I get a little bit afraid

Well I thought I’d better write an update before February ends. That’s the trouble with writing Jez’s blog and updating Facebook – I either forget or don’t get round to updating my blog. So let me see, I was hoping to collect Max last time I wrote.

Well most of you will know that Max came home a week last Tuesday, and ever since I’ve been wondering what I’ve taken on. I now have a 7 month old Springer pup who has boundless energy, is as mad as a hatter, isn’t the brightest lightbulb in the pack and is totally food obsessed. He and Jez spend a lot of time each day play fighting. Jez is pretty gentle and surprisingly tolerant (which goes to confirm what I’ve always said – that she’s a very gentle little soul). But Max gets carried away and the teeth fly, and poor Jez ends up with puncture wounds in her cheeks and under her chin. Oh, and Jez is quiet about it, whereas Max growls and moans the whole time and it sounds like he’s either being killed or about to kill her. And all of this in our living room!

Max is a bit of a conundrum actually. I’m not sure I entirely believe what the RSPCA was told (that his owner had to give him up on moving to a flat). I’m not sure Max has ever had a garden – he certainly won’t stay out in it – he dashes out, goes to the toilet, then tries to dash back in again. And he doesn’t seem to have had much training. He will sit now, but Down is totally beyond him! And he’s a nightmare on the lead. I tried about an hour of lead training with him on his own today to no avail. So the Gentle Leader is coming out – I expect he’ll hate it as much as Jez does. But I can’t have him pulling so much when I have both of the on the lead. Then there is the fact that he was very nervous (the RSPCA had warned me they didn’t think he was socialised). It was odd, he took to Jez straight away, but the first couple of times out on a walk if he came up to another dog he’s shoot between our legs. Fortunately being around dogs with Jez soon got him over that. But he doesn’t seem to have ever been down the beach (judging by his reaction to the sea) and isn’t too keen on traffic. So what did his owner do with him?

The one good thing is that he is good off the lead. In fact, he’s often better than Jez, who keeps going back to her own stubborn ways and doing what she wants to do when she wants to do it. So down the beach, in the woods and over the Heath we can let them off and let them run about and tire themselves out. Oh, and Max loves water and mud. He comes back wet and black (we have a lot of boggy stuff round here). Normally I hose him off in the garden, but a couple of days ago it was so bad the hose wouldn’t shift it, so he had to go in the bath. And if the past few days he’s discovered he can swim so likes to go in the water and have a swim round. Jez still refuses to do more than paddle though.

Meanwhile, I’m really pleased with Jez’s recovery. She is running flat out with no problems at all, and other than being a bit stiff when she first gets up after a sleep, is fine – no limping, no skipping. We’ve started her course of injections to help her joint along – she goes for the second on Monday.

As I said before, we had our friends Eric and Maria down last Wednesday and Thursday. It was lovely to see them again, although Eric gave Chris and I his cold (well, I haven’t had a cold, more a chesty thing), so we’ve both been feeling pretty rough). The dogs were relatively well behaved, and on Thursday we took them down the beach. We kept Max on the lead, but after a while let Jez off. If you haven’t seen it, you can have a look at a short video of them.




And I have a few photos of Chris, Eric, Maria & the dogs down the beach.







While we were out with Eric & Maria my phone went – my cousin Linda asking if they could come down at the week-end! So we had a quick turn around of guests, with Linda & Paul arriving Friday afternoon. Just in time for the dogs to get overexcited and take their play fighting a bit too far. Which was all I need as they are both a bit nervous of dogs! Fortunately they settled down again after that.

It was good seeing Linda & Paul again, with the added bonus that Paul fitted the new shower pump, so now our main shower works well again. On Saturday we all went down the beach again, but this time it was lovely and sunny. So, more video





and more photos…

















And if you’re wondering how well the dogs travel together in the back of the car, well, here’s the answer…



And one good thing about these long walks is that it tires them out.



But it was all too much for Chris and he spent most of Sunday in bed.

Since then life has got back more or less to normal. I have provisionally arranged for a bathroom fitter to replace our en suite in 3 weeks time (although I still need to order all the stuff so may need to postpone him). It will be great to have a bath I can use again.

Well, I think that’s about it until the next time.

The look in your eyes that never means never

I’ve actually got quite a bit to write about today. Firstly, I’ve finally managed to get my planes to fly in Flight Simulator. I bought an Xbox 360 gamepad for Windows which really helped. The program seems a bit flaky on my laptop though – I’m assuming it’s the video driver. I downloaded a much more up to date version than the one I had, which helped.

