Sailors fighting in the dancehall

Well thankfully things seem to be getting back to something approaching normal, although Chris’ parents are on holiday in Bournemouth this week, so I think we’re going to see them tomorrow and then have them over here one day.

The Murder Weekend went very well. I really enjoyed my character, although went bright red as I had to sit in a room of nearly 50 people and listen to my sex tape being played. Saturday night I had to have a big fight with Becky (my sister on the plot) and we had a good old tussle on the floor, after which I was fighting with the copper who was trying to keep me away from her. I think one of the ex-actors who was a guest on the week-end videoed it as she said something about posting it on You Tube, so if she does I’ll put a link up to it. I know that Maria (another actor who lives in NYC and only comes over for the occasional week-end and who was also a guest on this one) has taken a load of photos and I’m waiting for her to post them on Facebook so that I can grab them. She was having a good laugh and insisting on posing with all of the bodies. Saturday night I was screaming at her and pushing her away from the body on the last death. But it was nice to see people and have someone to talk to! And we had a great bunch of guests. Shame about the hotel. The Wessex in Winchester has gone so badly downhill in the last 5 years or so that it is now appalling. Dinner Saturday night was virtually inedible, and they haven’t heard of customer service.

I came home yesterday to find Jez limping worse than ever. Chris said she’d been subdued while I was away and thought she had been pining for me. So Saturday he took her to Delph Woods where she met her friend Lenny the Lurcher and chased round with him. Consequently her knee was a lot worse. But he feels really guilty about it. She also played up and wouldn’t go in her crate to sleep, so he let her sleep on his bed. Yesterday as soon as I came home she perked up, and she’s been very bouncy morning today. I had ordered some extensions so that we could put her puppy gate across the stairs, and they came this morning, so Chris has put the gate up. We’re hoping that if we can stop her going and down stairs so much it will help the healing process. I’ve now got her on Glucosamine & Condratine plus Green Lipped Mussel capsules to help with her joints. I mix it all up with a bit of peanut butter and flour to get her to take it.

The other thing that we discovered over the week-end is that we’ve been the victims of credit card fraud. Fortunately my card company spotted a couple of big transactions and it’s all been sorted out. They had put through about £1,000 worth of goods on my card though (which the card company will reverse off). I was really pleased with them – the woman in the fraud department I spoke to this morning was really friendly and helpful.

I’m going to leave you with a couple of photos of me that I found on Facebook from the last MW plot we did. The first is the one of me where I’d been suffocated by having a plastic bad put over my head. The second is of me earlier on in that plot where I’d been injured, but not seriously, and had to come down in a dressing gown covered in blood.

As I'm unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed

Well £175 later we have Jez back from the vet. She’s wandering round the house like a little lost soul and keeps crying, although I can’t make out why. She won’t settle at all. Chris thinks she’s just still a bit dazed and confused after the anaesthetic. But she’s eating well – in fact I’m just cooking her seconds. But she’s had a painkilling injection, so she’s walking well. And leaving the vet we met her friend Tyson and his sister, so she was ever so excited.

Anyway, the vet says the good news is that it isn’t her cruciate ligament. The bad news is that she has very slight dysplasia in one hip (but not enough to worry about) and as she thought, there is not a deep enough groove in her right knee cap to hold the knee in place, so it’s slipping out. There’s slight arthritis in her hip, but a lot more in her knee.

At the moment she’s been given a pain killing injection and non-steroidal anti-inflamataries for a week. And she’s limited to two 10-15 minute walks a day for now, and no getting up on the beds! Then the vet will assess her again. She may be ok with it for a number of years, as long as it doesn’t slip too much, and we may get by on pain killers. Or it may be best to operate and deepen the groove in the knee. We’ll wait and see. I feel a lot happier about it now though. But with Jez at the vet I have been totally out of it today.

I’ll leave you on a lighter note. I did my ‘sex tape’ for the week-end. I was hoping I could upload it so that it would be playable, but don’t know how. A simple upload to my webspace won’t work. Suffice to say I surprised myself. Looks like I may have found a new career – LOL!


