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!

Tried to shift it, couldn't even lift it

We have finally got round to starting to assemble the new wardrobes that we bought for the 3rd bedroom. I decorated the room & we laid new carpet last summer. We had an old wardrobe & chest of drawers in there that we bought over 27 years ago when we first got married. They were cheap flatpack but were still ok. In fact, at the moment we’ve kept the chest of drawers and have donated the wardrobe to a local recycling charity. We had seen the wardrobes we wanted at B&Q but they were very expensive, so we waited knowing they would be on offer at some point. Sure enough between Christmas & New Year there was 40% off them, so we bought the, along with a couple of bookcases for the same room.

We thought we were going to have a lot of trouble with the wardrobes (you know what flat pack can be like), but we’ve been pleasantly surprised. Once we’d sorted out what all the bits were we got the carcases together really quickly.

This is the first one, awaiting it’s doors (that will come once we’ve got everything else together & the wardbrobes in place.



And here are the doors & the sides of the second one waiting to be unwrapped.



Max tries to help Chris put the second wardrobe together…



While Jez looks on…



Tomorrow we have to put together an internal drawer unit for one of the wardrobes. After that we’ll try and fix the doors.

Friday is normally cleaning day for me, but as the upstairs is covered in bits of packaging & stuff from the room at the moment, I limited myself to downstairs today until we’ve got stuff back together.

In the news Chris and I were both horrified to see that Ashley Cole had only been given a 4 month ban for driving at 104mph in a 50mph limit in South London. How disgraceful is that? Does he think that just because he is a famous footballer the law doesn’t apply to him. Well obviously he does.

I don’t think there’s much else to say today. Max’s leg continues to get better & is almost completely healed. As you could see in the photo above, though, he’s still wearing his buster collar as he will insist on licking it. And Max can’t content himself with one or two licks. No, he has to get obsessive about it and will just go on and on. Talking of the Super Pooper, that bone yesterday took it’s toll today: 4 poos before 10.30am and another 2 this afternoon! As for Jez, we still don’t like the look of that thing on her side. I think she’s going to end up at the vet next week at this rate.

Finally, I can’t really go without commenting on the iPad, which as everyone has said, sounds like a feminine hygiene product. It looks like a large iPod touch to me. I can’t see that it will replace a laptop – who would want to type a lot on it? But, unlike Chris, I can see that it will have its uses. IF you had the money, it would be a great coffee table item, for playing games & browsing the internet etc. And they are talking about newspapers, magazines & books on it. Now I like reading The Guardian on my iPhone, so I can get the newspaper/magazine bit. But books are another matter. I thought I’d try Kindle on my iPhone, but was actually more interested in the Sony eReader. Until I realised that you are paying full price for a book which you can’t then share with anyone else. The books I buy tend to get passed round before returning to me, so they work out quite cheap. But you can’t do that with these eBooks. I was saying to Chris this morning that it would make more sense if you could rent them cheaply (and go for volume sales like the iPhone apps). People might be much more interested in them. As for who would want one, other than people who must have the latest gadget, well it would be useful for someone like my Dad. He is nearly 83 and keeps going on about a PC so that he can access the internet. You may not have noticed, but there are so many things nowadays you can’t do or get if you haven’t got internet access. But he’d never cope with a PC. He loves my iPhone though, and I think would get on well with this iPad thing. But it is way too pricey. You’d really want the G3 version, and that comes in at $699, plus the cost of a separate G3 contract. Just cos Steve Jobs is made of money doesn’t mean everyone else is.

Chris thinks the iPad will fail. I think it will succeed, but only because people have more money than sense. Mind you, I thought that about the iPhone, and I love mine, so you never can tell. Without apps though, I’d never have bothered.

Oh, and if you are wondering where the title lyric comes from (if you are Keith Bell you will know), its from Right Said Fred by Bernard Cribbins. If you don’t know it here is a link to a vintage 1960s animated cartoon of it (which I actually recall!). You Tube Link

You are the one to remember

Bit of a problem when we started our walk this morning. I was just seeing to Max’s poo (he really is the world’s biggest poopster), when Jez ran off to see a young Ridgeback. As I walked over the two women said to me, “Is her leg fixed like that permanently?”. And sure enough, Jez was jumping all over the Ridgeback and her left hind leg was bent up – she wasn’t putting it down at all. Panic set in – I was sure that she had finally torn the ligament. I rushed over and put her on the lead, only for her to decide to put it back down again all the while continuing to jump around with the other dog. After a minute you’d never have thought there was anything wrong with her, so it did not appear to be the ligament after all.

