Welcome to Reality

I had a lovely birthday on Sunday. Ok I was cleaning & cooking in the morning, but after that it was lovely. We had a really nice piece of roast pork: it was from a farm just up the road – not sure of the breed but it was some special breed. I slow roasted it, and it just fell apart. The flavour was beautiful. We had profiteroles for dessert. This is me on the sofa with Dad, Pat and Max after lunch…



And here’s a nice shot of Pat & Max…



I had a new small shoulderbag for my birthday – I wanted it to take when walking the dogs and it’s a sort of camouflage colour, so it shouldn’t show the dirt! I had a Gorillapod (a small flexible tripod) for the camera as well, plus the Bowie Reality CD and a couple of computer games. Problem is one of the games (Grand Theft Auto IV) won’t work on my laptop, which is a blow. I also had money, so am planning to get some make up that I can’t really justify the expense of otherwise.

Of course, Jez couldn’t let my birthday pass without playing up for Christopher when he took her for a walk before lunch. He had to take her over Canford Heath as they’d closed Delph Woods for maintenance work, which meant there were loads of dogs over the Heath. Chris lost her for over 40 minutes, although he did know roughly where she was and occasionally catch sight of her.

On the subject of Jez, the lump on her side doesn’t look very nice. I think it’s slightly ulcerated, so I’m bathing it in salt water to see if it will clear up. If it doesn’t it will have to come out. As for her leg, I tried giving her her anit-inflammatories for 4 days, and she didn’t seem to hold her leg up as much. She was also a lot livelier. More importantly though she has clearly been worse since coming off them again. I’ve put in a call to her orthopaedic vet today, as this would suggest she’s in pain and that holding her leg up isn’t just habit. I had a chat with her physio today again, and wondered whether we were aggravating it on her walks. Interestingly, I didn’t throw things for her to chase on our walk today and shortened the walk slightly and she seems to have been slightly better.

Let me see – what else. Well it’s been very cold her the past few days. The wind has been bitterly cold. We even had a few flurries of snow today. Then yesterday, at 7.30am, I was rudely awakened by the doorbell: it was the men delivering our bookcases & bedside cabinets. I ask you – what sort of time is that to get people up? I had to answer the door in my pyjamas.

Tuesday therefore we put together the big bookcase (the small one was already made up as it was the display model). I also put together the 2 bedside cabinets. Since then I’ve been busy sorting things out, putting them away, moving stuff around. It’s slowly coming together though. I did find some interesting things when clearing out though. Well, I say ‘interesting’ – more ‘why have I still got that’. In one of the old bedside cabinets were all of the cards we received when we got married. Trouble is, I can’t quite bring myself to throw them out. I also found all of the exam papers from my O and A levels (school exams we used to take at 16 and 18 for you non-Brits). I haven’t thrown them out yet – I thought I might try a few out on you in the coming days.

Well I think that’s about it for today. I’d better get this posted.