We reach out over race and hold each other's hands

Well that wasn’t very good was it? So much for my writing a bit each day. And I don’t really know where the time has gone. Ok, I did finish up with Chris’ tax return – which got delayed a bit while we asked a couple of questions of the company accountant – and then after that I put together the book-keeping for his new company and brought it up to date, and that took a while. I also seem to have got most of my bits and pieces straight and up to date, so I’m feeling quite pleased and as though a weight has been lifted.

In terms of what else we have been up to in the interim, we went to London two Sunday’s ago for our ‘Christmas’ visit to Chris’ parents, his middle brother and his wife. On the way there we stopped off at Virginia Water lake to give the dogs a bit of a walk. If we don’t do that they are not only over excited by the time we arrive (which they are anyway, but would be a lot worse) but they don’t get any exercise during the day either. And Virginia Water is handy, being just off the M3, and is a lovely spot to walk. For those of you who don’t know, Virginia Water is part of the royal parks at Windsor. You can read about it here, plus take a look at the gallery:
Our actual visit to Chris’ family was dominated by football: it was called ‘Super Sunday’ as there were 3 matches on back to back which everyone bar Rosa (Chris’ sister-in-law) and I wanted to watch. So the TV was on the whole time. We did manage at least some conversation though, and Rosa had made a lovely lunch, with an even lovelier chocolate cake. There are photos from the day on my photo blog.

Last week we had one or two really nice sunny days, although we had some fairly hard frosts. It meant that I was able to get a few photos when I was walking the dogs (also on my photo blog, and on my Flickr stream). We have stopped walking Max so much again, though, as he has started limping badly again. To make matters worse he is skipping steps with his back right leg – not a good sign. However, I’ve watched him the last couple of times I’ve taken him out (Saturday and today), and he only does it about 5 minutes into his walk for about 5 minutes, then stops. If it doesn’t improve though I’ll have to take him back to the vet. Meanwhile we are swimming him twice a day every other day, with a short walk and a swim on the other, alternate, days.

Jez isn’t that great either – she’s not putting her full weight on her back right leg. Generally it doesn’t seem to be bothering her, although she refused to go for a walk one day last week, so I put her back on her meds for a couple of days. She has to go to the vet on Wednesday for her annual check up and booster, so I’ll get them to have a quick look at her then. We’re assuming it’s something to do with her spine, but I’ll get them to check just in case it’s a problem with her leg. This is the one that she’s had 3 operations on to stop her knee slipping out of joint, so I hope it’s not her knee.

On Thursday I had a check up with the podiatrist, who was really pleased with the progress on my foot. I have to go back again in 4 months. As I had to go into Poole for the appointment I did a bit of shopping using gift cards that Chris had I have had over the past 2 years. So I ended up buying the Blu-ray version of all 3 Bourne films, together with a Blu-ray version of all 4 Dirty Harry films. I’m not sure when we’ll get round to watching them though. We seem to be struggling to get through all of the TV programmes and the rentals that we’ve got. On top of that I’ve given Chris all 5 series of Supernatural, so we’re watching series 1-4 again in order to finally catch up and get to watch series 5 for the first time. Then we’ve got into the habit of taking Jez for a night-time walk, since she only has one walk during the day at the moment; and that interrupts our evening. She does love it though: she gets out there and does a full speed Staffy strut all the way round, trailing us behind her.

This Sunday morning I gave Max a good clip – he’d go so shaggy that it made him look a lot fatter than he actually is. After that we went to Dad and Pat’s for lunch. Dad had cooked a piece of gammon he’d bought thinking we’d go over Boxing Day although he didn’t actually ask us until a couple of days before, by which time I’d got food in myself. And Pat made the lemon chiffon pie that I gave her the recipe for. It was a really nice lunch, and the dogs always enjoy going over there.

There, I seem to be about up to date. I can’t let this entry pass, though, without comment on the two Sky commentators who made derogatory off-air comments about a woman lineswoman at a footie match on Saturday. They suggested someone should go down and explain the off-side rule to her, as being a woman she wouldn’t know it: I suggest they try explaining it to a lot of the male commentators, who frequently get it wrong. There comments were totally uncalled for. And what have Sky done? Given them a gentle slap on the wrist and stopped them from commentating on tonight’s match. In my view they should have been sacked: that’s what would have happened if they had made a racist comment. But apparently in Sky’s view, sexism in the workplace is ok. At least it reminded me to cancel my subscription to Sky Sports though, so I suppose some good came of it.

Will you still need me, ... When I'm 64?

