I get a little bit afraid

Well I thought I’d better write an update before February ends. That’s the trouble with writing Jez’s blog and updating Facebook – I either forget or don’t get round to updating my blog. So let me see, I was hoping to collect Max last time I wrote.

Well most of you will know that Max came home a week last Tuesday, and ever since I’ve been wondering what I’ve taken on. I now have a 7 month old Springer pup who has boundless energy, is as mad as a hatter, isn’t the brightest lightbulb in the pack and is totally food obsessed. He and Jez spend a lot of time each day play fighting. Jez is pretty gentle and surprisingly tolerant (which goes to confirm what I’ve always said – that she’s a very gentle little soul). But Max gets carried away and the teeth fly, and poor Jez ends up with puncture wounds in her cheeks and under her chin. Oh, and Jez is quiet about it, whereas Max growls and moans the whole time and it sounds like he’s either being killed or about to kill her. And all of this in our living room!

Max is a bit of a conundrum actually. I’m not sure I entirely believe what the RSPCA was told (that his owner had to give him up on moving to a flat). I’m not sure Max has ever had a garden – he certainly won’t stay out in it – he dashes out, goes to the toilet, then tries to dash back in again. And he doesn’t seem to have had much training. He will sit now, but Down is totally beyond him! And he’s a nightmare on the lead. I tried about an hour of lead training with him on his own today to no avail. So the Gentle Leader is coming out – I expect he’ll hate it as much as Jez does. But I can’t have him pulling so much when I have both of the on the lead. Then there is the fact that he was very nervous (the RSPCA had warned me they didn’t think he was socialised). It was odd, he took to Jez straight away, but the first couple of times out on a walk if he came up to another dog he’s shoot between our legs. Fortunately being around dogs with Jez soon got him over that. But he doesn’t seem to have ever been down the beach (judging by his reaction to the sea) and isn’t too keen on traffic. So what did his owner do with him?

The one good thing is that he is good off the lead. In fact, he’s often better than Jez, who keeps going back to her own stubborn ways and doing what she wants to do when she wants to do it. So down the beach, in the woods and over the Heath we can let them off and let them run about and tire themselves out. Oh, and Max loves water and mud. He comes back wet and black (we have a lot of boggy stuff round here). Normally I hose him off in the garden, but a couple of days ago it was so bad the hose wouldn’t shift it, so he had to go in the bath. And if the past few days he’s discovered he can swim so likes to go in the water and have a swim round. Jez still refuses to do more than paddle though.

Meanwhile, I’m really pleased with Jez’s recovery. She is running flat out with no problems at all, and other than being a bit stiff when she first gets up after a sleep, is fine – no limping, no skipping. We’ve started her course of injections to help her joint along – she goes for the second on Monday.

As I said before, we had our friends Eric and Maria down last Wednesday and Thursday. It was lovely to see them again, although Eric gave Chris and I his cold (well, I haven’t had a cold, more a chesty thing), so we’ve both been feeling pretty rough). The dogs were relatively well behaved, and on Thursday we took them down the beach. We kept Max on the lead, but after a while let Jez off. If you haven’t seen it, you can have a look at a short video of them.




And I have a few photos of Chris, Eric, Maria & the dogs down the beach.







While we were out with Eric & Maria my phone went – my cousin Linda asking if they could come down at the week-end! So we had a quick turn around of guests, with Linda & Paul arriving Friday afternoon. Just in time for the dogs to get overexcited and take their play fighting a bit too far. Which was all I need as they are both a bit nervous of dogs! Fortunately they settled down again after that.

It was good seeing Linda & Paul again, with the added bonus that Paul fitted the new shower pump, so now our main shower works well again. On Saturday we all went down the beach again, but this time it was lovely and sunny. So, more video





and more photos…

















And if you’re wondering how well the dogs travel together in the back of the car, well, here’s the answer…



And one good thing about these long walks is that it tires them out.



But it was all too much for Chris and he spent most of Sunday in bed.

Since then life has got back more or less to normal. I have provisionally arranged for a bathroom fitter to replace our en suite in 3 weeks time (although I still need to order all the stuff so may need to postpone him). It will be great to have a bath I can use again.

