Lacock Abbey

So, as promised, here are my photos from Lacock Abbey on Monday.



The Abbey was founded in 1232 by Ela, Countess of Salisbury who was the wife of William Longspee, the illegitimate son of Henry II. William was one of the signatories to the Magna Carta and so Lacock Abbey had one of the original copies signed by King John. It is currently housed in the British Museum.

The Abbey, which was Augustinian, prospered in the middle ages, earning it’s living from the wool trade. It housed between 15 and 25 nuns, but there were a larger number of lay sisters. However, the Abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII was part of his dissolution of the monasteries and in 1539 it was sold to Sir William Sharington, who transformed it into a family home. He preserved the medieval cloisters, sacristy, chapter house and many of the other medieval rooms, although the refectory and dormitory were converted to normal rooms. This is the sacristy…



Sharington added a 3 story tower in Italian Renaissance style and build a stable courtyard with a brewery and bakehouse.



In the 19th century Lacock Abbey was home to William Henry Fox Talbot. The photographers amogst you may know that in 1835 he created the first photographic negative. It was a view of an oriel window on the south side of the abbey (the large window on the right in this photo).



More recently Lacock is best known as the place where the cloister scenes for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone & Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were filmed.







In these cloisters some of the original medieval wall paintings still survive. This one is of St Andrew & St Christopher.



There were also some medieval floor tiles.



As well as going round the Abbey I also had another wander round the village (you may recall that I posted some photos that Chris & took when we were there last December, but when nothing was open). This time the 13th century Tithe Barn was open…





Those are just a sample of the photos I took. If you want to see them all they are on Flickr: here.

Hope little girl

Time for a bit of a catch up, as quite a lot has been happening.

First of all Chris’ Mum & Dad had a week’s holiday in Bournemouth, so we had them, my Dad & Pat over for lunch one day. Fortunately it was before the weather turned too wet so we sat out in the garden & chatted, and I did a large salad spread for lunch. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the 2 sets of parents met up the following day (Dad took Ann & John out into the New Forest and then back to Mudeford Quay).

We have also had Mark and Katja round for dinner (that was last week). It was so nice to see them again after all this time. We had a lovely evening chatting (it was as though we’d only seen them a short time before – we just seemed to pick up where we left off). Dinner went down ok. I did Thai Fishcakes, followed by a Malaysian Thai Curry with rice & stirfry veg, then a summer fruit and mascarpone dessert.

On the decorating front the kitchen is finished. And yesterday we finally ordered the new floor covering (which I have been meaning to do since I first re-decorated the kitchen in March 2000 !). We’ve also ordered new flooring for our en suite bathroom, and carpet for one of the bedrooms (which I plan to decorate next). I’ve still got to get new blinds for both the kitchen & bathroom. After I finished the kitchen I started decorating the main guest room (which Chris normally sleeps in). This is one of the rooms we’ve never decorated, so I’ve had to strip wallpaper, which has meant scrubbing the paste of the walls so we can paint them. And one of the walls was in a really bad condition under the paper, so took a lot of filling. Anyway, it’s now coming along nicely, although is taking 2 coats of while on the walls followed by 3 coats of colour! And the woodwork was grey, so I’m having to cover that well as I’m painting it white. I’ll move onto the 2nd guest room next – the only remaining room in the house which hasn’t been decorated since we moved in (in 1993!). But then it had been newly decorated and was quite nicely done in blue & white.

On the dog front, it was Max’s first birthday last Friday.

Of course, he had presents, which Jez had to help open…





Once opened he seemed to like them…







Chris gave them a blueberry muffin at lunchtime



And I made a Victoria sandwich which we all had later. Here are a couple more photos of the 2 of them, and a couple of Max on his afternoon walk.









And so onto Jez. Her left hind leg was getting worse, so a week last Monday I took her to the vet. He referred her on to her orthopaedic vet and we went to see him on Monday. She was booked in for a consultation and an operation. However, when we saw the vet he said there was nothing wrong with her patella at all (ie her knee wasn’t slipping). Rather, she has damaged her cruciate ligament. She had an Xray and a further examination when she was under the anaesthetic and so relaxed. He doesn’t know if it’s just strained or partially torn. For now though he’s not going to operate as it may not be needed. So he’s leaving her on her anti-inflamatory meds and as referred her for physiotherapy. I was interested to find out that Chartered Animal Physiotherapists have to first quality as a human physio (4 years) then have to do a further 2 years training in animal physio on top of that. The woman he suggested actually treats both humans and animals. I’m not sure yet whether her vet will arrange an appointment with her (as she’s in Bournemouth so about 7 miles away), or with the person they normally use who is in the New Forest and so further away. Meanwhile we have to take her for lead walks to build up her muscles so that they support the ligament and let it heal (although she is very muscular), and stop her running around like a maniac and playing with Max. The latter is not the easiest of tasks, although at least the episodes of play are sporadic throughout the day, so we just have to step in to stop them when they start.

