Autumn reflections

The remains of summer have fizzled out unspectacularly, leaving the characteristic chill of autumn nights.  I cranked the heating into action once again, counting myself fortunate that since we had the new boiler fitted the gas bill these days is a mere shadow of its former self.  Doesn't stop spammers phoning regularly (or, more accurately, phoning the answerphone regularly) to remind me about the government boiler grant awaiting me alongside my unclaimed PPI refund.  Do people actually respond to this rubbish, I wonder?

And I've had time too to reflect on, and start coming to terms with, Raggs' passing away.  I got the casket containing her ashes back: one of my fellow students of Italian kindly gave me a lift to the vets' after our class on the Friday that week, and I carried it home on the bus in the little posh carrier bag looking for all the world as if I'd gone to do a bit of upmarket shopping!  I haven't yet decided what to do with them.  Although I'm conscious of the theory that clinging on to the remains acts as an impediment to grieving properly and letting nature take its course, I'm a little undecided.  I didn't want to scatter them in the woods as I had done with Molly, but I rather favour the idea of perhaps burying the casket in the garden amongst some spring bulbs to make something resembling a little shrine,  Maybe that in its own way is just as creepy an idea though.  For the moment I'm not in a hurry.  I find its presence acts as a comforting souvenir of the happy times we had together and I'm happy to accept it as that however ghoulish it may sound.  While I initially found it difficult to accept the proposition that we can't have another dog, the plain reality is that I don't any longer have either the physical ability or the lifestyle to walk as far or as regularly as I'd need to and it really wouldn't be fair or kind.  Even an older dog needs some exercise.  I haven't ruled out the idea of another cat on the other hand: maybe I'll just wait and see how things pan out.

And after a short summer break we start our Italian tutorial sessions again next week.  I did briefly resurrect the idea of going for an A level, but decided to plod on with our informal classes and buld up a bit more of a foundation while waiting to see how the transition from AS and A2 levels back to a proper 2-year course works out.  My practice is still sporadic and I have some "homework" exercises which I should have done and keep putting off but I'm heartened to find when I check out an Italian blog that I follow, I seem to be retaining more of what I've learned than I'd anticipated.  It's certainly encouraging me to keep at it, anyway.

A presto!

Goodbye to my best friend

I seem to have got into the habit of relaying nothing but bad news on here: I was going to add "lately" but I see it's been eight months since I last wrote anything.  But whatever the ins and outs of that, the spur this time is the shock that late yesterday evening, Raggs passed away.  

It came as a surprise.  She'd been showing her age with some quite obvious signs in recent months, noticeably by scrambling a bit to get up, requiring my assistance in the form of a helping push on the bum to get up the stairs, and sitting (or rather dropping) down with a great thump.  Added to which, she'd become noticeably incontinent.  But all things considered, nothing that wasn't commensurate with the advancing years of a 14-year old bearded collie.  I never dreamt that she might be ill, and looking back on the events of yesterday, I'm not sure she had been.

The morning had passed in usual form, jumping up on my bed (she hadn't got to be too particular about whether I wanted to use it myself or not!).  She barked at a few things which were unwise enough to move in the street: although I had my suspicions that her hearing was no longer as keen as it used to be, there was obviously nothing wrong with her eyesight.  But around tea-time, I suddenly noticed to my horror that she appeared to have collapsed in the bedroom doorway, more or less lying adjacent to a puddle and a pile of the other stuff.  In the light of her previous deteriorating mobility, I guessed that she'd got taken short and had overbalanced in the act, but with the benefit of hindsight a more accurate guess I suspect, is that she'd had some sort of stroke.

I helped her to her feet with some difficulty, getting snarled at for my pains, for I think the first time ever since we'd had her.  But she seemed to recover while I cleaned up, pottering about with a wag of the tail here and there.  I took her out to see how she fared: she didn't seem to want to do anything but made it up and down the stairs without help.  Nevertheless I decided it would be a wise move to book her in to see the vet in the morning, and I followed that by booking a taxi to take us there.

But then when I took her out again a little later on, she collapsed again just by the garden gate.  Somehow I managed to get her back indoors (she's far too heavy for me to carry) but this time she lay down in the hall looking sorry for herself.  I got an old duvet and made her as comfortable as I could, hoping the rest would do her good and we'd see what the vet had to say about it all.  She looked up occasionally but then seemed to lose interest.  I knelt down beside her, conscious that I might be saying goodbye.  I saw around 9.00 that she'd been sick and was still dribbling: her breathing was becoming shallow, and a little after 10.00, as I knelt beside her, I heard the characteristic rasp of a death rattle.  She was gone.  With tears in my eyes, I said some prayers for her, noticing already how quiet the house had suddenly become.