Updated

Jez was a total nightmare last night. It was like having a dog on a bad acid trip. She just wandered round and round whining constantly. She was terrified of her crate so my plan of getting her to bed wouldn't work. And she was constantly up and down stairs (which she's supposed to avoid). She finally settled down sometime after 3am, then woke at dawn, then went back to sleep again on Chris' bed. She's still there now - oh no she's not - she's raiding the post which has just come through the door!!! Then, to cap it all, Chris is ill this morning - he's busy throwing up as I write

The same old painted lady

I’m really upset. Jez is still limping, so we were starting to worry about her. Consequently I took her to the vet this afternoon. Turns out she has a problem with her knee. The vet mentioned ‘arthritis’ and the fact that the joint is moving out of the socket slightly. Although she didn’t say so it sounds like something called Luxating Patella. But whatever it is it sounds as though it will be a problem for life. It also means I’ve had to cancel her agility.

I’ve booked her in tomorrow to have X-Rays done so that we can find out what is going on. She has to have an anaesthetic for that. Poor little soul. I’ll let you know how she is when we know more.

I don’t think I’d said, but I was due to play the Friday night death in Winchester this week. Now Joy wants me to swap characters and do the whole week-end. I get to play the local tart. Type cast again. So I’m currently learning the plot and my part. And knitting – I’ve decided to knit a nice warm cardigan/jacket. I used to do loads of knitting back in the 70s & 80s, but haven’t done any for over 15 years now! Don’t seem to have lost my touch though, although I find I can remember what I’m doing if I don’t think too hard about it.

I know when to go out, And when to stay in

Well the main rebuild went well. The PC seems much better at the moment, plus it’s installed the Vista updates for the first time ever! Normally there were one or two important updates that would never install. And it now recognises all 4Gb of RAM, contrary to what the guy at PC World told me. The main pain has been re-installing software. However, at least I’ve not had to go back in and alter all the settings as I restored a backup. I have had a problem with a couple of bits of software, but that’s sorted now (fingers crossed). All in all it took a couple of days though.

The weather here has actually been nice this week, and today has been bright sunshine and warm. I’ve been out planning pansies and bulbs in planters. No walk for me & Jez today. She’s damaged a hind leg again (right one this time). I’m not entirely sure what she’s done, but she can’t put her weight on it properly. It’s worse if she’s been asleep – it takes her ages to get going. Eventually she seems to walk normally again though, and once that’s happened she can trot around and run as though nothing’s wrong. I’m assuming she’s strained something, or maybe twisted something. Today she hasn’t wanted to do anything at all and has been feeling very sorry for herself, so we are resting her completely. In fact its 3.30pm and she’s only just stopped limping for the first time today. Good job her agility was cancelled again. This time it was due to a permanent change of venue. The new place is apparently loads better, so hopefully she’ll be well enough and the weather will be ok to start next Saturday.

In other news I met up with Val for supper on Thursday night. We went out to an Italian chain restaurant and had a good old natter. I caught up on all the news. It was really good seeing her again, and really good to talk to someone other than Chris and whichever dog walkers I bump into of a day. Seems that they are worked harder than ever at work, so I’m glad I’m not there any more. Mind you, my retirement fund has taken one hell of a hit with the falls on the stockmarket as I have a lot of banking shares (from staff share schemes). I haven’t dared work out how much I’ve ‘lost’, since I Haven’t actually crystallised that loss and it would only depress me. I’m just sitting tight in the hope that they will go back up again.

I’ll leave you with some new pictures of Jez (well, new so long as you haven’t looked at her blog). I wanted some of her at 1 year old, so took the opportunity of the sunshine on Thursday to snap a few.

Still you push your luck - Tuesday 16 September 2008

Turns out there was nothing wrong with my new memory for the laptop - its just that 32 bit Windows doesn't understand that 4GB of memory can actually exist! They swapped it anyway. But he had a look at the PC while I was in the shop and thinks there's a driver problem somewhere. Without paying for extensive tests the only real option is to re-install Vista and them reload all the updates etc. But it will wipe my hard drive.

So far I've run backup, plus backed up my main files separately - good job we've got a 400GB external hard drive.

Now I'm about to wipe my disc. Wish me luck - I think I need it. Oh, and I may be gone some time.

