Meanwhile, back at the ranch

We have a wee pal for the week - young Haggis MacFeagle, Sally's westie. A young dog of character and energy. God knows how they manage just giving him one walk a day! The first time he came, you may remember he managed to find everything within a 2 feet distance from the floor. This time, I "de-Haggified" the living room before he arrived so we're safe there (except on Christmas morning, when he managed to make off with Nick's chocolate coins THREE times!)

My plan of walking his wee legs off and thus curtailing his energy and curiosity seems to be working. He's too knackered to get into too much trouble, and seems to love his walks too, bless his wee cotton socks.

It's actually quite funny, he and Murphy ignore each other (not through any animosity, I think the size difference renders them out of each other's worlds) but he LOVES Maddie! Follows her nose to tail all round the place when they're out and despite several occasions where she's tried to bully him, he remains undefeated and a devoted camp follower. Which given that she's a Springer Spaniel and he's a Westie, is pretty impressive - I've started calling him "small but determined" - pity there isn't a word in English that says that! Maybe there is - "Haggis"

New for old

Got a new laptop for Christ,as - so excited! At last, my chance to get rid of the annoying PC machinery that has been tripping me up for the last 3 or 4 years and try out a (hopefully slicker and less accident-prone) Apple Mac.

But Microsoft has one last try at putting a spanner in the works - it is refusing to properly download the "Migration Assistant" which is supposed to help me transfer all my information over to the new Mac.

I may have said this before, but "AAAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHH!"

Ideas for presents

Been thinking I should maybe get some socks for Andy for Christmas, from Maddie - she's going through about one a day so far! We did say he ought to either keep his door shut or not leave them on the floor, but thus far he doesn't seem to have managed either. Oh well.

Maddie's weekend

Poor Maddie hasn't had a good weekend - I shouted at her on Saturday cos I heard a rustling in the kitchen and thought she was at the counter. Course she wasn't, she was behind the TV eating Murphy's dinner - and confused and aggrieved about being shouted at!

Then today I stood on her paw. Oops!

Of course, that's not taking into account the three shoes and a sock she had in her bed last night, which she was most reluctant to give up!

My fault this time

And it really was. I left that Crunchie (with only one bite out of it) on the counter and suddenly remembered two minutes later while I was upstairs with the cat. I considered chancing it but decided not to - I ran downstairs and the counter was bare!

I ran outside (no mean feat - I was in my socks and the ground was covered in freezing rain, snow and ice) and stood in the dark. All I could hear was "crunch, crunch... crunch"

"noooooo!"

Too late. I think that's even worse than finding the wrapper the next day - to actually HEAR her demolishing your chocolate bar and not be able to do anything about it!

Never was a bar so aptly named. Never was an owner so frustrated. And all my own fault.

Technology beats me. Again.

I may have mentioned this before, but I hate technology. And it hates me right back! Don't get me wrong, I love having a laptop and all that you can do with it, but when things go wrong - and they do, often - it drives me demented! Everything seems to go wrong together.

I'm hoping to get a new laptop soon (apple) as the one I've got is so awful in so many ways. I've not been able to upload photos since I moved the ones on my laptop to a hard drive ( cos they were causing the machine to crash, using up too much memory)

So how do I do my annual photo calendar? I had to get Nick to muck about and somehow use a back door method to upload my photos onto the big computer. Then I chose the ones I wanted but had to get Richard to put them into a new folder (ok I should've been able to do that, don't know what happened there). Then I loaded them onto a memory stick and transferred them to my laptop that way.

So far so (exhaustingly) good. Tonight, feeling a bit shivery, I took myself off to bed with the laptop (did I mention it regularly crashes for no reason?) and after getting back up to get the memory stick (cos apparently they HADN'T uploaded to anywhere I could find them) I finally managed to get the chosen few uploaded to the Truprint website.

And that's as far as I've got, cos now the bleeding website just sits there saying "Flash Player detection" and a big fat nothing happens.

So peoples, if you're looking for a calendar this Christmas you might get one by the summer, by the time I work my way through the myriad of shortcuts, ways around, fixes, longcuts and general crap that is my life online!

Is it just me?

The weather - and other news

The weather has taken a turn for the worse. And that was exactly what I took yesterday morning, having skited my way up and down the road to walk the dogs. I leapt on my bike in the usual fashion and headed off down the hill, swinging off to the left as always. Only this time for some reason the bike didn't make it. I found myself sliding along the road on my side, hoping I wouldn't wear a hole in my jeans.

Luckily, I didn't, but I did break a pedal, snap the heel off one boot and gather various bumps including a whacker of a bruise on my knee and a sore ankle and shoulder. Never mind giving the two schoolgirls who (bless 'em) ran up, gasping "Are you OK?" good reason to think I had hit my head as I havered away about being fine and high heels. (!!)

The reason for all of this drama? Well, I hit a patch of black ice as I was turning that corner and the bike slid away from me. One of several cyclists I've since heard of who did exactly the same or came close.

Reasons to be cheerful, Part 1 - I was wearing jeans, a puffer jacket and thick fleece gloves. The day before I was in a short skirt and tights - doesn't bear thinking about!

