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

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!