The year of the Diamond Dogs

Jez’s first birthday went really well – I expect some of you have read about it in her blog. If you have I apologise if you see the same pics & video again here. Anyway, Chris took her out in the morning while I cleaned and made dessert (bread & butter pudding). He and Jez arrived back at the same time as Dad and Pat arrived. Dad had bought a bottle of sparkling wine so we toasted Jez and gave her her presents. Here's a bit of video of Jez and her presents...




I’ve also got a few photos. This is Jez and Chris …





And Jez with her Big Mean Kitty (sorry for this first one – I didn’t realise until after I’d taken it!)…







And Jez with her Mad Cow and Hurl a Squirrel (which she is determined to chew)…



And this is just Jez…



I also have quite a nice photo of her I took along the Roman Road yesterday.



Moving on, we actually had a day without rain yesterday! In fact we’re not due any for the next few days!

Today is Pat’s birthday – she’s 88 but definitely doesn’t look it (bearing in mind she was crawling around on the floor with Jez in that video!). She and Dad have gone out for lunch with some friends. I’ve had Jez out over the Heath this morning. We did the new long circuit and she was very well behaved and managed to have a bit of a run around with Elvis (a dog we met earlier in the week and bumped into again today). She wasn’t so well behaved for Chris yesterday though. He took her up the Delph and some people were having a BBQ on the scout field. Wherever Chris took her in the woods, Jez kept running off straight back to the scout field – he said she was a nightmare! She even managed to scrounge some tomato, and she hates tomato!

Anyone know if Ian Rankin is a Bowie fan, btw? I’m reading Resurrection Men (which I think I’ve read before) and there seem to be Bowie references: one character is referred to as Diamond Dog and another Major Tom.

That’s about it I think. I’ve finally arranged to meet Val for an early supper on Thursday. It will be nice to see her again after all this time and to have a good old catch up.

And last but not least, someone nicked my chair a few minutes ago – I think she must have been planning to update her blog – LOL.

We could run when the rain slows

Yesterday was one of those days. Or, come to think about it, perhaps it’s just been one of those weeks. It started with the washing machine. Last week the washing machine decided it didn’t always want to play any more. Or perhaps it was the week before – I can’t quite remember. Anyway, over the week-end it got worse. It worked when it wanted to, which was very infrequently and usually only for a short time. I found myself keep turning it on and off at various parts of the programme, depending on what stage it was at in the washing cycle when it packed up. So over the week-end I pulled it out, checked the hoses and the drain, cleaned the pump, but all to now avail. It was clearly the electronics which had gone wrong. And although it must have been about 10 years old, it was state of the art when I bought it. So on Monday I gave up and ordered a new one.

Of course, the washing machine has packed up in a week when I’ve needed it. The rain has continued and was pretty incessant on Tuesday. Which has meant Chris and I are covered in mud from walking the dog. Not to mention my bed lined which is covered in mud from her insistence on jumping on the beds and re-arranging them when she comes in from a walk, as are my newly cleaned carpets! Anyway, Jez has not been impressed with the weather and has chosen to spend a lot of time sleeping. Although to be fair she will go out for a walk in the rain now.

And we’ve had some nice walks, despite the weather. She has been making new friends. On Tuesday I took her up the Delph in an attempt to shelter from the rain a bit, and we met a local veterinary nurse with her 4 dogs. One was a 10 month old Northern Inuit, but of more interest to Jez was the rescue dog she is fostering: a 7 month old bull terrier/ Labrador cross. They had a great time. But I hope he finds a new home soon. If you want to see him you can go here.

So, back to yesterday. Well firstly I had to get up early as I was given a 7.30-9.30am delivery slot for the new washing machine. In the end it arrived just after 8am. Of course, it wasn’t quite as straightforward as we’d hoped to fit. Firstly it had a moulded plug, which I had to cut off cos the lead has to go through the back of a cupboard. Then it’s only got a cold water inlet (its all they make nowadays), which would have been ok if we could have fully turned off the tap on the old hot water inlet. As it was I had to go and get a blanking plug and Chris spent ages trying to stop it dripping. But after that it was all fine.