Maddie spreads her influence

Well, she's spreading her sphere anyway - Laura, the dog walker, for a few weeks was making sure the door out to the back garden was shut so the dogs couldn't get out - since Maddie had taken to meeting her on the street.

So we heightened the back wall -again! - and moved another wheelie in I to place against the gate through to the front.

All has been well for the last couple of weeks, but we got the (inevitable, I suppose) message today - she was running around the school car park when Laura got there.

Oh dear. Next step is erecting an electric fence, but Richard seems to be against that idea...

The truth

.. About Maddie and Murphy and toys. I always thought that when Maddie sits and whines and barks at Murphy (cos he has a toy and she wants it), he MEANS to let her have it in the end. He is usually lying down with whatever toy it is between his front paws, and at some point turns his head, leaving the toy free of observation. At that point Maddie darts forward, seizes the toy and runs off with it.

But I was watching them in the garden this week, and noticed that when Maddie did her usual and made off with his chew-toy, he turned back and was snuffing round his paws looking for it. Poor Murphy!

Not that light- fingered!

I really thought we were in trouble - that Maddie's habits were moving off into (more) dangerous waters. Richard came in with a cheque he found in the garden. It was the dog walker's, for the week's walking.

My mind reeled. Had Maddie picked Laura's pocket? Was she intending splashing out on a fondue set for the next party under the dining table?

A bit of research revealed - no. Laura had dropped it. Phew!

Puppy party?

It occurs to me that with all this ranting about Maddie's light-fingered habits, I may be missing the point.

On Saturday night, when I got up to tell them off for barking at the cat in the garden (at 1.30am) and then discovered Murphy chewing on the packet of the wraps (it's anyone's guess who ate them although I think we can all guess who stole them off the counter) AND THEN found the empty tin of coasted peanuts sitting in the middle of Maddie's crate - I also found an unopened pack of avocados under the dining room table.

Have they in fact been having parties once we go to bed? Very middle class ones, with guacamole and nibbles? After all, they did have the French bread and the cheese a wee while ago - and not just cheddar, oh no, it was Pecarino Romano!

This requires looking into. And locking up the Pimms!

The downside

As well as winning the cup for Mhairi to take home and polish for another year, we also all got a wee packet of chocolates. I got a box of After Eights, which I brought home triumphantly and shared with the others (as well as showing off our unbeatable knowledge on scientists' pictures and sports in general - take that, Nick!).

Ended up polishing off half the chocolates. Luckily, as it turned out. At 4.30am I suddenly woke up and realised I couldn't remember where I'd left them! So I crept downstairs and snuck around, peering while the dogs woke up and watched me in bewilderment. No sign of the fated After Eights...

Finally, in desperation, I checked Maddie's crate. Aaahhhh. There it was-

Championes!

Well, in the end Sally got sick (poor Sally, our thoughts are with you and hope you're feeling better) so wasn't able to come to the Librarian's quiz after all. So we soldiered on on our own, with a late addition of Alison's sister Susan. We brought the (pretty awesome) cup along with us which Mhairi has been polishing all year  and prepared to hand it over graciously. (we were the only team not to have a bloke so we weren't looking forward to the sports round!)

Here we are posing with the cup from last year -

However, to our great surprise, we were among the top teams, led after 4 or 5 rounds, dropped down on the penultimate round then STORMED to victory after the sports round!!!

So here we are posing with the cup from this year! (less me who was taking the picture)-

Visit to the dentist..

..or "I'm not a wimp, really"

Off to the dentist for about the fourth time in the last six months, sigh.

To set the scene - 
I went for my last six monthly checkup in about June (and got the all-clear). Two days later (holiday) I was eating a slice of toast and marmalade and  *crunch* part of my tooth came away.

It wasn't sore so I left it about two months then finally got round to going back, a couple of days before we headed off to the States. On the journey, guess what? Yup - the wee filling came out!

This time I could only wait about 6 weeks as it started hurting, so finally (after waiting for a vet visit-free week) I finally made it back again.

Action -

He decided to drill round the existing filling a wee bit to make it hold better so I went for the no-jags option (hate the after-effects). The dentist said to let him know if it hurt and he'd stop and put a jag in. So it started, and *argh!* Sore!

The dentist stopped and looked worried. "Did that hurt?" he asked "I hadn't started yet, that was just the water dripping on it..."

Pros and cons of a blog

A blog's supposed to be an electronic version of a diary, right? So how come the only time I've  actually wanted to look it up to find some information about something that happened a year ago, I haven't written about it at all. Very annoying.

We've got the CILIPS pub quiz, which we won last year (Alison, Mhairi, Cathy, me and Richard) and we've got the rerun this year. Slight change of team - Richard says he's not doing it cos we're all too clever for him so I'm bringing out the big guns - Sally! She won us the work quiz at the beginning of the year (well we were second but there were hunnerds of teams so we did well)

Tune in next week.

technology and me

Have I ever mentioned that I am death to technology? Well I am. Other people seem to be able to daunder along, with phones, laptops, game consoles etc all wokring as they should with no problems. Me, however...