Well, I think that’s about it until the next time.

The look in your eyes that never means never

I’ve actually got quite a bit to write about today. Firstly, I’ve finally managed to get my planes to fly in Flight Simulator. I bought an Xbox 360 gamepad for Windows which really helped. The program seems a bit flaky on my laptop though – I’m assuming it’s the video driver. I downloaded a much more up to date version than the one I had, which helped.

In the end I didn’t take Jez to Devizes last Tuesday. I looked at the weather forecast on Monday and phoned to postpone it. Which was a good job, as the road I have to take across Salisbury Plain was closed due to flooding on Tuesday morning. So we’re going tomorrow – the weather this week is much better. She will be in most of the day, but I’ve decided to take my Nintendo DS and a couple of books and sit and wait – although I might nip into Devizes for a coffee and a bite of lunch at some point. I’m hoping that if they know I’m waiting there they will deal with her fairly early on – but no doubt I’ll be there all day.

Jez herself has been up and down again this week. Some days she seems worse than others – quite stiff and skipping a lot of steps. Then the next day she’ll be fine. We’ve been slowly increasing her exercise as it’s now been 2 months since her operation so her leg should have healed, although it will still hurt at times. So she’s been enjoying herself over the heath and in the woods (although still on the lead all the time). She met one of her special friends, a spaniel cross, on Thursday and we let them have a play.

The big news, though, is that we’ve been thinking more and more seriously about another dog as company for her. So this week I phoned the RSPCA centre that she came from. At first they said they would not rehome with a staffy, but the next day they phoned me back and said that as they knew we’d socialised her well they would make an exception for the right dog (but not another staffy). So Friday we went up there. Originally I was going to go and if there were any dogs there of interest (they only have a few available for adoption and only 2 looked possibilities) I would take her back the next day with Chris. In the end we both went and took Jez, so that Chris could walk her up there while I looked at dogs, and she would be there if we wanted to introduce her to one and see how they got on.

And so I met Patch – or Mad Max as we like to call him. Patch hadn’t been on the website so I was surprised to see him in their adoption book. They said he’d only become available within the hour as they found out that the woman who was going to adopt him had changed her mind and not let them know! Anyway, Patch is a 6 month old Springer Spaniel who needs a home as his owner has had to move into a flat.

I fell in love with him straight away. So as soon as Chris came back we introduced him and Jez – and they get on really well. Of course, they have their moments. Patch (lets call him Max shall we – he’s definitely a Max) is a toy guarder, and snapped at Jez when she went to take the toy he had. But they very quickly sorted themselves out again. So we reserved him and are into the 3 visits over 4 days routine prior to adoption.

We went back yesterday and they had a good run round in the big pen – the first time Jez had been allowed to run off lead since October. I’m not sure we’re supposed to let her yet, but it was in a good cause. It’s stiffened her up this morning, but otherwise she seems ok. Anyway, they had a good run round and play, and got on fine. Then we were allowed to take him out for a walk. That hadn’t been possible the day before as he’s just been neutered and still had his stitches in. So off we went. He’s a nightmare on a lead – I can’t believe his previous owner ever tried to train him- and as a spaniel he should be relatively easy to train (more so than our very stubborn little staffy). He pulls worse than Jez! She meanwhile was trotting along on her lead as good as gold. After the walk we took them into another small enclosed area and they had another spat – Jez did not think much of him continually trying to mount her, so had a good snarl at him. It was over in a second though, he backed off, and they were back to normal. But as the RSPCA handler said, he has to be told! Anyway, here’s some photos from yesterday…









So today we went back for a third visit, and that went really well. I invited Dad up too as he’s really unsure about this idea of another dog – I thought it would put his mind at rest. Pat was invited too, but didn’t want to come. As soon as they saw each other the two dogs were straining on the leads to meet, which was good. We started with a good run round in the big run. I’ve taken a bit of video, but only on my small camera, so excuse the quality.