Then, just after lunch Chris asked if we had a microphone as he wanted to record something to the PC for the work he’s doing. I told him where it was, but he couldn’t get it to work, so I started to play around with it on my laptop. It would work, but not properly. So next I tried a headset we used to use with some voice recognition software. And that worked fine. Plus I found that the PC has Windows voice recognition on it, so I spent all afternoon playing around with that and teaching it to recognise my voice. Only the laptop started blue-screening on me. By dinner time it was doing it persistently – about every 15 minutes. So last night I started various cleaning / scanning routines. Nothing seemed to work. I was assuming that the voice recognition stuff had messed up Vista. But in the middle of trying to sort it out I spotted that it said I only had 3Gb of RAM, which was funny as I had fitted 4Gb two weeks ago. So I took it out and put it back in again and it still said 3Gb, but at least the laptop didn’t blue-screen quite so frequently. Which helped as I was trying to defragment the disc. Needless to say I was not a happy bunny.

This morning I’ve replaced the new RAM with the old RAM (only 1Gb) and the PC is fine. So it looks like one of the new RAM cards has a fault. Now I’ve got to take it back, which should be fun. Bet they won’t want to change it. I’ve been running defragment all day though, and it’s still not finished.

Tomorrow is Jez’s first birthday. No doubt I’m going over the top, but I need to go and wrap her presents shortly, safe in the knowledge that even if she doesn’t like the presents she’ll have lots of fun with the wrapping paper. And I’ve made a beef casserole for lunch tomorrow (Dad and Pat are coming to lunch), which I can warm up. I’ve made it today as it takes 3-4 hours to cook. Plus I’ve just made a cake for us humans (although no doubt Jez will have some as she loves Victoria Sandwich cake), and some ‘chocolate & choc-chip muffins’ for Jez (which are made from carob rather than chocolate). I’ve also taken her a nice bone out of the freezer. Anyway, I’ll try and take some photos to post, and maybe a bit of video (depending on how she reacts to her presents).

Something in our skies

Ok – so I get to complain about the weather again. The rain has been pretty persistent for over 36 hours, and many places have had their month’s quota of rain in that time. I’ve been pretty lucky and have managed to get Jez out for her walks in between downpours. But I’m back in my big waterproof walking boots trying to avoid the mud. I don’t stand any chance of avoiding the puddles, however, as they cover the entire width of the path in many places.

The rain has meant that Jez’s first agility class today was cancelled: too miserable for owners and too dangerous for the dogs. So that was a shame. Hopefully we’ll get to go next week.

Talking of Jez her birthday presents arrived yesterday – they look really good, so I hope she’ll like them. They’re from the Doggie Hoots range. I’m pretty certain she will love them though as her Dirty Rotten Kitty, which she was given for Christmas, is still one of her favourite toys. Plus we’ve been invited to a friends wedding (well, civil partnership) in December, so we’re having to look for a dog sitter. Although her trainer had recommended one it turns out one of the women Chris occasionally meets on his walks sits dogs (she’s looking after a great dane at the moment). Jez gets on with her dogs and she’s said she’ll have her. I spoke to her on the phone today and she seems really nice. We’re going to arrange to walk the dogs together one day.

Actually, I spent half an hour on the phone to this woman, who was really interesting. Turns out she set up a charity promoting education to orphans, disadvantaged children and youth in Kenya in 1993. So we spent some time talking about that and about Kenya.

And on the subject of Kenya, I have been busy editing my videos. Well, 2 days worth so far, for 15 minutes of film. When I get it a bit tidier I intend to split it in two and post it on You Tube so you can see it. These particular two days contain lots of elephants and giraffes.

Which leads me into another topic. Chris had a bit of a surprise when he found out that one of the people he’s been working with for a while now is married to Greg Dyke. For those of you who don’t know Greg Dyke was one time Director General of the BBC. He’s now Chair of the British Film Institute.

And the BBC leads me nicely into a programme I watched a couple of weeks ago: Pedigree Dogs Exposed. I don’t know if anyone saw it but it was about the genetic and health problems caused by interbreeding in pedigree dogs in this country. And it was very distressing. For the first time ever I was moved to write to my MP about it. The reason for mentioning it now is that I’ve been reading an editorial in a magazine about it, plus reading the editors blog on the subject. For a nation of so-called dog lovers it really is a disgrace.