I had problems with my laptop about a year ago so I paid quite a bit of money to get it cleaned and loads more memory added. that certainly speeded it all up, for a while.

Then it started telling me it didn't have enough memory to do anything. What?! So Husband had a look at it and said I'd clogged it all up with photos. OK, so I took alll the photos off and put them on a hard drive.

It clearly didn't like that, as immediately it started losing all the photos I uploaded from my iPhone. Last week I finally googled the problem and it appears that something has gone wrong. No!

so - when photos are uploaded to your laptop etc they are supposed to be automatically converted to jpgs - from the ithmb files they're saved as on your phone. But mine aren't - they're uploading as these ithmb files which are not recognised by my laptop. So I can't get them back.

So I can't upload any photos any more. Now I got a great video of the dogs in the garden playfighting at lunchtime today, but I've hit the ultimate problem. I can't upload it to my laptop to put on here - for obvious reasons. I tried sneakily uploading it to my work computer, thence to put it up here, but no - there apparently is something wrong with it that stops it uploading.

OK, I thought - I know you can blog from your phone. I tried to register a couple of years ago but it never worked but hey! I've got an almost up to date phone now, should work, right?

Wrong! It won't let me do that (apparently it's a problem with my "carrier"). Result? Still no video up on here. And now I'm really pissed off.

And I don't know if it's the phone, or the laptop! AAAAARRRRGHGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Haggis for the Evening

Next new entrant to our tale is young Haggis MacFeagle, a lively Westie who, it turns out, is far more interested in smelling his way round our back garden than the fireworks going on in the background. Oh, and he climbs well, too - it's like having a toddler around! He systematically tracked down and chewed everything within his (surprisingly acrobatic) reach, ensuring countless removals of whatever it was - from  a plastic dog brush, through sound system jacks to the cat-shaped doorstop. And there was a certain amount of Richard-shaped mountain climbing too - much to Murphy's disgust!

He delighted in chasing following Murphy from one sofa to another, to the floor, back to a sofa... he thought it was a great game! I think Murphy was on the point of having an ASBO taken out against him. And as for Gizzy... well she eventually had to take refuge under Richards' clothes-chair in the bedroom, from where all you could see (picture a chair with trousers hanging off, creating a nice tent-like space underneath) was a paw streaking out every now and then, when our young hero got too near.

He is a lively entertainer, taking a keen interest in whatever is on TV - barking at one point when there were dogs barking and looking at our two as if to say "Come on! What're you doing? There's dogs there, why aren't you barking?"

Don't get me wrong, he was never being aggressive, he was just extremely curious. And lively. All night. Until about quarter past midnight, at which point he decided nothing else was clearly going to happen and crashed out on the living room floor. (His owners were picking him up at half past midnight, after a dinner they'd been attending).

Maddie had long ago decided this was all too much and taken to her bed (although that was probably more to do with the fireworks). Meantime, we are all eagerly anticipating Haggis' next visit!

Maddie on tour

Well as anyone who was watching my Facebook posts this weekend will know, all went well with Maddie and the train. She wasn't the least bit fussed - trotted through the station and hopped on the train nice as pie! I though we were going to have a problem when the first thing she did was hop onto a seat while I put the bags up, but after getting her photo taken by the other girl at the table, she obediently sat down under the table and in fact spent most to the journey curled up asleep under the two seats opposite me.

Her good behaviour continued throughout the weekend, including being "no trouble at all" on Saturday night (when I left her at Mum & Dad's while I went out for a meal) - although that seemed to consist of mainly spending the evening lying by the front door with her nosed pressed against it.

The mask slipped on Sunday morning when I took her out to the woods behind the house and she managed to track down the local chicken coop. I saw her teetering on top of a back garden fence when I was too far away to get to her (never mind being in wellies that were 4 sizes too big!) Needless to say she jumped over, couldn't get back and in the end didn't want to - I found a gate in but she promptly elevated over the side fence into the neighbours, where she ran around on top of the garage and shed then jumped back again. It was at this point she worked out where the chicken coop was, the chicken realised she was onto it and started squawking wildly (but at least had the sense to stay in its cage) and I decided the time had come for decisive action. I don't like going into someone's garden but when your dog is trying to break down the chicken wire into the henhouse, the time for politeness is over! She was marched out by the scruff of the neck and taken home on a short lead.

Then back to her best behaviour again for the train ride home - which we only caught by the skin of our teeth, had to dive on at the nearest door and go through three and a half carriages til we found an approximation of our seat - at which point she went into cute mode again and curled up for the ride home. It is funny seeing people's faces when they realise (a) I'm not talking to myself after all, (b) there's a small dog trotting through the carriage, leading a pink-faced woman with too much luggage and (c) they'd better stop waving their sandwich quite so near the aisle (that last one only happened once).

The 3 year old whose table we joined was duly charmed at the doggie, and especially that the doggie was going to sleep all the way home under the chair (and she did, except for at Dundee when she emerged from her hidey-hole and curled up on the feet of the kid (well probably early twenties) who had taken the 3 year old's place).

