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!