In the end I didn’t take Jez to Devizes last Tuesday. I looked at the weather forecast on Monday and phoned to postpone it. Which was a good job, as the road I have to take across Salisbury Plain was closed due to flooding on Tuesday morning. So we’re going tomorrow – the weather this week is much better. She will be in most of the day, but I’ve decided to take my Nintendo DS and a couple of books and sit and wait – although I might nip into Devizes for a coffee and a bite of lunch at some point. I’m hoping that if they know I’m waiting there they will deal with her fairly early on – but no doubt I’ll be there all day.

Jez herself has been up and down again this week. Some days she seems worse than others – quite stiff and skipping a lot of steps. Then the next day she’ll be fine. We’ve been slowly increasing her exercise as it’s now been 2 months since her operation so her leg should have healed, although it will still hurt at times. So she’s been enjoying herself over the heath and in the woods (although still on the lead all the time). She met one of her special friends, a spaniel cross, on Thursday and we let them have a play.

The big news, though, is that we’ve been thinking more and more seriously about another dog as company for her. So this week I phoned the RSPCA centre that she came from. At first they said they would not rehome with a staffy, but the next day they phoned me back and said that as they knew we’d socialised her well they would make an exception for the right dog (but not another staffy). So Friday we went up there. Originally I was going to go and if there were any dogs there of interest (they only have a few available for adoption and only 2 looked possibilities) I would take her back the next day with Chris. In the end we both went and took Jez, so that Chris could walk her up there while I looked at dogs, and she would be there if we wanted to introduce her to one and see how they got on.

And so I met Patch – or Mad Max as we like to call him. Patch hadn’t been on the website so I was surprised to see him in their adoption book. They said he’d only become available within the hour as they found out that the woman who was going to adopt him had changed her mind and not let them know! Anyway, Patch is a 6 month old Springer Spaniel who needs a home as his owner has had to move into a flat.

I fell in love with him straight away. So as soon as Chris came back we introduced him and Jez – and they get on really well. Of course, they have their moments. Patch (lets call him Max shall we – he’s definitely a Max) is a toy guarder, and snapped at Jez when she went to take the toy he had. But they very quickly sorted themselves out again. So we reserved him and are into the 3 visits over 4 days routine prior to adoption.

We went back yesterday and they had a good run round in the big pen – the first time Jez had been allowed to run off lead since October. I’m not sure we’re supposed to let her yet, but it was in a good cause. It’s stiffened her up this morning, but otherwise she seems ok. Anyway, they had a good run round and play, and got on fine. Then we were allowed to take him out for a walk. That hadn’t been possible the day before as he’s just been neutered and still had his stitches in. So off we went. He’s a nightmare on a lead – I can’t believe his previous owner ever tried to train him- and as a spaniel he should be relatively easy to train (more so than our very stubborn little staffy). He pulls worse than Jez! She meanwhile was trotting along on her lead as good as gold. After the walk we took them into another small enclosed area and they had another spat – Jez did not think much of him continually trying to mount her, so had a good snarl at him. It was over in a second though, he backed off, and they were back to normal. But as the RSPCA handler said, he has to be told! Anyway, here’s some photos from yesterday…









So today we went back for a third visit, and that went really well. I invited Dad up too as he’s really unsure about this idea of another dog – I thought it would put his mind at rest. Pat was invited too, but didn’t want to come. As soon as they saw each other the two dogs were straining on the leads to meet, which was good. We started with a good run round in the big run. I’ve taken a bit of video, but only on my small camera, so excuse the quality.



Then we went for another walk. Chris took Jez out the front while I just cleared it with reception, and while I had Max there he saw Jez outside and was whining to go out to join her. He was a nightmare to walk again, especially after he’d been allowed to splash around in water and mud, when he got a bit hyper (well, he is still a pup). Then it was back to the Centre for another run round, and finally, when Jez’s leg was clearly starting to play up, we took then into the smaller viewing area. Today we had no trouble at all – although there was a lot of play dominance going on. They seem to be getting the measure of each other more. And when Max tried to mount Jez she just moved off and he stopped. I had to laugh at one point though – she was on her back and he straddled her (see the photo below) and she just bought her back legs up underneath him and kicked him off! So, here are today’s photos…











The Centre is closed tomorrow, and anyway I’m taking Jez to the vet. But Max will have his final vet check (he’s had his op plus a bit of an ear mite problem). If all’s well we hope to bring him home on Tuesday, as we’ve been told we don’t need another home visit (since Jez’s follow up visit was less than 12 months ago). Then the fun begins! Especially as our friends Eric & Maria are supposed to be coming to stay Wednesday night.

