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..