We continued on our walk, playing chase the pine cone as we went. And then at the furthest point from the car she started limping again. So I massaged her leg a little bit and stopped throwing the cones for a while and just let her walk and stretch it out. She was ok for the rest of her walk, and on her walk this afternoon, but I gave her a full dose of anti-inflamatory at lunchtime.

Meanwhile I went up to Broadstone as the butcher had some local free-range pork in. It’s supposed to be very good. I’ve bought a joint to put in the freezer for my birthday. While I was in there I got a couple of bones for the dogs. As they only had pork bones I roasted them before I let them have them. They were large bones – they lasted less than half an hour!

I didn’t get to watch that programme on the Great Rift Valley last night as it wasn’t on catch-up on cable, and I didn’t want to nick Chris’ bandwidth while he was trying to watch the football. I gave NCIS a go instead, which seemed ok. I’ve never been keen on CSI, but this seemed better. Bones is our favourite of this genre, though. We are making our way through Season 4.

Talking of TV, I bought Chris series 1 + the specials of The Thick of It for Christmas, so we’ve been watching that. I don’t suppose the Americans amongst you know it, and I’m not sure it would be a particularly successful export. But Malcolm Tucker rocks! In the series he’s No. 10’s ‘enforcer’/press secretary, and was supposedly based on Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair’s Director of Communications. And whereas I cannot believe that Alistair Campbell was ever like that that, the script is just pure genius. Her are a few Malcolm Tucker quotes from Series 1.

Responding to knock at his door: "Come the fuck in or fuck the fuck off."

Moaning about minister on the phone: "He's about as much use as a marzipan dildo."

To a pair of rival advisors: "Laurel and fucking Hardy! Glad you could join us. Did you manage to get that piano up the stairs OK?"

Dressing down MP, Geoff Holhurst: "You're so back-bench, you've actually fucking fallen off. You're out by the fucking bins where I put you."

Advising minister Hugh Abbot to keep up with the zeitgeist: "You've got 24 hours to sort out your policy on EastEnders, right? Or you're for the halal butchers."

Note passed to assistant Jamie during meeting with blue-sky thinker Julius Nicholson: "Please could you take this note, ram it up his hairy inbox and pin it to his fucking prostate."

“Sam? Can you get me Terri Coverley and Glenn Cullen? Make them an appointment to come over? I think I got to shout at somebody, you know? Oh, actually, get me John at Culture on the phone, I think I’ll have a bit of a shout now.”

“Tomorrow – from broadsheets to wank rags – I want pages one, two and three to be a profile of Tom looking like a fucking political colossus, you know – Tom meeting the Pope, Tom in a NHS hospital chatting to little, baldie kiddies. I want pages four and five to be a timeline of British politics with me at the center, looking fucking indispensable and fucking benign, and I want page six to be fucking Israel or some bullshit, not a fucking DoSAC deepshit legacy-distracting cockup!” (Trying to control a news story)

“Within your ‘purview’? Where do you think you are, some fucking regency costume drama? This is a government department, not some fucking Jane fucking Austen novel! Allow me to pop a jaunty little bonnet on your purview and ram it up your shitter with a lubricated horse cock!”

And the one that cracked Chris up recently, on telling the minister that a colleague, Neil, had been paralysed: “Have you not heard? He's paralised. Neil's on wheels”.

Imdb has absolutely masses of Malcolm Tucker quotes in context. You can find them here.

And here, on You Tube, is Mr Tucker explaining Tucker’s Law (note, it mainly consists of 4 letter words so if you are easily offended then best not to watch it).



The associated feature film is In the Loop, so if you can’t get to watch The Thick of It, you might want to try that.

Nyway, it’s that time where I need to post this and then go and get dinner – spaghetti carbonnara tonight.

I look into your eyes and I know you won't kill me

I noticed in the news yesterday that France had voted to ban the burka in public buildings and on public transport. Then today the BBC is running a piece saying should it be banned over here. My initial reaction was that this is wrong. I like to respect other people’s religious views. But then I started thinking about it a little bit more. If the issue was female circumcision then I would be wholly against it since it has less to do with religion and more to do with male dominance over and subjugation of women. So should I feel the same about the burka?