I’ll let you know how it all goes.

What have I become, my sweetest friend

So, another year older and, I hope, another year wiser. I certainly seem to have learnt quite a bit about myself in the last year. I realise, for instance, how readily I now speak to complete strangers, although having Jez helps. But I am not a conversationalist by any means. I will chat to anyone, but put me in a room with a group of people and I never know what to say. And one to one with people I know I’m just hopeless. Odd that.

I find I am much more patient than I ever thought I could be. Jez has shown me that.

I have discovered I don’t need to be better than anyone else or have flash things to show that I’ve had at least some element of success in my life. I am much happier living a fairly simple life.

But I’ve come full circle. And the person I became when I first joined B’net has gone, and I’m back to my boring old self. I always hoped that person that I tried to become was really me, but in reality I think it was just the person who I hoped I was. Everyone is hoping that one day Bowie will once again tour. Everyone but me. I’m happy with his apparent retirement. It means I don’t have to suffer all sorts of angst when I don’t go to see him. And I really don’t think I would go. I don’t think I could bring myself to do that again.

I’ve become very insular again. I can rarely bring myself to travel outside of the immediate vicinity. Even the 10 miles into Bournemouth seems too far and too much trouble most of the time. And this from someone who used to commute to Edinburgh each week!

And I am quite alone. I have very few people now that I can call ‘friend’ – although oddly I have absolutely loads of friends on Facebook. Odd that, isn’t it? But I don’t have anyone I am close to or can talk to. It does get to me every now and then, but on the whole doesn’t bother me like it used to. Anyway, that explains my choise of lyric for the title:

“What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end”

I’m sure reading this is sounds self-pitying. But it’s not supposed to. I don’t feel that way. I just wanted to explain what has happened to me.

So, on with the general update.

We’ve had more snow and ice here, but nowhere near as much as most other parts of the country. More is forecast this week though, which worries me as I’m due to take Jez back to Devizes for a check-up and I have to travel across Salisbury plain, which is really exposed. The snow was supposed to be really bad across the plain last week. So I think I’ll phone them tomorrow and see if I can put it back a week. Jez still limps quite a bit, but is getting much better (well, was until the cold snap). She’s certainly so much better than before her operation and so we’re building up her walks again.

The snow meant that my cousin and her husband couldn’t get down here for my birthday, which was really disappointing. I was so looking forward to seeing them. Plus there was a bonus in that Paul was going to replace the broken shower pump. I had Dad and Pat over to lunch today though. Dad was playing with my Nintendo DS and we were both trying to work out Flight Simulator – and crashing!

I’ve also been editing some of my Kenya videos again. I’m really pleased with the results, but unfortunately can’t share them as they are much too large for any of the video sharing sites. In the middle of it all my laptop and some of the Adobe software I’m using has been playing up, so I’ve wasted hours on that. The laptop is still not right – which is not helped by the fact that the Power Management system seems buggered. I’ve taken the battery out at the moment as it prevents the problem occurring.

Oh well, I think that’s about it. I find it hard to believe I’m now 52 though.

We're living in a golden age

I think everything that can be said about Obama’s inauguration has already been said, so I won’t say much other than that I watched it, thought his speech was excellent and like many others was left with the feeling that things may now start to change for the better. He won’t be able to do all that is needed, but my hope is that he will inspire others.

Yesterday we had a bit of a panic. At lunchtime I noticed that Jez wasn’t using her leg at all. She’d had a bit longer walk (but one she’d done before) in the morning so I couldn’t work out what was wrong. Then, while I was picking up some bathroom brochures in my sitting room she put her paws on the window sill and tried to look out. So I told her to get down, and went to move a few bits as I wanted to put something in front of the window to stop her doing it again. I picked up the small occasional table at the side of the sofa and a leg fell off – broken right through at the top. All I can think is that she got on the sofa and tried to get onto the window sill (she hasn’t been allowed up there since her operation and I’ve removed her means of access) and slipped. She must have thumped down onto the edge of the table, breaking the leg.

Little tartlet!

So I rested her for the remainder of the day (which meant she got Chris up twice in the night as she wasn’t tired) and gave her a painkiller (I’d stopped giving them to her at night). Today her leg is obviously still a bit sore, but she is using it again so I don’t think any real damage has been done.