What sort of fair-weather writer am I? One day of being busy and my blogging goes by the board. You have to wonder: I’m retired and yet I can’t find half an hour to update my blog. I was pretty busy yesterday though: updating & reconciling the finances, mending, cleaning out the fridge, cleaning the house, going to Tesco to pick up the Blu-ray player, setting up the Blu-ray player, trying to get the PC to play via the TV…

It’s those last two items that need further comment. I hate technology! I try to explain to my Dad that all this plug and play, easy to use technology takes up hours and hours of your time; firstly to get it working and then to sort it out when it goes wrong. To be fair setting up the Blu-ray player was pretty simple – it was just a case of plugging it in and following on screen instructions. I’m a bit perplexed over what Sony had in mind when they created a TV controller that you can sync with the DVD, but which doesn’t have a pause button on it. It makes it worse than useless as a controller for a DVD player. If I had an additional out port on our broadband modem I could link it to the internet as well, but, typically, the modem only has one out port, and that goes to the wi-fi box. Looking on Amazon I may be able to get an adaptor though, in which case I’ll be able to connect the player to the internet, as apparently some DVD’s have connections to additional internet content.

We’re pleased with the DVD player. Our old one is getting a bit flaky when it comes to playing back DVDs, although we still use it to record TV to as that function is working fine. The upscaling means we’re getting a really good picture from normal DVDs – I was particularly impressed with the picture quality from Monsters Inc., which I tried out as it just happened to be lying next to the TV.

My real problems came when I tried to connect the PC to the TV. I’ve found that on Love Film there are lots of old TV series that you can stream to a PC for free, which are not available for streaming direct to the PC. They are the sort of thing we watch a lot when they pop up on TV so I thought it makes sense to see if I can get the PC to play through this TV. I could also connect to 4OD and ITV player which aren’t yet available on internet TV. I used to connect it to our old TV, but sadly I’ve lost the S-video lead I use (not that there’s anywhere to plug it in on this TV that I can see). So having looked on the Sony site and at my laptop manual I bought a VGA lead. Connecting it wasn’t a problem: getting the laptop to work was. I don’t know what was going on with my laptop, but it chose to have a funny 5 minutes while I tried to connect it to the TV last night. First of all I lost the picture completely and had to re-boot. Then it lost the internet and couldn’t find it anywhere, so I had to re-boot again. Finally, when I did get it working it was streaming so slowly it was hopeless. I’m going to have another go today and see if I can get it streaming properly so that we can judge whether this is a go-er or not.

At the end of all of that I had a headache and felt worn out. It was supper time though, so I poured myself a G&T to fortify me, and tackled dinner. I did a Rick Stein recipe for Omelette Arnold Bennett last night – it was very good. After that we watched the second episode of the new series of Primeval, a Homicide: Life on the Streets, and then the new series of The Hustle.

The other thing that happened yesterday was that I aggravated my foot where it had been healing nicely. When I went to Tesco I squeezed into my Ecco sheepskin boots, which were a bit tight but which I thought would be ok. Wrong! Half way round Tesco my foot really started to hurt. I couldn’t wait to get home and get my boot off. It hurt all last night, and is still hurting this morning.

Jez, meanwhile, seems a lot better. She brightened up yesterday, was almost walking properly, and spent a lot of time playing with her toy giraffe and hassling Max. I gave her another half a Previcox last night in case she needed it, and she had a much more settled night. I only felt her stir once, which suggests she was a lot more comfortable. We weren’t going to walk her today, but she seems so much better Chris is trying her and Max on a short walk at them moment. If he can do a short walk, that is. Jez tends to boss him while they’re out on walks, so if she wants a long walk, a long walk it is.

Today is David Bowie’s 64th birthday. I’ve post a greeting on his website, not that I expect him to see it as he hasn’t been on there in years. But, as they say, it’s the thought that counts. And I have a lot to thank him for. Unbeknownst to him, he helped me lose weight and change my look back in 2003-2004 (I could do with that help again now David), partly by showing me I didn’t have to be old and frumpy at 47, and partly because I used mainly his music as the rhythm for my lunchtime power-walking. And, via his website, he introduced me to other fans all over the world, some of whom have become my friends (whether I have met them or not). And when everything was going so badly wrong for me in 2005, it was those people who helped keep me sane. So happy birthday Sailor – I hope it’s a good one. And if at any time you feel like reconnecting with us again, we’d love to hear from you, and, yes, we do still need you.

Well, that’s it for now. I want to post this and see if I can find a way of increasing the font size on my blogs. It’s a real struggle to read when there’s a lot there, so it hardly encourages people to stop by and see what I have to say.

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!















