Coming Home
Posted: Sun 8 June, 2008 Filed under: Animals, D4D™, Domestic, Own Business, Travel 1 Comment »So after a week away we’ve come back to:
- 1,000+ emails (for me)
- 100+ emails (for Herself)
- Shitloads of post
- Still no fucking mains water thanks to Anglian Water being utter, utter cunts
- Happy chickens
- Unhappy cat (he’s displeased that we’ve brought the dog back with us)
- A total jungle on the veg patch, except for the bits we’d cleared before
- The heavens opened for two solid weeks before we went away
- We went on holiday
- A complete jungle of a front lawn, where I’d forgotten to mow the fucker before we went away
Was the holiday worth it? Yes.
Does it make it any easier to deal with the deluge of crap from while we were away? Kind of.
Is it good to be home? Mostly, yes.
And now back to normality. Work tomorrow, back in Yarmouth for the day. Lucky me.
Spectacular Sleep
Posted: Sun 1 June, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 1 Comment »Last week, Hound wasn’t well – a matter of having aspirated some food, coughed on it, breathed it back in, coughed on it (and so on and so on) – which is a fairly regular occurrence with her megaoesophagus. It happens at least once a year, and we just get her some antibiotics from the vet to knock the infection on the head.
However, those antibiotics do tend to hit her like a hammer. In this case, she went to sleep like this…
Truly the sleep of the nearly dead.
Travelling
Posted: Fri 30 May, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Travel 2 Comments »Today, we’re off to Ireland for a week. (Well, we actually get back next Sunday, so it’s about ten days all told, but that includes the driving across from Norfolk to Wales – and back, of course – which is adding another day on either end)
In a fit of dubious sanity, we’re driving across this time, so we can take Hound. How she’ll handle the ferry I currently have no idea. I’m hoping she’ll be fine and just sleep all the way across – it’s a vomit-comet crossing rather than the normal big jobs, so it should only take a couple of hours.
Whatever, it’ll be interesting – and I do think Hound’ll love it when we get to Glenbeigh (on the Ring of Kerry) with all the beaches, hills, and everything to run around. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether we’ll actually see all that much of her…
Thundrous and Orbital
Posted: Wed 28 May, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic 2 Comments »Last night, we got woken up by Hound at about half three. She was totally orbital and pretty distressed although initially we couldn’t work out why. Usually she’s only like that when she’s been ill, and puked in the house. And she was certainly stinking – although that was (I figured out later) just her frightened/terrified smell – when she’s in that state, she gets evil farts, and they pollute the entire atmosphere of the house.
Anyway, I let her out into the garden just to let her vent out whatever was bugging her – and that was a mistake. Because the actual reason she was orbital was because there was a thunderstorm coming. Cue Hound barking insanely at the sky until she eventually came back in.
And at that point we still had to deal with a Hound in orbit. She eventually calmed down a bit, and came to lie under the bed (along with trying to burrow her way through the wall) but for the first half hour or so she was just mental.
I don’t think we’re ever going to break her out of her terror of thunderstorms. We might be able to lessen it a bit over time – although personally I doubt even that – so we’ll end up just figuring ways of managing her during the storms. When we bought a new bed last year we looked completely mad by checking whether there’d be enough room for Hound to creep under it – but there was a reason for doing so, as last night showed. Now we just need to figure out how to make sure she doesn’t do the burrowing-through-the-wall thing while she’s under there…
Mind you, the storm was fantastic – not that Hound thought so, of course.
In The Garage
Posted: Thu 22 May, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Driving, Travel Leave a comment »So today, the car’s getting (yet more) work done on it.
Firstly (actually secondly if we look at the order of work, but well) it’s time for the annual service. I’ve just hit the 80,000 mile mark, so that’s pretty much spot on for getting it booked in and sorted. Besides, I’m happier to have it serviced before we add on another couple of thousand miles taking it to and from Ireland in June.
Secondly (Yeah, firstly in order of work. Blah Blah.) I need to get some bodywork done on the thing, haven’t clattered another deer a couple of weeks ago. Stupid thing had a clear road for a couple of miles in front of me, then my car and the one that was tailgating me, then another couple of miles of clear road. So when did it decide to run out from the nearside? Just as I came up to it, of course. Stupid fucking creature.
So it bounced under the front bumper, and up into the front wheel-arch, dislodging various things and smacking the crap out of the front bumper. Result? The car needs new front bumper, new wheel-arch liner, some pipework readjusting (turns out the air-con cylinder is also on that side of the car) and about £600 of work on it. Bugger.
Still, it could’ve been much worse. If the deer had been much bigger it would’ve done far more damage. If it had hit dead-centre, it would’ve done far more damage. Of course, if the cretinous thing had waited twenty seconds, it would’ve had a clear road and wouldn’t be dead. That’s Darwinism for you.
But anyway, it means the car’s in a couple of garages (fortuitously one right next to the other) for the day, which means I’m in a courtesy car. And what’ve they given me, bearing in mind I’m 6’4ish and built like a brick shithouse? A fucking Ford Fiesta, of course. In which I’ll be doing my normal commute to and from work. Should be good for a few comedy moments, if nothing else…
Almost Quackricide
Posted: Thu 15 May, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Driving, Thoughts Leave a comment »At the end of our road is a duck-pond (one of four in the village) which has it’s own community of ducks. They’re never exactly afraid of cars at the best of times – one of the people on the road feeds them regularly, so it’s quite common to see a whole line of mallards crossing the road – but they’re even worse at the moment.
It’s breeding/hatching season, you see – so it’s not just all the mature adult ducks, but whole conglomerations of fresh-out ducklings too. And they’re even more food-focussed than the adults. Or maybe they’re just dafter, I’m not sure.
This morning, on leaving the house, I had to stop and wait for the whole line of feathered (OK, downy) fuckwits to cross the road before I could get on with my journey. I don’t mind really – it’s nice to see them plonking about – but it does make me wonder how many will actually survive through to adulthood.
Namesake
Posted: Wed 14 May, 2008 Filed under: Animals, Domestic Leave a comment »When we got the chickens back in November, we decided to name them after our grandmothers. (With the exception of one grandmother, who happened to have the same name as Herself – obviously that was a no-no)
One of the grandmothers- Gladys- was renowned as a dragon of epic proportions, and capable of having a right temper on her.
The chicken named after Gladys is turning into a similar creature – it’s very spooky. At the moment she’s all broody (again) and is pecking out at me whenever I try to move her. (The eggs aren’t fertile, she’s just sitting on them, and not getting up for food/water, which is a bit of an issue in the current temperatures) She’s even taken to pecking me when I put her on her perch at night – that’s a new development, only started this week.
All told though, it’s looking like we really should’ve thought more about the names before applying them to the girls. Ah well, live and learn.