Cue an emotional reunion with Murphy and Richard at the station - although I think Murphy was far more pleased to see me than he was Maddie!

Maddie's influence spreads...

Let me introduce a new character to this tale of merry japes - Willow, a Standard Schnauser who is the beloved pet of my manager, Lisa. Willow is usually a relatively well-behaved dog, but we suspect recent collusion with Maddie and fear an escalating game of one-up-dogship between the two.

For last night, Lisa arrived home to discover that darling Willow had not only emptied the bin, spread it around three rooms and licked clean the bacon-fat covered tinfoil (we say clean, she had actually simply relocated it to around her mouth) but had also eaten an ENTIRE six-pack of Wagon-Wheels!!! Wrappers and all!!

I think it's currently Maddie 0 - Willow 1

Murphy's pain...

Hero No. 1 is currently on house arrest - again. This time because we took him to the vets and one thing led to another... ending in him having an operation to remove a lump from his leg (which is benign, btw) which has left a large hole in his back leg.

He's not allowed any walks at all. You'd think he'd be used to it by now, and it's certainly a good job he's eight now - if we tried this when he was three all hell would have broken loose. Indeed, I had to leave work and go and get him 3 hours early cos he was upset at being left at the vet and was crying (that's a first). I had to take him back to work where he was very good and lay quietly next to my desk (just where everyone walks, he's a genius at that). Except from the time he decided to go visit Sam (the only guy in the office) - not sure if he thought Sam hadn't given him enough attention or whether he was just looking for some male company, but I looked round for him and there he was, sitting next to Sam with his chin on his knee.

I nearly had to take him to a presentation to my Fashion Management students - he'd have been fine although I'm not sure how they'd have reacted! Luckily another colleague came to the rescue and did it for me. Go Sally!

We've had to adapt our walk routine and not take Maddie out unless someone else is in the house to distract poor old Murfs. This because by Sunday he'd had enough of being left behind and when I got up early and took Mads out at 7.30am he sat in the hall and literally howled! R had to come down and get him, he was SO not happy (Editor's note - he's never howled in his life before).

We've got vet visits to change bandages every 3 days now and he's got another week of house arrest. Maddie's too scared to go ahead of me on her own when I walk her in the woods, which is kinda weird. Too used to having big sidekick around. But she's getting bored in the garden and has taken to escaping again - so we're back to Operation Wall Build-up. Yippee!

coming up...

Maddie and I are going on a trip to Glasgow on the train in a couple of weeks... watch this space!

the here and now

Murphy meanwhile has returned to his default state of bandaged leg, socks & plastic bags, lampshade and no walks. Boohoo!:((

Pooor Murphy. This is his back leg, where he had a growth and he's now had it cut off - a traumatic day that was , last Friday - I got asked to come and collect him early as he was upset. I thought he'd been barking but no, he was crying - I've never heard him do that before!

I had to take him into the office with me, but he was very well-behaved and lay quietly next to my desk, just where everyone was trying to walk (no change there then).

When I got him home he went looking for Maddie (out on her evening rampage) but when she got back she spent the evening thinking his (admittedly tennis ball-coloured) bandaged leg was an actual tennis ball and barking at him to give it to her!

Things have quietened down now and we've adopted and adapted, not taking Maddie out until there's someone to distract Murphy from the terrible truth that he can't have any walks for a week. After his sitting in the hall and (literally) howling when I took Maddie out at 8am on Sunday, we acknowledged the needfulness of this.

Monday's dressing-change was a success so roll on Thursday! I've been pushing weights to prepare for holding him down to prevent him eating the bandages so we're all prepared!!!

Further updates

The news according to Aberdeen...

We had a couple of amazing weekends and I saw something I thought I never would - the beach looking like Marbella, people swimming! without wetsuits! needless to say we took the dogs down and all had a fab time and there was the usual rammy over the ice cream (no the dogs didn't get any but it wasn't from want of trying).

So, I hear you say, prove it. Aberdeen in the sun? yes, and temperatures of 25C or so with no wind - here's the results...

As you can see we have to take a multitude of tennis balls to the beach and it takes an eagle eye (mine!) to keep track of whose mouth they are in, whether they're floating off into the sunset or some other random dog has run off with them. Plus Murphy is getting lazy about chasing them and Maddie is fairly unreliable on the ball-finding front (unless it's where she happens to be looking at the time)

Long live sunshine and beaches!

catch up

So where are we? Since the last entry (but one) we've had another holiday with the dogs - this time we took them to the west coast of Scotland (near Dunoon) and were very lucky with the weather - cue the yearly burnt shoulders and day-long trek in new (hiking) flip flops with handy roll of micropore. Here's the sorry evidence...

Apart from sunburn, we had some awesome views..

The west coast is so beautiful, and Maddie loved the beaches, they don't shelve sharply the way the east coast ones do so she practised her "running on water" routine endlessly and with great joy. At least we knew she wasn't going to drown, you gotta go out miles to get deeper than knee-depth.

