Windy Ridge
Posted: Sat 27 August, 2005 Filed under: Animals Leave a comment »Oh God, Hound has the farts. And trust me, they’re really really bad tonight. I think I may have to leave the computer for a few minutes…
Magpie
Posted: Mon 8 August, 2005 Filed under: Animals 3 Comments »One small interesting event over the weekend – we had a magpie in the chimney. Luckily (for the magpie) we haven’t yet got round to properly blocking the chimney, so it came right down into the fire-space which luckily (for us) has a board over it to block draughts etc.
Of course, if we hadn’t had the board, either a) the magpie wouldn’t have fallen down the chimney in the first place, or b) we’d have come home to an insane magpie flapping about, a moronic (and slightly insane) Hound chasing it around, or c) home to a dead magpie and a very smug cat.
Instead we got home to a quiet house, with some weird noises coming from the fireplace. Taking the board out, lo and behold, there’s one dazed (and surprisingly placid – I think it’d gone to sleep, as it was dark) magpie. We put the board back, opened the patio doors so the cretinous corvine could fly out, locked Hound out of the room, and took the board out. Of course, the bird then flew the wrong way, bashing itself on the ceiling too, but then got the hint, and flew out of the open doors, and chuffed off just fine.
So all in all it went well, and was just odd. But it does make me wonder how a stupid bird can fall down a chimney in the first place.
Socks Appeal
Posted: Sun 31 July, 2005 Filed under: Animals 2 Comments »Oh Dear.
Herself has just chucked away a selection of manky socks, which is fair enough. They’re clean – but old, tired, and in need of chucking away. However, Hound has found them in the bin, and they’re now scattered all over the house, where she’s been playing with them. She particularly likes them when the socks are still bundled in pairs, as it means she can also undo the bundles, but once they’re undone, she likes playing pulling.
When doing this, I can actually lift her front feet off the ground completely. I’m currently debating the wisdom of trying to lift her completely off the ground, and how she’ll handle that…
Competitive
Posted: Sat 30 July, 2005 Filed under: Animals, Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts 1 Comment »Part of my Resolutions this year was to start working harder on my photography stuff, and to both enter more competitions and build up my portfolio. All of these things are now happening, slowly but surely.
Currently, though, I find entering competitions to be quite a demoralising experience. Last month I sent off one I’m particularly pleased with (and, in fact, that we’ve had printed up and framed for the house) of The Hound, taken when we were in Somerset earlier this year. I sent it in to Amateur Photographer‘s “Amateur Photographer of the Year” competition as part of their “Pets” category, and – I can’t deny – I was optimistic. Technically it’s pretty much spot-on, except for the fact it can be a victim of the “it’s not an SLR” snobbery occasionally evidenced in AP, because I took it with my Fuji S5000. But there’s been no alteration to the image at all – no curves adjustment, or white-balance alterations. Not even a crop to make the photo better – that’s how I took it, and as such, yes, I’m bloody pleased with it.
The results were published from the Pets round this week, and of course it came nowhere in the top 30, which is all that’s published in the magazine. And while I can see why some of the images won, there are others that I simply don’t rate at all, and wonder how they were class as winners.
Photography is a horrendously subjective discipline at the best of times, and I suspect that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of entries in each round. I don’t want this to sound like sour grapes, because it isn’t – I’m not going to throw my toys out of the pram screaming “It’s not fair!”. I just wanted to write out some thoughts about the entire thing. I’m not going to stop submitting photos I’m proud of – in fact, there’s two more competitions that I’ll be entering this weekend – and I’m not going to stop working on building a portfolio.
But yes, sometimes I do find it demoralising, sending off stuff I’m pleased with or proud of, only to see it fail to even be rated. Maybe I’ll learn to harden myself a bit to this sort of thing, I don’t know. For now, well, we’ll see.
Bees
Posted: Tue 19 July, 2005 Filed under: Animals 3 Comments »I forgot to write about this when it happened, but it turns out that we’re not the only people with an idiot dog. It’s now a couple of weeks ago, and thankfully she’s OK, but this is what happened…
Herself’s sister (the one in Norfolk) has an idiot Black Lab. Beautiful dog, but IQ of a housebrick. Anyway, she’d been out in the garden, messing about in the sun as idiot dogs do. (I should point out, I’ve no idea yet what I’m going to call the braindead beast, I’m sure I’ll figure out something sooner or later) And the gormless bugger swallowed a bee.
Bees being bees, it stung her as it went down, and she staggered into the office, having problems breathing. And collapsed.
A speeding trip to the vets ensued, and fortunately the idioit creature’s fine – I believe she’s also a bit more wary about buzzing insects now, too.
This is also the same dog who managed to get her head stuck in a metal wine-rack as a pup, which ended up needing to get firemen to cut her out of it. I think they should’ve taken the hint then…
Zzzzzzzzz
Posted: Sun 3 July, 2005 Filed under: Animals, General Leave a comment »Normally I’d find something to write about today. Unfortunately, for once, my brain is utter toast. The Hound was a pain in the arse last night, barking and waking me up four times in order for her to have a drink and so on. We really need to sort out an extra water-bottle for the fuckpot twat.
Anyway, she’s still being a pain in the arse today, for reasons unknown, and I’m deeply not in the mood. So I’m afraid updates will wait ’til tomorrow when (hopefully) I’ll be in a better mood.
Summertime Trim
Posted: Wed 22 June, 2005 Filed under: Animals 1 Comment »A while back, you may remember that we had to get the cat shaved so he was no longer manky. I hoped at the time that this might mean he’d take more care of himself so as not to get laughed at again. Oh, how wrong I was. He’s even more of a mucky little sod now than he was before, and is in fact currently a strange shade that can only be described as “dusty grey”.
Anyway, due to the warm weather, we decided that Hound® was now due for a trim as well. Hound® isn’t quite as psychotic as Psycho Cat®, so we decided to undertake this task at home over the weekend. And in fact it all went pretty well – the fur was removed to a sensible level, and we don’t have any bald bits, which is a sign (so far as I’m concerned) of a successful job.
Hound® however hasn’t been quite so convinced. Her back end has lost all it’s tassles of fur, so she now looks like a collie crossed with a whippet. Which, if I’m honest, is bloody funny. She’s definitely a lot cooler than she was before, but I suspect she knows she looks a bit silly…