Life's a bit: Down on my knees in suburbia

So much for my regular blogging! This morning Chris has taken the dogs out as there is footie on this afternoon. I was planning to sit and read The Guardian Magazine from yesterday, but then remembered that I hadn’t written anything in ages, so here I am sitting at the table writing.

We’ve been having another spell of fine weather these past few days (after even more heavy rain for a couple of weeks). It’s been lovely walking the dogs in the sun. I’m in short sleeved T-shirts. Max gets very hot very quickly. In fact, he woke me up at 1.30am this morning panting heavily. I had the window shut as Jez was on the bed with us, but had to open it. Which meant she woke up and started barking. But at least Max stopped panting!

I’ve been busy in the garden this week. I’ve dug the two largest beds over and have put in a few new plants. I’ve got the two smaller beds left to do. I’ve also attempted to re-seed the lawn (or should I say large area of mud with patches of grass growing on it). A combination of a very wet winter, dogs and workmen have all conspired to ruin my lawn. I’m not sure how well the seed will grow, especially with dogs wandering all over it.

The big news from the last month is that we’ve booked a holiday (well, I’ve booked a holiday). We are off to South Devon, a place called Bolberry Down near Hope Cove, for a week at the beginning of May. You can see the details here. It will be interesting to see how the dogs cope – and how we cope with taking the dogs away. I can’t bring myself to put them in kennels (let alone afford to) though. I think they’ve both had enough of that from their RSPCA days. Of course, Jez was with her siblings and really too young for it to have any impact on her (she actually loves going back there). But they told me Max hated it. I’m trying to work out how we can actually fit everything in the car, as the dogs take up the whole boot area and Chris can fill a car when he goes away for a weekend, let alone a week. We need to fit in 2 big bags of our stuff, 2 throws for the furniture, 2 duvets for the dogs, dogs towels, our towels, laptop, Wii (yes, we’re taking that), cameras & tripod, dog food and bowls, leads, harnesses, at least some food for us… the list goes on. And we’ve only got a small hatchback. I want to buy a roofbox, but the only make that will fit our car is Thule, which is expensive (almost as much as the cost of the cottage for the week), and Chris is dead against it.

On Easter Sunday we went over to lunch at Dad’s. We had Roast Lamb, which I love but never cook as Chris doesn’t like it (Dad cooked Chris a pork chop).

We all had Easter Eggs, including the dogs.

And I really like this photo of Jez and my Dad.

The following day I walked to Upton Country Park as there was a craft show on there. I managed to get my cousin a birthday present for the end of this month (as was the plan), but also got a really nice freshwater pearl and amethyst necklace for Pat’s 90th birthday in September, as well as a necklace & earrings for me. It was the start of the nice weather, so I got a few nice shots of flowers in the gardens.

I’ve also been taking some photos of birds in the garden while I’ve been digging - well, mainly photos of the robin. I’m told that our European robins are different to the US robins, although they are all part of the same family. Ours are much smaller and look much cuter. I must remember to buy Christmas cards with robins on for my US friends this year!