I phoned her surgeon’s practice again this morning as after a week I still hadn’t heard from him. Looks like my message got lost. Anyway, I told them I was really worried about her. The limping is a lot better and I believe her leg has recovered well from her operation (which was 5 week ago now), but as soon as she breaks into a trot she continually skips steps, which is the classic sign of a knee slipping out of joint. So I have been trying to resign myself to the fact that she will always have a problem and we will have to restrict walks etc.

Anyway, the vet phoned me back pretty quickly and I had along chat with him, after which I am a lot happier. From what I told him he thinks she is progressing well. He doesn’t think the skipping is indicative of her knee slipping as she doesn’t do it when she walks. So he thinks it will get better as her leg improves. And it’s also possible that it’s just pure habit. He’s told me I can start to build up her walks and stop her painkillers (keeping a few for emergencies like yesterday). And we don’t have to be anywhere near as careful with her now – the bone should be pretty much healed from what he was saying. I’ve arranged for her to go back for a check up and Xray on 10 February. I deliberately booked it for the week after my cousin comes to stay, just in case we have a few unsettled nights following another anaesthetic.

I’ve also booked her in with her own vet for Monday. She needs her booster and apparently they check them over at the same time, so I’ll know a bit more once he’s looked at that leg too. She’s fast asleep at the moment – I took her to the Country Park at lunchtime and we went out to the boardwalk – she hasn’t been there for months and really enjoyed herself.

Yesterday I spent time going through the bathroom brochures again. I’m making progress, but I really need to speak to a fitter as I’m still not sure which layout to go with (one may not really be feasible), and it affects the size of bath and shower I can have. The issue is whether we can move the toilet.

This morning Joy phoned – one of the actors has gone sick, so she wants me to play the detective this weekend. So tomorrow I’m off to Windsor. It’s the first one of the new plot so it will be manic. Plus, it’s the first week-end with the new chain she’s contracted to. Oddly enough I looked up the hotel and realised I know it – I did my Creativity residential course there when I was doing my MBA. It’s in Old Windsor, fairly near the Thames. Looks like it has changed hands and been refurbished since I was last there (which I think was about 2001). The theme is all about phobias and involves a couple of hypnotherapists – which is even more spooky as it was at this hotel that I was hypnotised and learnt self-hypnosis (in what is now the lounge). Anyway, she’s suggested it might be fun if the copper has a phobia. I’ve found one called scelerophobia, which is a fear of burglars and criminals, which I thought might be a laugh for the copper. Not sure what Joy will think though. But I can’t believe how many phobias there are – some are really weird, such as all the fears of different diseases, fear of different animals, fear of infinity, fear of stars, fear of women’s genitalia, fear of sitting, fear of chopsticks, fear of bald people…. I could go on for ages.

He don't really feel the weather

I spent the morning clearing up dog sick – lots of it, and horrible & slimy. Poor little soul was in a bad way. She took herself off into the garden and just sat there drooling. Eventually we got her back indoors and she settled down in her bed and slept for a couple of hours. 15 minutes after she woke up she was as right as rain: wanting to play, chasing pigeons, and hunting for something to eat. She’s asleep again now, but she’s been eating and has kept it down, so I presume she is better.

It was just too much excitement for her yesterday. I had Dad and Pat over to lunch, and Jez always gets so excited when she sees Dad. We can never work out why. Anyway, lunch went ok, although it turns out that neither Dad nor Pat liked the Christmas presents I got them, so took them back. Personally I thought they were very nice – don’t know why I bother!

Saturday (I think) I spent ages ripping new albums and updating playlists on my old MP3. I can only use it if it’s plugged in as the battery packed up 18 months ago. But it holds a huge volume of tracks (more than I’ve ever ripped) and so is good to just leave playing all day (like now – I’m being treated to Teenage Wildlife). I also finished the bastard jigsaw puzzle Chris gave me for Christmas. He tells me he bought it cos it worked on so many levels: it involved dogs and looked really hard. It was only 1,000 but you had to lay them all out to stand a chance of completing it. Anyway, this is it…



Thursday I put a call into the Jez’s orthopaedic surgeon as it has been 4 weeks since her op and we had instructions to phone him. I‘m still waiting for him to phone back though. As for Jez, she still hobbles along, skipping steps from time to time, plus she holds her leg up when she stands. But she does seem to be using it a bit more. I’m sure she should better than this though, so I’m keen to talk to the vet. At some point soon we have to take her back for another Xray.