As for me, well my hip and lower back has been quite bad, so I went to the doctor. He confirmed that it is almost certainly caused by falling oestrogen levels as a result of the menopause. I too am taking anti-inflammatories (which seem to be easing it) and have been referred for physiotherapy. The bets are on as to whether my or Jez’s physio appointment comes through first.

Lastly, which Jez was at the vet’s in Devizes, I took the opportunity to go back to Lacock and to go round the medieval Abbey there. I haven’t quite finished tweaking the photos, so I will post them separately.

All the days of my life

I know, I know, I haven’t written for ages. It’s not that I don’t have the time either – I seem to spend hours either on Twitter or playing computer games (those silly little puzzle ones). But I still think its also a measure of how far I have come, in that I don’t feel the need to write on here anymore. Things may not be perfect in my life, but they are a damned sight better than they were.

I realised very recently thought that I can still get upset by internet communications. I can easily take things personally when they are not directed at me, and it’s easy to mis-interpret what others say. And then I get all upset, and over what. Most probably something (if it’s anything at all and not my imagination) that has nothing to do with me. And part of it is that the internet lulls you into a feeling that you know someone, when in fact you don’t know them at all. And that really doesn’t help.

But enough of that. The reason I decided to write today was a feeling I have last night. I believe I am coming to the point where I have finally left work, and all the upset it caused me, behind. I still don’t like to think about it too much, but it definitely feels like it’s firmly in the past. Which is good, as perhaps soon I will be ready to move on. I have been thinking about volunteering to help with a local dog rescue charity. And it was thinking about that, and the skills that I may have to offer them, that led to the surprise feeling about the matter that I had last night. Thinking about what I used to do, the positions I held and my level of seniority I found that I couldn’t believe it was the same person as me. I found myself asking ‘How did I manage that? I am just not that good at anything.’ (And I’m not trying to put myself down here, just stating what I see to be the facts.) I had to question whether I had just managed to rise to the level of my own incompetence (like many others I came across). Certainly for a while in Edinburgh it seemed that I was totally incompetent. But so many times when I worked with people whom I valued, many in very senior positions in what is a very large banking & insurance group, they valued my skills and abilities and trusted my opinions. I was known to get things done. But like I say, that seems like a different person – I can’t believe that was me. It is a very strange feeling.

Oh well, moving on. Not a huge amount has been happening. I have re-decorated the kitchen and finally painted all the internal doors. Now I am about to start on the second bedroom (which has entailed first clearing out the 3rd bedroom). Max has settled in really well and has turned into a very nice dog. He’s still a great big dopey lump though! He will be a year old in just over a week. Jez remains the little sweetheart-terror she has always been. She just breaks my heart most days: partly because she is so independent and won’t allow any shows of affection (no hugs), and partly because her left knee is really playing up. She is on new meds, but we have to restrict her walks and she is often very stiff and clearly in pain. She won’t be two until September. All we can do is try and make her life as interesting and comfortable as possible. She and Max get on really well though, and it’s great to see how happy he makes her.

Oh well, better get on. Poop to scoop and a bedroom to clear out.

The girl on the phone wouldn't leave me alone

OMG it’s been so long since I last wrote one of these things! I don’t know where time goes. As I said in my reply to my last post, I seem to spend hours on the internet but rarely get near B’net and don’t get round to blogging. I suppose there is an upside to that, in that I used to blog when I was stressed and depressed, and now don’t feel the need to. Must be a sign that I’m in a much better place from a mental point of view.

So, let’s see. What’s been going on?

Apologies to those of you who’ve seen all of this on Facebook or Twitter btw.

Anyway, firstly I’ve got two poorly dogs. Jez went down with Kennel Cough (doggie bronchitis) last week and was quite ill with it. The vet said Staffies get it badly due to the shape of their chest cavities or something, and there is a danger of it turning to pneumonia. It took about 3 days for her temperature to come down and she was really out of sorts. She’s much better now though and finished her antibiotics this morning. And she’s back having walks – well, mostly only one walk a day at the moment. But now Max has got it. He started coughing last night. He’s nowhere near as bad as Jez though, apart from the fact he managed to projectile vomit all over my bed this morning! So I’ve just taken him to the vet and picked up more antibiotics.