And I mustn’t forget the blackbird.



Well, I think that will do for today. It will take me ages to resize and upload these photos and get them into this blog, so I’d better get started.

I was going round and round the hotel garage

Well so much for my regular blogging! Too many distractions at the moment, I think. I’ll try and fill in most of the key bits of the past couple of weeks since I last posted, although I think I’ll leave the saga of my falling out with B&Q until I’ve got a bit more time.

So the Wii arrived. I’m very pleased with it, and have been having lots of fun. I’m using the balance board to do some warm up type exercises and hoola hoop stuff, but am still doing my pilates. I’m useless at the balance games on it, but they’re still good fun. I seem to excess at the obstacle course in the Wii Fit Plus games for some reason.

At Katja’s recommendation I bought Mario Kart and Chris & I are now wasting many hours failing to win a race! That’s not strictly true, but there are some courses where I don’t seem to be able to come anywhere other than last. If I thought I was bad at driving in GTA IV then I’m hopeless in this. I also splashed out (well used my Tesco reward vouchers) to buy Band Hero (with the guitar, mic & drum kit) and the Beatles Band Hero game. We haven’t even attempted the drums yet, but are totally useless at the guitar. I don’t think I’ll ever be capable of progressing to using all 5 buttons. But then, in a way, who cares – we are having fun and enjoying ourselves. I think it’s rather surprised Chris – he didn’t think he’d use it, but is enjoying it. Then yesterday I bought the Dance routine game, as Maria said it was really good exercise and I enjoy dancing. But it’s odd. I always thought I had quite a good sense of rhythm, but either the game/remotes are playing up or my timing is crap.

This week Tiger Woods PGA tour golf arrived on loan from my DVD rental company. Chris was a bit miffed that I could hit the ball a lot further than him right from the start. And he found it really tiring (mainly cos he kept taking massive swings at balls which failed to go the distance in the tutorials – LOL!). I’ve told him it’s good exercise. I got a big groan when I asked if he, as he was playing as Tiger Woods, he got to shag the women in the crowd.

So, that’s the Wii.

Last Saturday was my Dad’s birthday, so I asked him and Pat over for Sunday lunch. I did the Caribbean Pot Roast again as it was so nice. It was a good choice. At 89 Pat doesn’t tend to eat a lot, but she kept taking more and said it was the nicest meal she’d had in years. I was really pleased. In the afternoon I introduced them to the Wii which was fun. They enjoyed it, and Pat did really well at the boxing! Anyway, here’s a couple of photos from Sunday for you.







I was beginning to think that we’d never see the last of the rain. I am sick of tired of muddy walks, muddy dogs and a muddy house. And I’m forever cleaning. But the weather looks as though it might finally have broken the past couple of days as we’ve been having quite a bit of sunshine. It’s making walks a lot more pleasant, as you can see from the photos I took at Hamworthy on Tuesday.









Also, since my last blog, cattle have been bought over to this side of Canford Heath as part of the heath maintenance programme. They keep back the gorse and trample in seeds etc, apparently. We managed to meet them last week – Jez and Max were most excited. There are about 8-10 of them, I think (they were in the trees when we met them). I was surprised how big they were – for some reason I had been expecting them to be slightly smaller (although it’s not as though I don’t know how big a cow is).



Better go now – Chris is on his way home with the dogs and I’ll be expected to towel Max off.

I'm always crashing in the same car

Oh dear. I thought I’d only missed a few days blogging and it’s been over a week. Sorry about that. I don’t know what I’ve been doing that I haven’t got round to writing a post. Nothing in particular, that’s for sure.

Well, that’s not exactly true. There are a few things that to update you on. I think the first of these ought to be Jez. I took some video of her and put together last week, and then wrote a long email to her orthopaedic vet, setting out what the issues with her are and giving him the link to the video on You Tube. He phoned me back last Thursday evening. I had a long chat with him, but the long and short of it is that he’s not bothered by the fact that she still seems to avoid putting her full weight on her poorly leg when she’s standing around. He thinks she’s 95% there, and that any surgical intervention is unlikely to improve matters. We agreed that I should continue to medicate her if her leg seems particularly sore. Otherwise he suggested another course of carprofen, which is something which will help strengthen the cartilage in her knees. She had a course last year after the operation on her left leg. So Friday morning I carted her off to the vet for the first of four weekly injections. And the good news was that her vet thought that her histiocytoma is resolving itself. Since then it has certainly continued to get better, so it looks as though she won’t need to have it removed.