On the film front we watched a very strange film called The Nines last week, although it was ok. We also watched a sort of thriller thing called Unknown. But Saturday we finally got to watch The Dark Knight. We really enjoyed it – Chris more than me. I felt it was a bit too long (I usually find any film over 2 hours is too long). But I just had to marvel Heath Ledger’s performance in it. It was just incredible. I didn’t think anyone would be better than Jack Nicholson in that part, but I was wrong. And when you think about how good an actor Jack Nicholson is, that’s saying something. It just seems so sad, and also slightly unreal, that he’s now dead. What a loss.

Well, I think that’s about it. I’ve avoided mentioning the appalling weather (we lost another roof tile). Only other news is that it look as though my cousin Linda and her husband Paul will be coming down to stay for my birthday, which will be nice.

And yes, I am aware what a momentous day tomorrow will be. Might watch some of it on TV.

Pictures on my hard drive

I’ve just had to check back – I can’t believe how long it has been since I wrote anything. One of the main reasons has been that my laptop has been driving me nuts, and it was getting so that it was almost impossible to type. Well, not impossible, but half of the letters I typed never appeared – and I’ve got 4Gb of RAM on this machine! The reason is something called a memory leak in Adobe Flash player, which seems to have appeared (or got worse) at the beginning of December with one of the Windows updates (I’m using Vista). As the machine is left on, Flash just starts to eat RAM, leaving very little for anything else. I’ve spent the past couple of days trying to sort out the PC (backing up& clearing out old files, tuning up, running scans) and finally last night I found a really good little memory management which seems to have done the trick. It’s still not perfect, but it’s one hell of a lot better.

So, Christmas came and went. It was fairly uneventful as far as I can remember. We weren’t doing too much as we were nursing a little dog back to health. Those of you on Facebook will know how Jez is doing (especially now she has her own page – and so many friends!). But we’ve spent 3 weeks having to take her out in the garden on a lead every time she wanted to go out. It was no fun – especially not in the middle of winter. Aside from the limping though, she was fine in herself, as you can see from these photos of her on Christmas day.





For Christmas I had a Nintendo DS, some games, books and jigsaw puzzles, one of which I’ve started today. So since then I’ve spent hours playing on the DS or playing Spore on the PC.

On 30 December I went to Salisbury where I was first death on the New Year Murder Weekend. Although I was only there a while I had great fun – they seemed to be a really good bunch of guests and (unusually for the first night) I got into character and into the plot straight away. I was sad when my time came to die. Anyway, here’s a couple of photos of me, courtesy of one of the guests.





That week was the start of the very cold weather we’ve been having. I noticed it was -3C as I drove back from Salisbury. A week ago it was down to -6C here though, and all of the ponds have frozen – in fact even the sea froze down at Sandbanks. So while it was still all frozen I took the camera out to photograph the local ‘Ponds’ where we have been walking Jez. They were frozen solid (apart from one small area where a stream flows in. Rather than post all the photos here I’ll include a couple and then put a link to the slideshow on Flickr (where you can see the photos much better).







To see all of the photos click here.

On the knitting front I’ve finished Chris’ jacket, but need a zip for it. Meanwhile I’ve started an Aran cable-knit jacket for myself (which takes quite a bit of concentrating). And I’ve completed mine and Chris’ tax returns and updated all our finance info. I was pleased to see that we’d actually spent a lot less than our income last year!

Well I think that’s about it on the news front, other than the update on Jez. Despite our efforts she was getting bored, so I started to take her to the end of the drive to have a sniff round on the footpath (since we were only walking he length of the garden – bearing in mind she was supposed to be on house arrest for 3 weeks). She would use her leg at times, but limped and held it up a lot. In the end Chris managed to speak to her surgeon while I was in Salisbury, and he confirmed that she would still be limping, but said we could take her out for 10 minute walks, increasing to 15 minutes 3 weeks after her op. So that’s what we’ve been doing. Some days she’s worse than others, and I don’t think this cold weather has helped (one night I was out walking her when it was -6C). Thursday we finally let her out in the garden on her own (cheers all round!), and she’s occasionally allowed to get up on the sofa. But she still skips an awful lot of steps, and at this stage I’m beginning to think that the operation has not corrected the problem. If that’s the case then we will always have to restrict her exercise and she will suffer really badly from arthritis. Anyway, I have to phone her surgeon this Friday for a progress update, so I’ll see what he says. But at the moment, she’s happy enough in herself.

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.