Murphy even managed to avoid injuring himself - bonus!

the return of the ..well, me

Heellooo peoples! I'm back! And this time I'm going to be a cool, funny blogger who will keep you in stitches with my unique and insightful views on life.

Although that's what I always set out to do and it never works, as soon as I start writing I turn into lawyer-me and start worrying about grammar and spelling. Which never makes for entertaining reading!

If only I could bottle the effervescent me at work.. (I think that's what my colleagues said the other day, too, not sure if they meant it the same way, though). Speaking of which, we found a new word which MAY describe me it's a Scots word - "hallyrackit" - a person who is loud and boisterous, and possibly an accident waiting to happen. Not a west coast word as I've never heard of it but definitely used in Udny!

But enough about me, what are our brave heroes up to? (apart from doing an incredibly efficient two-pronged job on clearing up after the cat)

Getting away from it all

Right, well it's not quite a month since the last post so it's time to update you all on our holiday shenanigans. This was the annual dog-walking week on the south coast (of England). This time we were back to Dorset, though nearer the Hampshire border than before. It was a lovely location - half way between Dorchester and Wareham, within walking distance of 2 pubs (we only tried one but it was dog friendly and I realised as we left we'd eaten there two years ago) and short (5 minutes) driving distance of a bridle path/walk and a great pub.

It was the usual mix of walks interspersed with pub lunches and/or dinners (this is a nice way of saying we ate & drank our way round the country). I was going to update the daily adventures each evening but the wifi was less than accommodating where we were staying - that's to say there was none and there was precious little phone connection either! R had had the forethought to buy a Vodaphone mobile wifi thingy; unfortunately he HADN'T had the forethought to see if there was any Vodaphone coverage where we were - which of course turned out not to be the case.

The dogs had a whale of a time, I think. Apart from re-igniting Maddie's dislike of getting in the Dogmobile, her bruising a front paw and running around on three paws for a while (this turned out to be faster than all four paws) and Murphy bleeding all over a pub floor (cut or re-opened one on his back paw) so I had to take him to the local vet.

So after a very long two-day journey back again (via Leeds and it was great to catch up with Rhona & Martin) we're back! I spent about two hours cleaning the kitchen and unpacking (missed the first half of "the game" which was no miss at all from the sounds of things) then collapsed on the sofa.

So now I've got a mountain of washing to do, some groceries to get, email s and suchlike to catch up on and it's back to normal. Plus Murfs is now on house arrest again for the rest of the week to let his paw heal and is already depressed about it.

Who needs a holiday?

by the way,

another reason I haven't been on here much is I've been on Twitter more regularly. It's quite fun really, and less chance of being boring given you're restricted to your 140 characters..

I'll try to get a video of Murphy's latest trick - getting Maddie by the collar and pulling her round in circles - to put up.

If you ever feel the urge to lurk on Twitter, I'm @cultsianweegie - the restricted ravings of suburban survival!

Well, here we all still are! OK I've missed a month or so but it's been busy. Murphy lost more weight but the vet came him a clean bill of health and we've upped his food (apparently it was stopping those dog teeth-chews that did it, they're very oily. Maddie hadn't lost so much weight (if any) cos she supplements her own diet, as we all know). Gizzy is her usual self, very brave when I'm around and usually keeps out the dogs' way when I'm not.

they've been behaving themselves pretty much recently. We've added another two or three layers of brieze blocks to the wall so Maddie's slightly restricted from escaping so easily (still can if she puts her mind to it but I like to think of it as more of a disincentive)

Yesterday I threw the ball for her in the garden when I was home for lunch - then as I was putting my jacket on to head off to work again there was a sodden "splotch" noise and I saw a very soggy-looking tennis ball trailing water (& mud) across the kitchen floor. She'd obviously taken the ball to the water fountain, dropped it in while she had a drink, then picked it back out and brought it with her - as you do. That ball ain't going to go far in the near future - got as much bounce as a stale pancake!

didn't expect that!

Maddie got her cum-uppance this morning. She ran at another wee spaniel the same size as her, barking. Don't know if she wanted to play or was trying to scare him but he ran back at her and she turned tail and fled - but her back legs started running before her front legs had finished turning and her nose dug a groove in the grass!

Hee hee

seeing him off

I tried, I really did - to the point of irritating him by going through a litany of "Have you got your passport?" "Have you packed underwear this time?" (don't ask) "What about your toilet bag?" etc. Eventually, duly satisfied, I headed off to work. Within twenty minutes there was a call - "Where's the key to the padlock on the suitcase?" Eh? I'm at work, I can't find it from here! - so I suggested hacksawing it off (we had to do that in a B & B in Ireland once) and after then having to identify the location of the hacksaw, I rang off.

Twenty minutes later - "I can't get this padlock to work, is there another one?" "Yes", says I (unfazed), "there's a pink one on one of the other suitcases." "OK, where's the key?" Ah... I fished around in my handbag and pulled out a keyring with a rich array of keys and yes - there was a wee pink key dangling from it. "Well, one of them's here but the other one will be somewhere there.."

Clearly his patience with my distance locating abilities was running out and I got a grumpy "Never mind, I'll get one at the airport" - like it was MY fault I hadn't foreseen this eventuality!