Since I decided to write about this issue, I thought I’d better read the pieces on the BBC website about it. And I immediately learnt that there is a difference between what I think of when I think of the burka and what is actually worn. The covering of the whole body except the hands and face is known as hijab, whereas the cloth covering the face is a niqab. I have no issue with what people wear, but any issues I may have are with the niqab. Interestingly, the BBC piece explains that the majority of scholars argue that the Qur’an does not indicate that the wearing of the niqab is obligatory, although there are a handful that point to one or two verses that they say support their argument. These, however, appear to be ambiguous. In particular the case for it not being obligatory is that one hadith (a narration on the Qur’an) says that covering the face is prohibited during daily prayers.

So in summary most people believe that the niqab is not obligatory. However, some believe it is, and if that is the case I am back to whether we should prevent them wearing it. To my mind, I feel it depends why they are wearing it. If it is their own free choice then I believe they should be allowed to. However, although I suspect that in some cases it is not of their own free choice, the problem is that we cannot tell one from the other.

On balance, therefore, I am tending against a ban based on freedom of choice.

If you want to see the BBC’s explanation then it is here.

In terms of what has been happening here, the answer is not much. Yet another grey day. Both dogs were very good on their walk this morning, although Chris has taken them up the Delph so no doubt I’ll soon get a phone call saying Jez has done a runner. Max’s leg seems to be healing nicely, so fingers crossed. Jez though has had a small lump on her side that looks a bit like a bite for over a week now. She managed to knock it and make it bleed today. We’re not sure what it is, but are keeping an eye on it. If it gets worse we’ll have to get her to the vet (more expense).

Still on the subject of Jez, we don’t know what to do about her leg. She races around and jumps about and it doesn’t seem to bother her at all, until she stops: at which point she shifts her weight to the other leg and occasionally holds her bad leg up slightly. It’s been a lot worse since the vet tried manipulating it last week. She has a physio session next week, and I’m planning on ringing her orthopaedic vet as well. We’ve thought for a long time that it’s a muscular hangover from the cruciate strain, but it’s going on a long time. And her own vet through there was a very slight amount of tibial thrust (indicating there is still a problem with the cruciate). He’s been wrong before on that score though. And she’s sitting square on a lot more, which she wouldn’t do if she had cruciate problems as it puts pressure on the knee. However, we all agree that unless it’s imperative we do not want to put her through a major operation.

I’ve been doing my pilates. The reason I’ve taken it up again is because the doctor I saw at the hospital said I should. I’ve been having physio for my back and leg (the L5 nerve is pinched) since August and it hasn’t been getting any better. I think the Physio expected the hospital to give me an MRI scan. Instead the doctor asked me lots of questions, pushed and pulled me in all sorts of directions, and declared that I had a prolapsed (slipped) disc. Apparently I could have an injection but it’s only temporary. Strengthening my core muscles is the key, to hold it all in place. I don’t know what I did today though, but my back and leg really started to hurt in the middle of my routine. I had to stop doing some of my leg stretches. Let’s hope it’s nothing too permanent.

Well, Jez must have been good, Chris is back – and NO PHONE CALL!

Chris will be watching footie again tonight – big Manchester derby game. So I need to hunt round for something to watch. I want to see the first one of a series of 3 on Africa’s Great Rift Valley. As the Cradle of Man, it is somewhere that has always fascinated me. And, of course, I’ve been there. It’s only a short programme, so I’m not sure what else I’ll find to watch – TV has been total rubbish of late.

Take a look it's on display

The butter chicken last night was excellent. It is a Gordon Ramsey recipe and you can find it here http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/chefs/gordon-ramsay/butter-chicken-recipe_p_1.html. I can thoroughly recommend it. But please note you need to start it around 4-5 hours in advance in order to let the chicken marinate.

Today was supposed to be a day to relax a bit, but I seem to have been busy all day. The first job has been to wash all the bedding, including the dogs’ bedding. Then I’ve been tending to Max. I checked his leg first thing this morning and tweezered & cut away some fur that had matted & dried into the wound. I’ve also sorted out how to give it a salt water bath, so that I can leave it in there for a few minutes. I’m using a 2 litre plastic drink container. I’ll get Chris to take a photo – poor Max has to stand there with his leg in it. Chris says it’s humiliating. But I noticed this afternoon that it’s nevertheless a bit weepy. I think it’s where he occasionally licks it, so I’ve put his buster collar on him.