This morning, I used the old duvet to concoct a makeshift shroud, wondering how or if I was going to get her to the vet's in the taxi by myself.  As you do on these occasions, I started simultaneously torturing myself with the inevitable "if only"s - if only I'd realised the significance of the warning signs, if only I'd acted sooner.....  In my rational moments, of course, I know full well it wouldn't have made any difference.  The healthiest animal we'd ever owned was already living on borrowed time and had been for quite a while: the life expectancy of a bearded collie is around 12 or 13.

So, a few phone calls later, full of mixed feelings, I sit here typing away to while away the hour or two before the pet cremation company arrive to collect Raggs.  We decided that's what we'd have done with her, as we had with Molly twelve years ago.  The alternative of a burial in the back garden, which I suspect is of dubious legality anyway is a bit of a no-brainer on practical grounds.  

The house seems eerily silent.  Gone is the patter of not-so-little-tiny feet, the head poked round to door to see what I'm doing and the barking every time anyone is rash enough to come up the path to the house to deliver something.  We've already decided not to get another dog: I was very much in two minds about it twelve years ago when faced with the same decision and given how much water has flown under the bridge since then, it just wouldn't be practical or fair.  Another cat, on the other hand however??  Hmmm, I wonder.

Anyway, in the meantime, here's a pic to finish with:

    
It's my favourite photo of her, taken in January 2004 during her first winter with us.  She always loved the snow and we never really to her way of thinking got enough of it.  A friend of mine made that photo into a mousemat for me, so somehow I'll always have her by my side.

The big freeze

After a comparatively mild Christmas and New Year period, the thermometer took a sudden nose-dive.  We had snow on Monday, although only about an inch or so, but a lot more fell yesterday and I spent most of the morning looking out of the window at the white-out developing.  Predictably it caused the usual travel chaos, and I learned at lunch-time that my Italian class this week had been cancelled.  I don't really have any clear recollections of the famous last great freeze of 1963 except that I was at school: we at the time only lived just round the corner so I didn't have any great difficulty getting there and I don't remember that we had classes cancelled or impromptu days off - although I do have a dim recollection of makeshift timetables for a while.  I'm sure we were all hardier and made of sterner stuff in those days!  This morning I swept the path clear despite a forecast of more snow later in the day, which in the event didn't materialize, although I see there is likely to be some tomorrow.  Well, I know someone who's going to be pleased.... Woof!   

Rain stopped play

I must admit that I was a little bit apprehensive about taking Raggs out for her evening walks these last few nights. Although Coventry seems to have escaped the rioting and looting as such, the speed with which it had spread had taken everyone I think by surprise.

Tuesday night, the local Police were out and about visibly in force in their patrol cars, evidently taking no chances. They'd advised parents to keep their kids indoors and off the streets, and I certainly didn't see as many as I'd have expected to on a pleasant summer evening during the school holidays. Last night there seemed to be somewhat fewer Police around, but it was just as quiet - almost spookily so as darkness fell and it started raining around 8.30. I came across a couple of groups of local people clearing up litter in their streets - not vandalism debris, just ordinary stuff - but an example perhaps of how the tide of public opinion is turning against the mindless destruction and how people are determined to 'do their bit' to counteract it? Maybe.

Undoubtedly, the rioters and looters had been on a roll everywhere: they must've thought they were unstoppable. That's largely fizzled out: now heavily outnumbered by the Police on the streets, rained on, and with most of the public against them, I can't see enough momentum building up again to cause anything like as much trouble as we saw on the news at the weekend.

We can't of course all protect our homes and businesses like the magnificent way in which the Sikhs in Southall did it: you don't mess with those guys! We rely on the Police, and then the Courts to do their bit. Following the Prime Minister's declaration that those responsible should go to jail, it was interesting that some Magistrates took him at his word and referred defendants to the Crown Court for sentencing. It was also interesting that many of those defendants didn't fit the stereotypical image of a disaffected alienated youth: a primary school mentor, postman, charity worker, lifeguard, scaffolder - some in their 20s and 30s. I did wonder about the 11-year old boy, though, complete with two mobile phones and a recent conviction and referral order for a previous but apparently unrelated offence. Why on earth we cling to this outmoded idea that "children" must be afforded the automatic protection of anonymity in Court for violent offences like these is beyond me. Hopefully some of the more hardcore offenders who have yet to be identified and traced will duly get their day in Court too.