Note to self - must do better!

Caught in the Act (almost)

Safely tucked up in bed last night (cat stretched out on top of me) when there was a sudden crash and thud from the kitchen. By the time the cat had removed herself in great disgust and I'd made it downstairs, Maddie was curled up angelically in her crate, apparently delighted to see me (I do like it when their tail thuds on the floor when they see you)

The mystery (suspicion, more like) was clarified when I got round the counter and there were some baking tins on the floor. I should explain that the baking tins are stacked up on their sides next to the bread bin, which had moved nearer the counter front and the bread in it had a suspicious-looking "nipped" bit in its bag. Clearly my ever-starving darling had decided to repeat last week's coup and tried to grab the bread out the breadbin.

tch tch! Who would have thought it?!

Much of a muchness

They've all been up to their tricks today - Murfs managed to find another deer leg (I suspected he had when he ignored my telling him to "Come!" in my strict voice - never happens if he's only got a stick) and we had another tussle on the doorstep til Richard came out and tempted him in (sans deerleg) in with his breakfast - Murphy's, not Richard's!

Then, as I sat in then garden throwing the ball for Mads after work (I'm not going to go into the problems I had cycling up the hill with my skirt caught in the brakes), I noticed something blue in the infamous bush - and she was nice enough to bring it over. And there it was - the remainder of the wrapping of a loaf of bread which I KNOW I had only taken two slices out of for yesterday's "Tian de Courgettes" (Richard's favourite, he assured me)

So fresh from the pain we all had after she ate the entire banana loaf on Saturday night, she goes and eats an entire loaf of bread on Monday night! No wonder she wasn't entirely willing to finish every morsel of her and Murphy's breakfast this morning.

And of course, not to be outdone, Gizzy managed to throw up in her bowl after we finally gave in and fed her something she liked (and therefore stuffed down her neck far too fast).

And finally, Richard has pulled a muscle in his leg going running. Am I the only sane/healthy person here? And how worrying is that?

oh yeah, nearly forgot

a proper reason for not blogging, we were away for a week - trying the Pina Coladas round Tenerife. And pretty good they were too! Managed only to burn a couple of bits, including my eyelids (sigh). Och well, got an impressive watch mark - although it'll go pretty fast I guess.

Murphy apparently not happy to go into kennels and is still getting thinner. 5 weeks ago he was 29.1 kg - the lightest ever - today he is 27.25kg. OK, it's usual for dogs to lose weight while in kennels but I think he's too thin and the only change has been that we stopped giving them Dentastix (I brush their teeth most days now), so have made the momentous decision to feed him more. Mads of course isn't losing any weight due to her thieving habits - she got the treat bag today which R thinks was pretty full - needless to say it was entirely empty by the time we noticed she was hiding in her crate with it!

I'm a bit worried he's stressing out with being left at home again, having got used to having me around over the last two years. They're not being left more than 3-3 and a half hours at a time but still, they're starved of company most of the day. Not good, and I'm torn about whether it was a good idea to take the permanent job.

hmm, been a while

I see it's been a while. oops. One rule in blogging - post regularly. As you can see I've really been complying.

So what's been going on? Well Maddie's been better - or maybe I've just been more careful about not leaving stuff around. Although I gotta say last week she turned to the hard stuff - I found coke in her crate!

- 3 cans of it, still in their plastic wrapper. Don't know how she managed to get them all into her crate in a oner, pretty heavy for her wee mouth.

My job's going well, by the way. Still loving it, still doing OK (I hope). Had to do a wee chat to my students in a lecture theatre. Weird thing, standing looking up at them all - and it's not that steep, it's a modern one. I've been a student in older theatres - and very old ones (old Philosophy lecture theatre at Glasgow Uni, so steep I almost got vertigo just looking down from the back!) Went fine though - well, they listened and asked questions and I wasn't too nervous, what more can you ask for?

Small set back today though - was going round Republic with a friend and came across one of my fashion students working there. At work I like to pride myself on looking quite stylish, but this day of all days, I'm wearing jeans, an oversized fleece and 20-year-old Doc Martens - eek! That girl recognised me and quickly moved on. Still, at least the fleece and Docs were matching green, and the fleece was a Laphroaig one...

Meanwhile, in other news...

I got a job! It's the job I'm doing now actually, but it's a permanent position whereas I'm currently on a temporary contract covering sick leave. Fantastic!

It was a bit of a roller-coaster though - my new friend Sally who also works on a temporary contract in the office also wanted the job. We both duly put in our applications Friday week before and she got an email that afternoon to say she had an interview... I heard hee-haw so over the next 4 or 5 days came to terms with the fact that I wasn't going to get one. Cue a phonecall from HR at 4pm the day before interview days to ask why I hadn't confirmed my attendacne for an interview the following day... turns out they'd sent me an email but not to the account I expected so I'd missed it.

eek! A frantic evening (after tea, Guides and visiting) looking up what I wrote and thinking up experiences to recount and I duly attended on Friday.