The other thing I’ve been occupied with today is getting my blog on WordPress. So now it’s in 3 places: Bowienet, Blogspot and WordPress. The reason is that I’m planning to lapse my B’net subscription in April, and I’m not at all keen on Blogspot. Mind you, I’m struggling with WordPress. At the moment it won’t link to photos on Flickr (within the text of the blog). It will link to Photobucket though. And I can’t work out how to get links to other blogs (like Jez’s) on the side of the page. Otherwise it seems ok. I’m sure I can do a lot more with it, although first I need to understand it all. Most of it is a load of gobbledygook to me. Somehow I think I’m getting past it.

Chris took Jez out this morning, and she behaved well. I’ve taken her over Upton Heath this afternoon and she was good, although she did have an attempt at not coming to me when I wanted to get her lead on – until she went in the wrong direction and then had to come running to catch up with me, which gave me my chance.
Since I’ve come back in I’ve been getting dinner. I’m doing a Jamaican pot roast from the Levi Roots book. It’s a good meal for tonight as I can leave it cooking while I go and have a bath.

Well that’s the bath over with. Just waiting for Chris to finish now then I can cook us a Yorkshire pud each to go with the pot roast. Ok I know it doesn’t exactly fit with the Caribbean theme, but Chris loves Yorkshire pud with his beef & veg. Unfortunately, since getting out of the bath I’ve noticed that Max’s leg has been bleeding again – I think it must be where he was racing around playing with Jez.

Ready, Set, Go

So what is there to talk about? Well perhaps a little catch up, starting with the dogs as they have been the problem today. In case there are any new B’netters out there reading this we have 2 dogs: Jezebel (Jez), a 2 year old Staffy bitch, and Max, an 18 month old English Springer dog. Max is generally well behaved – Jez is just a very wilful little dog who likes to explore and get her own way.

Take today for example. For reasons that I will explain shortly, I had to cut their afternoon walk short, so Chris took Jez back out to her favourite spot, Delph Woods. Once there she had a great time, as she met her old friend Lenny the Lurcher whom she hasn’t seen for simply ages. So they had a good old play for about 45 minutes. A bit later Chris headed to the car to bring her home. Jez didn’t want to come home though, so she slunk off in the opposite direction. 15 minutes later I got a call from Chris to say he might be a while as he hadn’t seen Jez since she disappeared. By now it was starting to get a bit dark. Luckily though, just after he rang off, my mobile rang. Once I’d tracked it down (it was still in my coat pocket) it turned out to be one of the dog walkers we meet. Had I lost Jez? Cos she had her. It took Chris another 15 minutes to finally meet up and get her back. So the short walk he’d planned dragged out to something of a marathon.

Yesterday was the same (well almost). It was pouring with rain yesterday morning, which Jez usually hates. I took the dogs over the Heath and normally get her back on the lead towards the end of the walk before she has a chance to run off and explore the woods that border the main road. Yesterday she was way ahead of me and, I thought, heading back to the car at great speed due to the increasingly heavy rain. But when I got there (I was pulled in just off the road), no Jez. No, she was off exploring the local housing estate!

She’s a little terror. We thought we’d cracked this running off business – she has been really good of late (well, apart from the odd incident), but this past week she’s been a real pain and it’s happening more frequently again. And it’s worrying. Not that she’s get into trouble as such, as she’s such a friendly little soul, and people look at her little face and say ‘Ah, isn’t she lovely’. We worry more about her running across a road and getting hit by a car.

Anyway, the reason I had to cut the dogs’ afternoon walk short was that about 10 minutes into it (mostly taken up with throwing pine cones for them to chase) I spotted quite a bit of blood on the top of Max’s left paw. We were aware one of them had been bleeding earlier at home, but couldn’t see where it was coming from. This time though, as I looked at Max, I realise the whole of the back of his right leg was soaked with blood, and that it was dripping along the path. So home we came. I’ve washed it off and clipped the fur back and it turns out he’s sliced through the pad that’s part way up his leg. Fortunately he doesn’t stand on it, but apparently pads can take ages to heal. And we can’t stop exercising Max as he’s already a bit of a tubs who is on a permanent diet.

I’d better go now. I’m in the middle of cooking dinner. Butter Chicken, Bombay Potatoes, Rice & Nan Bread.