The Prime Minister gave a 'tell it like it is' speech in Parliament: "... We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you" Almost Churchillian in tone, I thought: "... we will fight you on the beaches, we will fight you in the streets, we will never surrender" The rest of us can only hope that the actions match the words and that the message finally starts to sink in.

Some like it hot. Others, tragically, get no choice

The weekend was an absolute scorcher: hotter, I read somewhere, than Athens, North Africa or the Caribbean! I'm not complaining, far from it - although I will say that yesterday had a rather unpleasant heavy humid feel to it. I got the distinct impression a thunderstorm was in the offing, and I was surprised one didn't materialize. I felt sorry for Raggs: she mooched around listlessly looking very hot and bothered with it all. Her fur is still nowhere near as long as it normally is but she's growing it back quite fast since we had her trimmed for the summer - a lot too fast to cope comfortably with temperatures approaching the nineties.

So I was very saddened to read today's story of the two police dogs left to die in a hot car on Sunday morning. Every summer, despite the warnings put out by animal welfare organizations, dogs are left by irresponsible owners to suffer in cars which become like ovens in a matter of minutes, and the fact that a trained, experienced police dog handler could have made the same "mistake" is almost beyond belief. I have only what's been reported in the news to go on, so I've no idea what mitigating circumstances might be put forward to account for it, but the fact that apparently the officer had been censured once before for allowing the same thing to happen doesn't sit at all well with me. I'm not against the idea of giving people second chances - but surely it's part of the deal that you learn from your mistake and you don't screw up a second time? Despite the best efforts of the poor vet to save them, the two dogs got no second chance.

Sheep shearing season

On Monday, we had the canine beautician round to see to Raggs. Over the course of what's seemed a long cold winter, she'd - wisely - grown a very long shaggy coat, and with a touch of warm spring weather in the air, it's already started to make her pant rather noticeably. So to save her getting all hot and bothered, a bit of a haircut followed by a good bath was the order of the day.

In fact she ended up looking like a different dog! She'll grow it back of course, in time for next winter, and though she'll appreciate the benefits of being cooler in the summer, she doesn't quite see it like that at the moment and is mooching round the house looking a bit dejected and sorry for herself. It's a dog's life, innit?

Come on in... the water's lovely!

Today being the first Sunday of the new year, I felt it was time to walk off the excesses of Christmas (over-)eating. Raggs and I went across the park, the snow having left the grass wet and muddy. I had her on the long rover-lead so that she could snuffle away in the undergrowth without actually wandering off anywhere, and as soon we reached the little stream, she made a bee-line straight for it. Before I could stop her, she was down the bank and into the water, sploshing around happily evidently not feeling anything of the ice-cold through her thick winter fur.

After a few minutes it was time to move on, but when she turned round, she found there was a problem. The little narrow muddy pathway down was too steep and too slippery get back up again. After a couple of goes at it, I led her a bit further along the stream towards what looked like a shallower part of the bank, but then we saw some people walking along on the opposite side, and a man called across to see if we needed any help. Very wisely, he'd thought to come out in his wellies, so he soon got down to the level of the stream and somewhat gingerly put a foot in the water. The water, presumably the result of melting snow draining off the fields upstream somewhere was cold, clear, only a few inches deep, and without anything much of a current. Having thus successfully got everyone's attention, Raggs now decided that with a burst of energy she could manage quite well enough by herself, got a good run at it and came up splattering mud everwhere over me in the process. We gave her a resounding cheer and a round of applause and all went on our way!

On the way back I did keep more of a determined grip on her lead, but I rather think she realized she'd pushed her luck quite far enough for one day!

That was the week year that was

Christmas has come and gone. I did my customary Santa act on Christmas morning with the obligatory stocking! Raggs is working her way through the treats as fast as we'll let her, which to her way of thinking is s-l-o-w-l-y! She ran round excitedly with the little white snowman-thingy before losing it on Boxing Day, probably under the bed or somwhere. The red squeaky cracker has so far survived, and she retrieves it from wherever she's temporarily hidden it to have a little game every now and then.

The remaining snow thawed during the week, leaving a damp misty trail behind it to mark the end of 2010. For all its ups and downs, it's turned out better than at one stage I thought it was going to - perhaps proving the truth of the old adage that you have to experience a few upsets and moments of despair before you fully appreciate your good fortune in life. With that in mind I might even make a few New Years' Resolutions. I always used to, but I suppose like most people I never kept them - though that's hardly a good reason for not even bothering to make the effort. So, with about five-and-a-half hours left to go of the old year, I'll perhaps see what I can come up with?