Me, I’ve gone all geeky and got myself a G3 iPhone. I’m really pleased with it except that it’s worse at syncing with the PC that my old IPaq was. And itunes even makes Sony’s Sonic Stage look robust and sophisticated (I’m not impressed). But I can tweet from the phone as I have unlimited internet access on the contract I’m on (although at home it picks up our wireless network). I also have 10 hours of calls a month, but no way will I use even a quarter of that – not only do I have very few people to phone but I never call anyway. I think I caught phone phobia off my father.

And I’ve discovered AudioBoos. For those of you who don’t know of them, the site allows you to make short recordings of up to 5 minutes on your phone and publish them. I Boo when I’m out walking. So if you want to listen to a few WalkingBoos, here are the links.

18 May

19 May

20 May

20May 2

22 May

23 May

24 May

25May

26 May

Let me see, what else is there. Oh yes, Chris has joined Facebook, so I keep joking saying I’ll have to watch what I say in future. And I entered a comp. Duncan ran on Twitter to win a signed Moon – poster. You had to write a poem about a geeky pastime. I didn’t win but I did get an honourable mention.

Finally we’ve (well, mainly I’ve) been decorating the kitchen (AGAIN). We had the tiles replaced and that meant we had to redecorate. It’s a pale shade of pink now: a bit paler than I wanted, but Chris insisted the colour I chose for the cupboard doors was too dark.

There, I think that will do for now. If I think of anything else I can always add it.

Oh – I new there was something else. I got some doggie clippers and gave Max a haircut yesterday. It didn’t go too badly, although Chris is blaming the fact he’s got a cough on the haircut – says I sapped all of his strength – LOL! Here’s a couple of before and after photos.

What in the world can you do?

What I can’t understand is why, after all the time and effort, it turns out that we – or should I say I? –are absolutely crap when it comes to dog training. You watch all these programmes on TV and they make it look so effortless. Any fool can do it – can’t they? I know all the theory. I’ve read the books, I’ve researched the internet, and I’ve watched the programmes – hours of them. And then I get my dogs and it all goes hopelessly wrong. You see, it turns out neither of them have read the books, done any research, or watched the TV programmes. So they don’t know how they are supposed to behave. In fact, they don’t behave anything like those dogs you see and read about at all.

The reason for this outburst is Jez. Well, mainly Jez. She’s decided she is definitely not coming back to us, unless it’s under her terms, i.e. normally when he’s worn out or bored with sniffing around. And worse, yesterday Chris took her over the Heath (to test whether she won’t come back to me over the Heath or whether she just won’t come back) and she ran off. Chris lost her while she decided she was going to explore the local housing estate. I got a panic phone call while I was in the middle of painting the kitchen.

Obviously we did get her back, but we really don’t know what to do about her. And her trainer seems to have run out of ideas. So since then I’ve had her on the lead. I’m trying to do recall training with her on the extendable lead. But I’ve tried this before and it hasn’t worked yet, so I don’t know what makes me think it will work this time. You know, if you keep doing the same thing, you get the same results. Trouble is, I don’t know what else to do.

And, of course, everyone you meet is an expert. They all know exactly what you should do, having watched TV or tried something that worked for them, or having known someone who knew someone who had a dog that it worked for. But of course, their dogs aren’t Jez. She is a law all unto herself.

Worse still, Max seems to be catching her bad habits. At the moment though, I’m putting it down to his age (terrible teens for a dog) and gaining more confidence. I just keep plugging away at him. He should settle down better.

And what’s worse virtually everyone I see has their dog quietly trotting out there side, doing what they’re told. Everyone except me. If my two are off lead they are about 20-30m ahead of me (but rarely together), and if they’re on lead at least one of them is pulling like mad. Sometimes both of them are – normally in different directions. My shoulder, far from getting better is getting worse. And my left glute is really painful again – which I’m pretty certain is from the dogs pulling.

So all in all feel like a complete and total failure. My Dad says I should give them a good thump - but I refuse to do that. I do get really upset about it though, and often it keeps me awake at night. I don’t know what to do, or where to turn for help that isn’t going to cost me a fortune. And the bit that really upsets me? These behaviourists say you have to make yourself interesting to your dogs. And just how am I supposed to do that? Once again, I’ve tried it all. I’ve even laid flat on my back in the middle of the woods. But in the end, to know that your dog would rather be doing anything other than to be with you really hurts.

Not tomorrow

Never mind. I was doing to post photos from our walks, but thinking about it I suspect a few of you are getting sick & tired of seeing the same photos, so instead I’ll just like to Jez’s blog which has them in. You can nip over and see them there. There is a bit of video of Max from Monday though. Chris suggested we get the bubble gun out for him. Daft dog ran around like a lunatic after them! What made me laugh was Jez sitting there all nonchalant – been there, seen it, done it! Oh, and check out my husband – in the sun in his shirtsleeves with a woolly hat on!