And deep my wound

Jez came home yesterday. At first they weren’t sure whether they’d let her out as she had a slight temperature, but that soon came down. The nurse also told me Saturday morning that she had been quite agitated, but I said that was normal for her following an anaesthetic. So we drove up Saturday afternoon to get her.

The nurse was very strict with her instructions about how we were to look after her and they gave us a written sheet setting it all out. That said, they obviously had as little success with her as we have, as the nurse said she’d tried to put an ice pack on her leg but Jez was having none of it. She also hadn’t eaten. Good job I’d taken some chicken & pasta for her, as she demolished it as soon as she got in the car!

We had a good journey home and Jez settled nicely on her duvet in the back, although I think the Kong filled with peanut butter helped a lot. But she was obviously in quite a lot of pain. She kept her distance most of the time, and slept most of the evening and all through the night.

Today she’s slowly getting back to her normal self but her leg clearly bothers her and she is only just tentatively trying to put it on the ground. She’s on her normal NSAIs and anit-biotics, plus she has a morphine patch on her leg. Her scar is really long, and there is very bad bruising on the inside of her thigh. But that’s hardly surprising as they’ve cut a chunk out of her thigh bone! Her appetite is good though. Oh, and not only has her leg been shaved again, but there’s a square patch shaved on her lower back from where she had the epidural. It looks really funny.

In terms of her recovery, she’s at her own vet for a check up tomorrow morning. She is also not allowed out for 3 weeks and is only allowed out in the garden if we take her out on a lead. She’s not allowed to run, jump or do anything that will jar her leg, which is plated but needs the bone to grow back (apparently jarring it disturbs/dissipates the cells which will gradually form and then harden, so the process has to start all over again). We have to phone her specialist in 4 weeks and give him a progress update, and then go back for more Xrays and a check up in6-8 weeks. Oh, and the estimate was about right – I had to pay out £1,965 yesterday! That means that leg has now cost over £4,000 so far – that’s one very expensive leg!

There’s not much else to tell really. I feel a bit odd, and hope I’m not going down with this flu that is going round. And my laptop and keyboard are playing up again and driving me nuts! For every word I type the next few have half the letters or spaces missing. Explorer works when it wants to on some sites and for some things, and Chrome does the same. I suppose I should really use Firefox, but I don’t like it – it’s all a bit too chunky and cumbersome for me.

Today is the winter solstice. From now on, days get longer and nights get lighter.

And nothing has changed, Everything has changed

Well, those of you on Facebook or who read Jez’s blog will know that she didn’t have an operation on Monday after all. Trying to get her sorted is turning out to be a real rollercoaster for us. If fact, Monday was a bit of a naff day all round. It was supposed to be sunny, but was cold and damp and miserable. The journey to Devizes was ok, but takes about 1 hour 50 minutes to do the 56 miles. Nevertheless, we arrived on time, only to have to wait half an hour to see the vet. He was excellent though, and we spent over half an hour with him. At the end of that time we left Jez for more Xrays and, we thought, an operation. Interestingly he didn’t think the original vets had done a bad job.

We had planned to go to Lacock Abbey for the day, as I said. And we did go to the village of Lacock. But it turns out that the Abbey is only open at weekends through the winter. So we only got to walk round the village. We did get lunch there at the village bakery though. Chris took one or two photos of the village, and of the Abbey (from a distance) – oh, and of me!











We then went into Devizes and walked round the town centre, which was nothing to shout about, and went and got a coffee to kill some time. After that there was nothing else to do, and so we went back to the vets only to find he hadn’t even got round to looking at her by that time. So we sat in the car and read. Eventually, just as it was getting dark, he phoned us - I told him I was in his waiting room! Anyway, he’d re-Xrayed her and said that we had to make a decision. He could try to move the ligament again, but there was a chance that he couldn’t move it any further / wouldn’t be able to move it far enough. But apparently in Staffies, due to their stance, the femur can be at an angle with the tibia, putting pressure on the knee joint. He showed us this on her Xrays. The operation to correct this (femoral straightening) involves cutting through the femur and removing a wedge of bone, and then plating the whole thing back together again. This is a much bigger operation involving an epidural to help reduce the amount of anaesthetic required. So we had to decide whether to risk letting him have a go at another tibia crest transposition that day. The problem was that if he couldn’t move the ligament, then he’d have to close her up and have her back again for the femoral straightening. It was a bit of a no brainer really – we opted to take her back another day when he had time to do whatever was necessary in a single operation.