Unfortunately the fact I got the job means Sally didn't; and that makes me sad. She was incredibly nervous and says she didn't show herself well in the interview at all... sigh. However they have rolled her contract over for another 3 months so hopefully by the end of that she'll find something or else be kept on somehow - I really hope so. the people I work with are very nice and I really enjoy being part of a team with them but I don't want to lose Sally!

Keep your fingers crossed everyone...

catch-up

Been a bit busy lately so haven't really had the time or inclination to sit down and do this. Briefly, Maddie's haul has now grown to include a packet of coconut crumble cookies and a three-pack of chunky Kitkats and a bunch of biscuits I'd got for a Guide activity - resulting in the disappearance of 18 Rocky chocolate biscuits and 27 custard creams. Actually, only 14 Rockys, we rescued 4.

Meanwhile, not to be outdown, Murphy has been disappearing again and I've had him on the lead past the problem area for about 4 weeks now. Twice he's been let off (at weekends when I've got time to wait around for him and the road we think he crosses is quieter) to see if he's still going off. Yup! The mystery of why was solved when he returned with a deer hoof and 2 weeks later the same thing happened, with him returning with a leg (both crunched for the rest of the walk) (sorry for those of you of a delicate sensibility. I had a bit of a stand-of with him on the doorstep with the leg as he wanted to take it inside; luckily the thought of breakfast was stronger and he did drop it and head inside eventually.

So - business as usual! Although we've been much more careful about leaving stuff around so Maddie's not had any extras for about a week or so - and a friend suggested putting Tabasco sauce on the counter to dissuade her so that may be the next step..

mystery solved?

I've been doing some research and have discovered who this Grant McKinstry is - I think the parent of one of my Guides. I had emailed him to ask why his email address was coming up so felt obliged to re-email and say I had worked out the connection and presumably his daughter had maybe typed in the address when I had the laptop at Guides at some point. Still doesn't explain how it came to be on my Blogger sign-in page but at least the connection is explained!

I hope he doesn't think I'm a stalker. sigh.

Action must be Taken!

Right, that's it - I've had enough of this thievery! It's gone beyond a joke. In the last couple of weeks or so she's had half a joint of beef, a packet of chocolate mini rolls, lord knows how many catfood sachets (R tends to leave them around half full)  and now she's polished off two thirds of a loaf of Irish soda bread - grrrr!

So I am declaring war. I've downloaded some tips and will be putting them into action. Watch this space...

tricky treats..

gulp - as my sister says, she doesn't know how our two survive, with all the rubbish they eat. Tonight I found an empty (& chewed) birthday candle packet. I'm hoping Maddie found the empty packet rather than the full one!

Meanwhile the mystery of Murphy's recent departures has been solved - I let him off the lead on Sunday morning and off he went (sigh) but at least it was light so I knew what direction he'd gone and stood and called and called. He was only away 10 minutes but when he came back had something in his mouth and stopped about 200 yards away (I knew then he had something he knew he shouldn't have)

Sure enough when I eventually got to approach him to see what he had - it was a deer's hoof! OK, I thought, I'm getting used to this now, he'll just drop it at the door so I'll ignore it til then. Of course, not this time - he duly came along with me once he realised I wasn't going to take it off him, but stopped every now and then - and I could hear crunching sounds...

Oh dear. Steeling myself (and not thinking about what he was doing) I told him sternly that it would not agree with him and he would suffer for it later. Needless to say I was wrong - it was us who suffered for it - more of the "silent but deadlies" all evening, sigh.

Cheers, boyo!

and now..

Took Maddie to the vet on Saturday; she was terrified! Poor wee thing, she didn't want to get out of the car, then when I got her in and we tried to sit in the corner (where she normally hides under my chair) - she hopped up onto a seat and when I sat next to her, hopped over and sat, shivering, on my lap. awwwww....

But she was a brave girl and didn't squeak when she got her booster jag (but refused to take any treats til she got out the door again.) 

Lucky it's only once a year.

Who is Grant McKinstry?

I've no idea who Grant McKinstry is, but I just signed into Blogger here and his email address came up. Who are you, Grant McKinstry? And why is your email address on my laptop?

Why why why?

[if you're a friend of stepson 2 that explains a lot]

and for her next trick..

Maddie has obviously decided now that Christmas is over Santa is in no danger of not coming. I was just saying at work today that she behaved well all weekend. Then got home and discovered that in fact it was just that we hadn't discovered what she'd done yet!

That turned out to be nicking half a joint of beef that R had (like an eejit) left on the chopping board at the edge of the counter. Of course he assumed I'd put it away somewhere, I didn't even know it had existed as I wasn't in the kitchen at the time. It wasn't until he asked me tonight about having beef curry..

Of course we're blaming Maddie but to be honest it could well have been Murphy. He's the one who appears to have eaten something he shouldn't have (judging by the usual). If so then I'm sorry to be blackening your character, Maddie.