On Sunday we went over to Dad & Pat’s for lunch. Dad cooked roast shoulder of lamb for me. I love roast lamb, but can never have it as Chris doesn’t really like it (unless it’s in Indian food). Lunch was lovely (Dad cooked Chris some pork instead of the lamb) and in the afternoon we all sat around and had a game of Rummikub (which is a bit like playing Rummy at cards but you play it with plastic tiles). Come to think about it we haven’t played cards for ages. I found a book of card games when I was clearing out the bookcases, which sort of reminded me. As a family we used to play cards a lot when we got together (Pontoon was a favourite at Christmas). Perhaps I’ll suggest it when Dad & Pat come over next week-end. My Dad will be 83 on 27 February, so I’ve invited them to lunch on the Sunday. At least, I think I’ve invited them on the Sunday – I’d better check they didn’t think I meant to come on the Saturday.

On Monday I headed over Bournemouth way to meet up with my friend Val, who I used to work with. Val is the one who shares my birthday and she has just taken early retirement. We didn’t do anything special: just met up in John Lewis and had coffee and a light lunch, plus did a bit of shopping. But we had a really long chat as we haven’t been able to get together for ages. Hopefully we’ll manage to meet more regularly in future, even though she lives in Southampton. I’ve suggested I go over there next time but that after that we could meet in the New Forest. I could take the dogs occasionally and we could go for a walk before heading to a pub for lunch once the weather gets better.

I have once again been debating whether to get a games console this week after my failed attempts to get GTA IV to work on my laptop. It’s been a toss up between the Wii and an Xbox. I’ve been thinking about it for about 18 months now! Anyway, I’ve finally plumped for the Wii. I’ve got one on order from Amazon, together with a Wii fit and balance board. I’ve also realised that for an extra £2 a month I can rent games for it from my video rental company, which will be useful as we are running out of films to put on our list. Talking of which we watched Drag me To Hell at the week-end. I liked the twist but otherwise wasn’t very impressed with the film. Currently we’ve got The Last King of Scotland (about Idi Amin) and Transformers 2 to watch. I think Transformers might be our Friday night viewing this week.

I’ve been busy doing bits of cleaning this week. Despite being decorated last summer the kitchen desperately needed cleaning, but it’s a bit big to do all at once. So I’ve been doing it a section at a time. I’m not doing the insides of the cupboards at the moment – that will come next – but I’ve almost finished. It’s much easier doing it this way.

Today Chris has had to go to a meeting up near Bath. So he dropped me over the Heath this morning with the dogs before he went. They tend to pull on the lead a bit in their excitement to get there on the way over, which aggravates my back: they are ok on the way home though. He’s only just phoned to say he will be leaving shortly, so he won’t be home until gone 7.30pm.

So, time for me to play a game soon. We’ve managed to get GTA IV to work on Chris’ PC, so at least when he’s watching the footie I can go upstairs and crash a few cars. And I’m very good at crashing. I’m less good at driving in a straight line and turning corners!

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.

And there is no shame

We’ve finally finished the wardrobes…



Well – almost. I can’t figure out how to fit the soft close hinges and the instructions are worse than useless. Just a couple of diagrams that make no sense. I’ll need to have another look tomorrow. Now all we need is the bookcases & new bedside cabinets (which will be delivered next week), plus new curtains, new lamps & new lampshade. Although I may not bother with the new lamps, even though the ones in there are really old. This is a bedroom that gets used once every few years!

Weatherwise it has been wet and miserable. I got out of walking the dogs yesterday as I had to take Jez for her physio in the morning, and by the time I’ve driven her there and back it takes the whole morning. Chris them took them out in the afternoon. I had a long discussion with Rachael, the physio, about Jez’s leg. We really can’t understand it. Rachael can’t find anything wrong with it, Jez races around on it, jumps up on her hind legs, sits straight (none of which she could do / would chose to do if it were hurting her), and yet she still holds it slightly off the ground when she stands and often sits with it stuck out & lifted slightly (a sign of a cruciate ligament problem). And her muscles have completely built back up now. So we don’t know what the problem is. Rachael is beginning to wonder whether it’s habit. So I’m going to try an experiment and put her back on her full dose of anti-inflammatories for 2-3 days and see if it makes any difference. If it does, then we know she is suffering some sort of pain. If not, well then it will look more as though it is habit.

The tumour on her side looks worse as well. It’s got bigger and she’s losing the hair off it. I don’t think it helps that Max is now aware of it and keeps trying to lick it. Apparently these things oose slightly (horrible thought I know), and it’s sweet, so dogs like it and tend to lick at it. It was why we had a problem with the one on Max’s foot last year – he just wouldn’t leave it alone and then it became ulcerated. We need to keep an eye open now and make sure he leaves her alone.