A slightly happier was 2 programmes on dogs that we watched was a documentary by Martin Clunes. He was telling us that genetically dogs are 99.8% wolf and as part of the programmes looked at wolf behaviour. Since then Chris has been calling Jez ‘Wolfie’.

What else? Dad came to lunch on Wednesday and we had a nice day. After lunch we took Jez out for a walk. I’ve invited him and Pat over next Friday for Jez’s birthday. Helpfully it’s Pat’s birthday 2 days later, so I can kill two birds with one stone.

I think that’s about it. Better see about getting the dinner. Typical! Now I’ve finished writing Jez has moved her head off my arm and keyboard.

It might as well rain until September

I’m trying to resist the temptation to say ‘September already’ but I feel I can be forgiven since September normally heralds the arrival of Autumn, and over here in the UK we are still waiting for our summer. We did have some sun at some point – back in June I think. It even lasted for a couple of weeks. But that was pretty much our lot. And if you think I’m exaggerating, then perhaps the Met. Office pronouncement that this August the UK only had 105.5 hours of sun compared to the average for August of 165 hours may go some way to convincing you. That’s the lowest since records began, which I think was in 1929.

Oddly enough 1929 is one year before the Hyde Park Lido was built in London’s Hyde Park (where else). This followed hot on the heels of the discovery that you get Vitamin D from exposure to sunlight in 1922, so helping rid the UK of rickets. And if you wonder where these little gems of information are coming from, it’s an article in the BBC online magazine. The best bit of the article for me though is reference to ‘The sun-bathing riots’ in North-west London, also in 1930. Apparently regular walkers got upset when they found sunbathers strewn around the Welsh Harp reservoir, and a riot ensued! Oh, and here’s one for Monica (and anyone else who is feeling a bit down): sunlight entering the retina produces serotonin. So get out there in that sunshine – if, that is, you are lucky to find some.

Back on the subject of the Met. Office, they tell us that we are likely to have a mild autumn with lower than average rainfall. Given the usual accuracy of their weather forecasts that means I’m digging out my thermal underwear and the galoshes. That’s what I think of their normal forecasts – well for this area at least. Every day I check out the BBC local forecast, and virtually every day it’s wrong. Take today for example: it said Heavy Showers. To be fair we had rain overnight, but for around 90% of the day so far we’ve experienced that elusive phenomenon known as ‘the sun’. I’m not sure that nature is in agreement with the Met. Office either, as the bracken is starting to die back (which seems a bit early to me), and there seems to be more fungi than normal about at this time of year. It is still fairly warm at around 18C/64F though.

As for me, well I’ve continued with my mission to clean my carpets. I’ve also finally started to try and edit my video from Kenya, although there is an awful lot of it. In between times I took Jez to see my Dad, as Pat had gone off to France to stay with her son for a week. This is Jez on a Heath near Dad’s.



Pat is now home from France, but on Sunday went up to Hull for a few days, so Dad is coming to lunch tomorrow. Oh, and last night I finally managed to order Jez some birthday presents. She will be 1 year old on 12th September (or thereabouts). Talking of Jez, she’s just come and laid her head in my lap, which is making it very difficult to type. She hasn’t done that since she was a young puppy. But we went for a longer than usual walk this morning, so she’s tired.

Our new walk is still over the Heath, but we’ve been going on a different part, up towards Broadstone where there’s a viewpoint. I took some photos a couple of days ago…





It’s good because she is off the lead all the time, although I have to keep my eye open for horse riders. I felt it wasn’t long enough, so today I combined it with part of our normal walk to create a nice route with took about 95 minutes.

Jez starts agility on Saturday. I’m not sure whether she’ll like it, but I hope so. I’m more worried about the amount of running I’ll have to do though, as she’ll be on the lead. Anyway, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Oh – I forgot earlier. I just wanted to say a Happy Birthday to B’net. It’s been interesting in the B’net thread seeing who’s been around all that time.

And talking of fungi, as I was earlier, I took some photos of a lovely bracket fungus that’s growing on a dying oak tree at the end of our drive.

Let me just say...

This blog is a continuation of a blog I have kept for nearly 4 years now, so please excuse me referring back to previous comments.