White Christmas?

After a bout of bitterly cold weather including an inch or two of snow last weekend, the prospect of a white Christmas now seems unlikely (if you judge that as getting fresh snow on Christmas Day, that is). Compared to some people we've had it relatively easy here: deliveries have still been getting through and I did all the Christmas shopping easily enough without feeling the need to stockpile bread or milk. I remember that although they didn't bulk-buy as such, my parents always used to keep a stash of tinned food in the house as well as things like toilet rolls. In the days before freezers were a common item of domestic equipment, it was a sensible precaution I suppose to make sure that if we got snowed in, we wouldn't starve!

Raggs as usual has been delighted with the blanket of snow to snuffle around in: it's been slow to melt off the garden and it's fast turning to ice instead, making it decidedly slippery underfoot. For the second winter in a row she's getting quite used to it, in contrast to all those people who seem reluctant to adapt to the reality that if it's likely to snow, then a certain degree of preparedness might be in order! All the same, while I can just wrap up warm with my knee-high winter boots, I can afford a certain element of smugness by virtue of the fact I don't have to trudge off to work in it any longer. If I did, then I'd no doubt be moaning about it like all the other hapless commuters.


Enough of that. With my little tree on the window sill, and a plate of sausage rolls to nibble at, I'm all ready for the "big day". Coincidentally, this is my 100th blog post, although it wasn't my deliberate intention to mark the occasion, as it were. Anyway.... Happy Christmas!

Flash bang wallop

Poor Raggs decided she needed to keep a low profile over the last couple of nights, avoiding the fireworks and bonfire night celebrations. It's odd in a way, because in previous years I've sometimes had to go out with her, and she seems far less bothered when she's out amongst it all than when she can only hear it from indoors.

This year, in contrast, there's seemed to be much less of a build-up to the actual night: I daresay the increasing cost of fireworks in a recession is curtailing some of the more prolonged activity - though last night in the sports ground across the way from us, I could see a quite spectacular display above the rooftops at one point. There are a few disembodied bangs and crashes around tonight, but most of it seems to be finished.

We went for a walk in the park this morning to make up for it. The weather was dry and quite sunny, but there was a distinct autumn chill in the air, and as we walked back through the woods afterwards, I noticed most of the trees were fast shedding their remaining leaves.

Autumn equinox

I'm a few days late with this, as the autumn equinox was actually 23rd September, but anyway it seems to me that we're well and truly into autumn now - cold nights, chilly mornings and a definite nip in the air in the evening too, even after a tolerably fine day. Time to turn the heating on, if only for a couple of hours - and time to get the plants in off the balcony to the relative warmth of the windowsill.

Time, too, to dig some winter clothes out ready: this morning my New Rock boots came in very handy as I took Raggs for our customary Sunday walk in the woods!

Work till you drop

I took Raggs for her customary walk in the woods this morning: being a bright little bean she's cottoned on fast to the significance of Sunday morning and starts to stamp her feet if she thinks I'm not getting ready quickly enough. It's an innovation which I introduced in fact after I gave up work altogether in October 2008 - almost two years ago now - and certainly it's been a change for the better.

I can't say I was sorry to give up work, and I'm more than a little mystified by some of the thinking behind the government's new idea of scrapping a "fixed retirement age". While in theory allowing workers who want to carry on working and who are capable of it is a 'good idea', it's inevitably I think going to produce a situation in which those who don't want to carry on are effectively forced to, simply because they can't afford not to - especially when the pension age starts to rise.

The other effect it's almost certainly going to produce is a worsening of the already high levels of youth unemployment as fewer jobs are 'freed up' through retirement. If you make the assumption that there aren't enough jobs to go round for everybody, then faced with a choice between bored pensioners with no job and nothing to do and bored youths in the same boat, it's a bit of a no-brainer to work out which is going to cause the most trouble!

The scattergun effect!

One of the most annoying things about searching on the internet is the way a search for a specific subject or topic will produce a ton of unrelated material which, because of the way it's indexed, takes the right constituent pieces but puts them together in the wrong order.