So they bought her round and we bought her home. She was a lot better than usual after the anaesthetic, and slept most of the night. I suspect he’s got a better anaethnatist. She’s been a bit sore since then though.

Today I took her back to Devizes ( a 4 hour round trip that Chris kindly volunteered me for). Just after lunch the vet phoned and said she’d had her op and he’d done the femoral straightening after all, which wasn’t really a surprise. As she’s had an epidural she’s got to stay there tonight. We have to phone in the morning and check that she’s well enough to come home before going to get her (another 4 hour round trip). As her leg will have been plated I’m hoping that this means that we needn’t be quite so nervous about pins moving etc. But apparently we will get written instructions on her care when we pick her up. And the estimate for this little lot? Around £2,000! That will wipe out the remainder of her insurance cover for this condition. Still, it will be great to get her home and well again. The vet is very hopeful of a successful outcome, by the way.

Otherwise I met Val for dinner last night – we had a Chinese and a really good natter. And today we’ve been back looking at bathrooms. We’ve got a design we’ve agreed upon, and a bath, shower cubicle and toilet. We just need to sort out the washbasin now – oh yes, and find someone to fit it as that will involve laying the floor where the sunken bath currently is.

Sending me so far away

I’m still worrying about Jez – we still haven’t had a referral to a specialist. It turns out that that is because her previous vet is incapable of putting her XRays in the post to her new vet. It’s ironic really, they are all digital now, but they can’t email them as the file sizes are huge. I spoke to her new vet, Duncan, yesterday and he was hoping to get them today. I said to let me know if not and I’d go round there and transport them myself.

In the conversation with Duncan he told me that he’s decided against referring her to the specialist in Ringwood. He said that although they would do an excellent job, they would aim for perfection, which might not necessarily be in Jez’s best interest and would be extremely expensive. Instead he’s referring her to another orthopaedic specialist who he mentioned when we first saw him, who he uses a lot. The good news is that this guy will be cheaper (whilst still being extremely well qualified) and the insurance may cover it. The bad news is that he is in Devizes, which is nearly 60 miles away. I told him that I had been worrying about the extent to which her knee is fixable now, but he said this guy should be able to sort her out pretty well, although her arthritis in later life will be worse than it would have been. Ironically the reason we had the operation done so quickly in the first place was to lessen the damage to her knee and therefore the amount of arthritis she will suffer in later life. Duncan used an interesting phrase when talking about the new vet: he said he uses him a lot to sort out dogs that have been ‘buggered up by other vets’. I think that says it all.

Anyway, Jez hasn’t been too bad this week. Although she’s not quite so good to day, she was limping a lot less, so we’ve put the in the car and taken her to the Country Park for a change. We’ve only walked her a very short distance there, but it’s been something different for her after 2 months of only seeing the area close to the house. Only problem was that Tubs has put on so much weight her car harness won’t fit her any more (and we’re not putting her in the back of the car as she has to jump to get in there, which doesn’t do her let any good). So I had to go out and buy her a new, Extra Large to fit Rottie, Labs etc, car harness.

We’ve also let her up on the sofa in my room, although we’ve provided her with a plastic box to use as a step. But she’s discovered that she can go from the sofa, to the arm, to the top of her crate, to the window ledge in the bay window, where she now spends a lot of her time. She sits there and gets worked up over the neighbours cats, generally watches the world go by, and suns herself. You can see her route in this first photo…



But she’s scratching the sill badly so Chris put an old quilt up there for her to lie on…



In other news I was due to meet Val for supper on Wednesday, but she called off at the last minute (Wednesday afternoon) as she had to go to the doctor. So I’m hoping to see her sometime next week. I also went to the hairdresser on Wednesday, who decided to dry my hair differently for a change (as those of you on Facebook will have seen).



Otherwise I have written all my Christmas cards this week, and I’ve wrapped the presents! So, I’m all ready for Christmas now. Dad and Pat are off to Spain for Christmas in a couple of weeks, so they are coming here to dinner on Sunday. I’m planning to do prawn cocktail, Roast Beef etc, and Cheesecake. Oh, that reminds me. I tried out a new Indian recipe on Tuesday: chicken with spinach. It was really good. Chris and I are both eating too much at the moment though, and have both put on weight.