I’ve been to the optician today. He’s been checking my contact lenses. I started to try out new, progressive, monthly ones last September/October, but struggled to read with them. I was going back when I went down with a horrible cold that hung on for 6 weeks, and I’ve not got round to it since. This is the problem with contact lenses as you get older – trying to correct the near/far sight issue where your eyes do no adjust as well. I was wearing daily monovision, but they got to the stage where I couldn’t see very well either, so I was trying these new ones. Anyway, he’s altered the prescription so I’ll get a new pair to try in a few days.

I saw the headline in the local paper today is ‘Pet dog savaged to death’. Poor little thing was a Border Terrier that was attacked by 2 boxers about half a mile from here, which is worrying. I feel a bit guilty as I breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t a Staffy involved – they get so much bad publicity and didn’t need more. Better keep my eyes open for those boxers though – I don’t want them anywhere near my two. And before you ask, the police are looking for them & their owner, who apparently looked panicked and then walked off – what a cowardly shit he is.

Come on and stir it up

I seem to have had a busy 2 days, although I think I’m going to struggle to say what I’ve been doing. I think it’s days where I take the dogs out in the afternoon I see to have very little time. That’s most probably because by the time I’ve come in, given them their dinners and got our dinners it’s time to plop down in front of the TV for the evening. Not that there’s anything on TV worth watching at the moment.

So yesterday morning I messed around with the camera and tried some more macro photography. I really do not have the right lens on the big camera, so was playing with my small one. Bur for still life I need something to act as a background and didn’t really have anything. In the end I waiting until Chris got home and nipped round to Staples and got a roll of black and a roll of white paper. But I couldn’t do any photography then as the dogs were back. I did get one good shot earlier in the say, however. It’s of a small ornament of mine. I really like the lighting on it.



I didn’t get much of the wardrobes done yesterday as Chris was watching football all day, when he wasn’t walking the dogs. We’ve finished off the drawer unit today and have joined the two wardrobe units together. Now we just need to fit the rails, the shelves & the doors.

I chased B&Q for my bookcases. Apparently they have the tall one set aside for me, but can no longer get the low one. Which is really annoying as they just about match the wardrobes. So I went round their yesterday and managed to persuade them to let me have the display bookcase (they weren’t keen). Today they’ve rung to say they will all be delivered next week and they’ll let me have £15 off the small bookcase.

Last night for dinner I tried a new recipe, well, two actually. They were out of the Levi Roots’ Caribbean Cookery book I had for Christmas. The first was a beef dish – pepperpot, and the second was grilled pineapple with a rum & lime sauce and honey ice cream. They were both really nice, which is a good job as I have a lot of the pepperpot left over.

Today I have taken Jez to the vet – again! That lump on Jez’s side has been getting bigger. I looked at it this morning and suspected it to be a histiocytoma, which is a benign tumour. Max had one on his foot when he was young, so I know roughly what one looks like. The vet thought the same as me but decided to take a cell scraping to check it. They are not supposed to have any nerve endings in them, so he didn’t expect Jez to feel the needle he stuck in her side. Wrong! Poor little soul. She squirmed around, but otherwise was very good. Anyway, thankfully he’s confirmed it’s benign. He doesn’t want to remove it unless he has to as he says it will mess up her beautiful markings (her tiger stripes). It should reabsorb in 2-3 months. Of course, Max’s didn’t: it became ulcerated and we had to have it removed. But that was because he kept licking it. Jez isn’t a licker, and anyway can’t get at this.

After the vet I took them over the Heath. We had a nice long walk as it’s a lovely afternoon. And Jez met her friend Findlay the deerhound, and she had a good play with him. He’s a photo of Jez and Findlay that I took last month.



The patches on his side are where his fur was shaved after another dog bit him, poor thing. And he’s so friendly, and bounces around, legs going in all directions.
Once again the dogs got pretty muddy over the Heath. The ice from last month has melted (although we have a little bit more at the moment where it’s cold) and has left thick mud. But at least it was only on one section of the Heath today. Yesterday we went over Upton Heath and I took the dogs up the Roman Road to the viewpoint and then back down across the heath. And for about ¼ mile the path was just thick mud and clay, 2-3 inches deep. It was downhill, so slippery, and you couldn’t really get off the path to avoid it because along that section the gorse grows right up to the edge of the path. It was horrible. And then I couldn’t hose the dogs down when I got home as the hose was frozen. So I just wiped Jez with a towel and put Max in the shower.

Well, I think that’s just about it. I can’t think of anything else much that’s happened.