To give an example, I usually check out which of my Flickr photos have been viewed the most, and how people found them. It's not much more than idle curiosity on my part, but it's a bit of an indication of the sort of stuff that it's probably not worth bothering to upload. Most searching seems to give fairly predictable results, but the one that caught my eye yesterday was "hairy beach stud" - and this is what they found:

It's an old polaroid holiday snap from the 1980s, and the caption reads: "On the beach with Sweep (the dog)- Me in tight jeans and DM boots with our first dog - a nice hairy one named Sweep. I was the envy of all the local lads in those boots: the 14-hole ones had only just come out and they all wanted to know where I'd got them from."

So the "beach" came from the title, the "hairy" from the subtitle, and the "stud" from the 'studded' tag I used to label the studded leather belt I was wearing. But rather obviously (or so I think, anyway) neither of us really fits the description of a hairy beach stud!

Ah well.... life is full of its little disappointments for someone.

Uninvited guests

I woke up this morning and made the unwelcome discovery that we'd had intruder(s) in the garden during the night. The fence at the bottom had a slat broken off, the raspberry canes had been trampled and broken as had a couple of tomato plants, the wire fence separating our garden from next door's had been twisted and partially broken - and their yucca bore signs of someoene having been rash enough to tangle with it.

We live in a cul-de-sac, and our garden gives access via the bottom fence and a block of garages with a flat roof to a close leading out onto the main road, which makes a convenient getaway route for your friendly neighbourhood burglar. With this in mind, I rang up The Bill. I wasn't altogether surprised that the guy who took the call didn't seem too enthused with interest with my piece of crime-solving intelligence, but he did check to see whether anything with a possible connection had been reported. Apparently there were some dodgy goings-on involving a car and the house at the far end of the street at around 2.30am, but it didn't amount to anything - or so he told me. I asked him to make a note anyway in case anything else came to light later, so he took my name and phone number.

Later in the morning, I mentioned what had happened to my other next-door neighbour in case their garden had been entered, but she said not. Feeling rather unnecessarily over-suspicious, I checked all round ours, in the bushes, and in the wheelie bins, in case anything had been dumped in a hurry. I noted in passing that the garden tools which I'd developed the very bad habit of leaving out all night, were still there, so I made a note to be more careful from now on!

About 5pm, the doorbell rang. It was the woman from the end house, together with my neighbours' son, who had evidently heard the story of what had gone on. There had indeed been some sort of a disturbance during the night as a result of which she'd had her bag taken with her keys in. I took them to see the damage, but predictably enough there was no sign of either bag or keys. I don't suppose I shall hear any more about it. The offender(s) in the unlikely event of being caught would only get some meaningless community work sentence. Perhaps repairing the fence and planting some new raspberry canes for me would be a suitable reparation?



Oh - I nearly forgot. Raggs must've been disturbed, because she barked in the middle of it all, but only three or four times before going back to sleep, having I imagine concluded she'd done her job as the fierce guard dog and scared them all off. Silly mutt!

Some like it hot

It's been a glorious sunny weekend, with clear blue skies today and not a cloud in sight. I took the dog for a walk this morning: I'd got a couple of things to deliver, so rather than walk along the road, we took a detour through the park. I could see the stream running through it and correctly guessed there would be a point where the bank was shallow enough to let us go down to the water's edge. Raggs loved it - she paddled along a few yards and lay down in the shallow water, drinking from it. It looked a bit muddy, but at least it wasn't stagnant. After a few moments' rest and refreshment she emerged, shaking the excess drops all over me.

In fact the 'detour' turned out to be a shortcut, as I spotted a bridge a little further along which led out onto a path towards the road where we wanted to be. We came back the same way, enjoying the sunshine among the other dog walkers and footie players. It's still warm and sunny this evening, so I've just been out watering the tomato plants in the garden. They're still not much more than seedlings, but are slowly starting to grow. The strawberries are a mass of flowers, and are putting out runners quite freely, much to the envy of my neighbour, whose plants aren't doing at all well and have nearly all died off for some reason!

Beside the seaside

I spent a happy hour or two last night going through an old photo album, scanning in some polaroid photos of me on holiday in the 1980s. A friend from work had a caravan at Warren Bay on the North Somerset coast just up the road from Watchet, and it was great to spend a week or so down there walking along the beach with the dog running in and out of the sea chasing the gulls ineffectually. I don't think dogs are allowed on public beaches anymore now which is a bit of a shame: she really enjoyed it.

Throwing caution to the winds (which is what people traditionally do on holiday!) I used to wear skintight jeans, studded leather belt and armbands, and 14-hole black Doc Marten boots! The big boots had only just come out as I remember in the early 1980s, and the first year a couple of lads came up to me and rather cautiously asked where I'd got them... I think they were afraid I was going to kick them off the habour wall with them. In 1983 when Wham! shot to fame with "Bad Boys" I looked the part with a Wham! T-Shirt to go with the rest of the outfit.