Epiphany

Pause for thought - for anyone who's interested - we had a good sermon two Sundays ago by our resident Polish priest, Fr Tomasz (a Jesuit, so he must be pretty bright, but also seems to be a lovely guy with a twinkle in his eye) about Epiphany. He said the three Wise Men were not Catholics, Christians or Jews. They were scientists (a completely different religion, if you ask me), but found God that way. Plus they were emblematic of the welcome to be given to strangers at this time of year and in fact any time of year.

Help!

Btw can anybody help? Rich wants silver (grey) cords for his birthday but in loose fit. And do you know I've been googling fit to bust and can't find any anywhere?!! Not in fashion this season I guess. Oh, there was one pair he grudgingly said he might like - but they were Barbour and I wasn't paying £90 on a maybe!

If anyone comes across some do send me a link, please?

A recommendation for next Christmas

We didn't get it til after Christmas this year which is a shame but for next year I can definitely recommend Michael Buble's Christmas CD, called, somewhat appropriately, "Christmas". Yes Christmas songs but slightly different ones so make a nice change - and he does have a lovely mellow voice, just right for that time of year!

It'll probably still be in the CD player next December (I don't use it very often) so I shall look forward to it and you should too.

Murphy has a go

Just when you think Maddie is behaving herself, Murphy decides it's his turn. After his efforts on Friday night, Rich took them out last night. Half an hour later I got a phone call - Murphy had been kidnapped! He was in the back of someone's car and not too happy about it apparently!

As it turned out out was his own fault and in fact they've probably saved his life - he was on the back road in the dark (and people go quite fast there and there's no lights) - chasing deer no doubt; someone going the other way flashed their lights at this woman who saw him so stopped and called him and in he jumped (he's a pushover really). She took him to a pal's and they had to take his collar off to get the info and after talking to me they brought him round. Oh dear, Murphy, what are we going to do with you?

and for my next trick..

That's Murphy out in the garden throwing up...poetic justice?

Although I might join him, having finally made inroads into my Christmas chocolate (and instantly regretted it)

dog doings

Well we've survived the festive period not too bad.. Maddie had another personality change - I heard a suspicious noise at midnight one night and upon heaving myself out of bed and down the stairs I found her in her crate with a knife in her mouth! "Ye gods", I thought, "she's signed up to be an assassin!" although surely she couldn't actually do any more damage than  she already does?! (to our diet, mainly)

Meantime, not to be outdone, Murphy headed off into the great (dark) unknown tonight - as usual on the one occasion we're doing something else on a timescale (does he not like us going to the Lairhillock? I'm sure this has happened before) so we both spent half an hour wandering round woods in the dark, whistling and calling our noble invisible hero..

Following his reappearance (in a panic as usual when no-one's where he left them an hour previously!!!) he turned out not to want his dinner. Great, well Maddie can have it then. So what HAVE you been eating, then Murphy???

We may never know but for sure the results are not pleasant. Think silent but deadly.

ponderings

watching Graham Norton at the mo. Missed most of it which is a shame as it's people I'd be interested in hearing - Martin Freeman, Karen Gillan, Gerry Butler and Noel Gallagher. I was at Uni with Gerry Butler, have I ever mentioned that? or Gerard Butler as he's known now. He was the year below me - complete a***hole at the time but seems to have sorted himself out now. In fact I was wondering tonight if he's tamed himself down too much, he seemed a bit thrown in the shade by Noel Gallagher - whom I got tickets to see on Valentine's Day for Christmas, yippee!

What?

I've done something to offend Stepson No 1, I know it. He bought us an amazing counter-based corkscrew which is good but the top tends to pop off when it's used... which is way too technical for me! If Richard's not around to open a bottle for me what am I to do? Stick to tea I suppose, sigh

New Year

Well, Maddie managed to round off the year with a spectacle; having finished off my Cadbury's chocolate biscuits for me (I only had two before finally discovering the empty box under her bush in the garden) last week, we woke on the 30th to find she had polished off the (fortunately almost finished) Black & Green's mint dark chocolate bar and also the chocolate Santas Nick had left on the coffee table. probably including most of the tin foil too - a welcome nod to the festive season I feel!

All of which resulted in me having to take an extremely hyper springy spaniel out for their walk that morning and apologise and explain to various other dog owners.

Meanwhile my Sony e-reader (Christmas present as I refused to have a Kindle) is so far a huge failure. I have after much cussing and retries managed to buy and download 3 books, one twice, one without a cover and a fourth not at all (sigh). The instructions you eventually find are completely useless as they simply don't work or refer to scenarios which are either not available or don't show up....grrrrrrr

Have I ever mentioned that I have an adverse affect on IT? Went on Skype for the first time tonight, urged on by some good friends at lunch in Glasgow (what a great couple of days we had there, seeing all my old friends!) to find my laptop apparently doesn't have a mike (which I know isn't true) so can't work for Skype and my netbook apparently has too slow a computer connection to work. Ever felt the world is conspiring against you?

Still, I will not let the New Year be tarnished by these negative associations. I will savour the last week with all our gallivanting around and catching up with friends (did I mention what wonderful friend I have?) and resolve to visit the Sony store SOON with e-reader and laptop in tow and make them fix it all for me.

So there. Take your life in your hands, that can be my New Year's resolution. Slainge!!