Then we went for another walk. Chris took Jez out the front while I just cleared it with reception, and while I had Max there he saw Jez outside and was whining to go out to join her. He was a nightmare to walk again, especially after he’d been allowed to splash around in water and mud, when he got a bit hyper (well, he is still a pup). Then it was back to the Centre for another run round, and finally, when Jez’s leg was clearly starting to play up, we took then into the smaller viewing area. Today we had no trouble at all – although there was a lot of play dominance going on. They seem to be getting the measure of each other more. And when Max tried to mount Jez she just moved off and he stopped. I had to laugh at one point though – she was on her back and he straddled her (see the photo below) and she just bought her back legs up underneath him and kicked him off! So, here are today’s photos…











The Centre is closed tomorrow, and anyway I’m taking Jez to the vet. But Max will have his final vet check (he’s had his op plus a bit of an ear mite problem). If all’s well we hope to bring him home on Tuesday, as we’ve been told we don’t need another home visit (since Jez’s follow up visit was less than 12 months ago). Then the fun begins! Especially as our friends Eric & Maria are supposed to be coming to stay Wednesday night.

I’ll let you know how it all goes.

What have I become, my sweetest friend

So, another year older and, I hope, another year wiser. I certainly seem to have learnt quite a bit about myself in the last year. I realise, for instance, how readily I now speak to complete strangers, although having Jez helps. But I am not a conversationalist by any means. I will chat to anyone, but put me in a room with a group of people and I never know what to say. And one to one with people I know I’m just hopeless. Odd that.

I find I am much more patient than I ever thought I could be. Jez has shown me that.

I have discovered I don’t need to be better than anyone else or have flash things to show that I’ve had at least some element of success in my life. I am much happier living a fairly simple life.

But I’ve come full circle. And the person I became when I first joined B’net has gone, and I’m back to my boring old self. I always hoped that person that I tried to become was really me, but in reality I think it was just the person who I hoped I was. Everyone is hoping that one day Bowie will once again tour. Everyone but me. I’m happy with his apparent retirement. It means I don’t have to suffer all sorts of angst when I don’t go to see him. And I really don’t think I would go. I don’t think I could bring myself to do that again.

I’ve become very insular again. I can rarely bring myself to travel outside of the immediate vicinity. Even the 10 miles into Bournemouth seems too far and too much trouble most of the time. And this from someone who used to commute to Edinburgh each week!

And I am quite alone. I have very few people now that I can call ‘friend’ – although oddly I have absolutely loads of friends on Facebook. Odd that, isn’t it? But I don’t have anyone I am close to or can talk to. It does get to me every now and then, but on the whole doesn’t bother me like it used to. Anyway, that explains my choise of lyric for the title:

“What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end”

I’m sure reading this is sounds self-pitying. But it’s not supposed to. I don’t feel that way. I just wanted to explain what has happened to me.

So, on with the general update.

We’ve had more snow and ice here, but nowhere near as much as most other parts of the country. More is forecast this week though, which worries me as I’m due to take Jez back to Devizes for a check-up and I have to travel across Salisbury plain, which is really exposed. The snow was supposed to be really bad across the plain last week. So I think I’ll phone them tomorrow and see if I can put it back a week. Jez still limps quite a bit, but is getting much better (well, was until the cold snap). She’s certainly so much better than before her operation and so we’re building up her walks again.

The snow meant that my cousin and her husband couldn’t get down here for my birthday, which was really disappointing. I was so looking forward to seeing them. Plus there was a bonus in that Paul was going to replace the broken shower pump. I had Dad and Pat over to lunch today though. Dad was playing with my Nintendo DS and we were both trying to work out Flight Simulator – and crashing!

I’ve also been editing some of my Kenya videos again. I’m really pleased with the results, but unfortunately can’t share them as they are much too large for any of the video sharing sites. In the middle of it all my laptop and some of the Adobe software I’m using has been playing up, so I’ve wasted hours on that. The laptop is still not right – which is not helped by the fact that the Power Management system seems buggered. I’ve taken the battery out at the moment as it prevents the problem occurring.

Oh well, I think that’s about it. I find it hard to believe I’m now 52 though.