We used to go in early June, and most years in fact the weather was gorgeous for at least part of the time: I loved stripping the waist to take full advantage. The shot of me in my skimpy cut-off denim shorts and DMs epitomises a somewhat devil-may-care attitude, I have to say... but it was fun, and that's what holidays are all about.

More mud

It had rained heavily during the night (and had turned quite a bit colder, too), so wellies were once again the order of the day as I took Raggs walking in the woods this morning. I brought my digital camera along, as I was hoping to get some pics of her lying flat out in the mud like a hippo wallowing, but she decided she didn't want to co-operate and spent most of the time snuffling round in the grass - and apparently eating copious chunks of it.

So I took some pics of me, instead. I didn't lie flat out in it, but in places I did sink up to my ankles in it, hearing the now-familiar slurpy squelching sound as I pulled my boots free. Perhaps understandably there weren't quite as many other people out walking their dogs there this week. I daresay playing in the mud isn't everyone's idea of fun, though I must say I enjoyed it today just as much as I used to when I was a boy. Maybe seven-year olds don't go in for such simple pleasures as sploshing around in their wellies any more these days - probably not?

Star player!

I was out with the dog last night, and our walk took us down towards Allesley Park: a large grassy field slopes down towards the small brook that runs along the bottom, and being a nice warm evening, lots of kids were out on the field playing football. Now, I don't know why, but for some reason, the sight and sound of this always winds Raggs up: she whines loudly and pulls and tugs like mad as if wanting to go and join in. I suspect she must as a puppy have spent some time with a family with kids who played with a ball with her: one of the snags of getting a dog from a Rescue/Rehoming Centre is that you never know what's in their past.

As we got down to near where the brook is, a football appeared in front of her, closely followed by a young lad. Too late: she darted forward and grabbed his ball in her mouth. "Oh, shit!" he exclaimed, but I persuaded her to relinquish the ball and apologized to him. She didn't want to keep it, just to play with it, and although I got her a ball of her own at one time, she doesn't find that nearly as much as playing with other peoples'.

Pond life

It hasn't rained at all to the best of my recollection this week, so I abandoned my wellies in favour of my old blue Converse boots when I took Raggs for our morning walk in the woods this week. All went well until we cut through from the wooded path into an open grassy stretch - which was still waterlogged! Admittedly nowhere near as deep as last week, but enough to seep through the vent holes at the base of my boots and I ended up with damp socks. Yuk!

The other side of the path which bisects the area, we go past a small pond. She used to like to dive in, and during the summer when the water was low and the sun was hot, she'd wallow in the shallows looking just like a little hippo. To our surprise today, there were a couple of ducks swimming there. I don't know where they've come from: two or three years ago a volunteer conservation group cleaned out the pond, removing the shopping trolleys and other items of junk and debris that mindless vandals always seem to delight in leaving behind them wherever they go. Maybe it was they who sponsored the ducks? However I decided they wouldn't appreciate their morning swim being interrupted by a hairy hippo wannabe, and we moved on.

We made our way over and sat on the little bench for a rest as usual, just as this picture shows - it was taken about six years ago, I guess, when we were both a little younger and a little more hairy. The bench looks much the same, though!

Fluffy puppy

We had Julie the canine beautician round again on Tuesday afternoon to give our Raggs a bit of a going-over! Although she emerged some two hours later very neatly groomed and sweet-smelling, Julie had trimmed a lot off the fur in front of her eyes, which I wasn't altogether too pleased about, because I get the impression it bothers her a bit having her eyes exposed to a lot of the bright daylight: ever since we got her she'd always been long and shaggy with a "curtain" in front hiding her eyes and she seemed to prefer it that way. I daresay she'll soon grow it back again. I then took her out for a walk in the evening and it rained steadily for most of time we were out, which somewhat ruined the effect!

We went to the woods this morning for our customary Sunday morning forage round: over the eighteen months since I left work it's become quite a regular feature of the week, and being a bright dog who doesn't miss a trick, she's developed a nice line in sitting there wittering impatiently if she thinks I'm taking longer than I need to in getting ready. It had rained on Wednesday evening too, so it was decidedly muddy underfoot and since I'd rather foolishly put on my old blue Converse boots which I use for just knocking around in, but which aren't really waterproof, I began to regret it. The forecast for the next couple of days is heavy rain so next week I suspect my wellies will be called for!