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!