Otherwise this week I’ve been trying to get into Twitter. The jury is still out on it, but at least I can update Facebook at the same time. Trouble is I now tend to post lots of odd comments, so I suspect the people over on Facebook are getting bored of all the irrelevant updates. Plus I’ve only got 4 followers – 2 of whom I’ve never heard of and the 3rd being the editor of Dogs Today magazine whom I’ve never met! But Facebook was a bit like that for a while and now I have 64 friends on there and can’t keep up!

However, I do feel like a bit of a stalker. Ok, Jonathon Ross, Stephen Fry and Russell Brand post for an audience so its not really stalking. But I’m not sure about Duncan Jones (and at the moment I think it is him not someone pretending to be him – I don’t think he’s enough of a celebrity for that yet – sorry Duncan!). I definitely feel like a stalker reading his updates. Is what he writes real? Does he really do his own cleaning? I’ll have to wait and see. I have stopped and asked myself why I searched for him and clicked on ‘Follow’. And the answer is, I don’t really know. I was hunting around for people to follow and he popped into my head – I presume cos Blammo’s been writing about him in the news again.

Otherwise we’ve been watching The Apprentice on TV and as usual the candidates are driving us nuts. Most of them seem to be truly horrible people with very little business acumen. I certainly wouldn’t have employed them! Anyway, in this week’s programme they came to a cosmetics company in Poole. I understand why Siralan fired the person he did, but she seemed halfway decent and didn’t really deserve to go taken on the whole. The winning team leader, Nooral, was totally useless and was lucky to escape the boardroom.

Then there’s the new series of Hell’s Kitchen. Ade Edmonson is really getting on our nerves – what a whinger! But I’m not sure the format is as good as usual – you don’t get to see much of what goes on in the kitchen. I far prefer Ramsay’s US version. And who on earth is advising Claudia Winkelman on her choice of outfits??? They are truly dreadful and completely inappropriate.

That’s about it – except that Neil has come back to day and is replacing the toilet. And he’s fixed the shower door so that it closes properly now.

If the rain hold off we’re hoping to go to a fun dog walk organised b the vets tomorrow. It’s along the River Stour at Wimborne to the pub and back. Should be fun. Max will like it as it involves lots of water, and Jez should like it as it involves lots of dogs.

It would be nice to have company

I’d nearly forgotten I was going to do a few short updates, although I have a feeling that after not blogging much at all this year I’ve lost a lot of my readership. Oh well. The reason I nearly forgot is that I’ve been playing with TweetDeck. I signed up to Twitter a couple of weeks ago, but couldn’t see the point. But Daniel Caroll suggested I get a desktop application for it, and TweetDeck was one of the ones he suggested. It’s not great, but it is better than Twitter.com. I’m trying to find things/people to sign up to.

So, going back to what’s be going on, we finally had the en suite bathroom replaced. Oddly, this is the larger of our two bathrooms. I looked at a couple of designs, but decided to keep the same basic layout. I have had the sunken bath removed though. I’ve been really pleased with the guys we had do it. They are very nice and have made an excellent job. I’ve taken a few photos so that you can see what it looks like. I still need to sort out new flooring though – although I think we’ve chosen something today. But there’s not rush as we need an electrician to look at the kitchen lights, and he will need to get under the bathroom floor. So, here’s the new bathroom







There are a couple of problems to be sorted out though. Firstly the toilet plan leaks. It’s a factory fault, so Neil, who fitted the bathroom, has organised a replacement. We think he’s coming tomorrow to fit it. He’s also got to sort out the seal on the shower door, as the door only pushes to and doesn’t seal at present.

As we were really happy with the job that Gary the tiler did, we had him back to do the kitchen (well, part of it). The tiles were really old, and I’d painted them white back in 2000. But the paint was starting to peel. It should have been straightforward. But I’d chosen pearlescent tiles, and when they were up they appeared different shades. I got a partial refund, more tiles, Gary replaced a load, and there was still a problem. Turns out they absorb water and go darker when cut, and should dry out in a couple of weeks. So the patchy appearance should disappear.

Poor Gary – he’s had to work under adverse conditions. At least when the guys were doing the bathroom we could shut the dogs out. But it wasn’t possible with the kitchen, as Gary had his cutter outside, so the back door was constantly open. And Max decided he wanted to help. That normally involved chewing bits of tile, walking off with Gary’s brush, or wandering around trying to chew his sponge. And as he liked Gary he spent a lot of time lying at his feet or under his steps! It’s a good job Gary is really fond of animals (his parents used to own a pet shop) and thought the dogs were great.

So, that’s the bathroom and kitchen dealt with. I’ll have to have a think about whether there is anything else other that photos from our walks for tomorrow.