Routine

I’ve commented many times before about the fact that Hound is distinctly autistic, and has what amounts to a very set routine to get her through the day. This has eased up slightly since we started her on the homeopathic pills (known colloquially round Chez Lyle as ‘Happy Pills’- it’s a pretty descriptive name, really) but she is still highly driven by her routines and patterns. A lot of the time it’s a pain in the arse, but at the same time it also gives us a good indicator when something’s wrong, because the pattern changes to her “not feeling well” one.

Anyway, she’s happier when everything is routine, and she knows what’s going on, and (I think most importantly) what’s likely to happen next. At the moment mornings, in particular, are a case in point for this. She still doesn’t actually like me leaving the house – despite plenty of knowledge that I will be coming back later – but so long as the morning follows her timetable pretty well, she’s OK with it.

The knock-on effect of this, though, is that it means I’ve also developed a kind of routine for the morning. In fairness, it’s probably no bad thing to be working on auto-pilot when it’s 5.30 in the morning. But I do find it interesting how easily I slip into a routine of my own – I’ve written before about the fact that despite the fact I like to think I’m pretty random, I do have a lot of bits of my life that fall into their own patterns, which I still find weird, but there we go.

As it is, though, it just makes life easier in the mornings to have that pattern – it means Hound still gets stressy when (for example) I put my bag by the front door, as it means I’m going to be leaving soon, but so long as I keep things fairly standard, she’s then fine when it comes time for me to lock up the back door, and go out the front.

It has to be said, sometimes I don’t know who’s more insane – us or Hound.

What’s that coming over the hill?

Last night, we got another reminder of just what a total fanny Hound can be.

The garden has a large number of frogs in it – no bad thing at all – and last night, a tiny one had made its way into the kitchen. When I say tiny, I mean one that’s a maximum of 2 or 3cm in size. That’s it.

Not that you’d believe it, if you’d seen Hound’s reaction. Total meltdown, panic, faffing about, whining, just not knowing what to do at all. If she’d have been able to speak, the conversation would’ve been something along the lines of “Look, look, there, I don’t know what it is, it’s a monster! Run! Run! Hide! It’s a monster!”

She is such a fanny.

Weekend

For what seems to be the first time in ages, we actually had a consistently good weekend.

It’s all been fairly domestic, getting a lot of stuff done in the garden and so on, but it’s been productive. On a practical basis, I even managed to put together a self-assembly Workmate-type bench without (too much) swearing. Always a good start.

Alongside that, I’ve sawed up one hell of a lot of wood to go into the wood-store for use over the autumn/winter, the garden’s been tidied up in general, (as have the veg-patch and greenhouse) yet more crap went to the local tip/recycling centre, we picked all the broad-bean crop (should be enough for four or five meals, all told) and yes, we just got a lot of stuff done.

Then yesterday evening we topped it off by taking Hound out to Wells-next-the-Sea, and letting her run round like a loon on the beach. The tide was all the way out, so there were huge expanses for her to run in – although obviously lots of other people had similar ideas about going to the beach once things had cooled down a bit, so it was still pretty busy. But it kept Hound happy, and it was a good way to round off the weekend.

Demanding

There are times when I truly want to strangle both our animals. This morning was a case in point.

Having been repeatedly kept awake by Hound drinking from her bottle during the night, I got up at my normal time of 5.30. Oh, lucky me. Stumble into the kitchen, where there’s Hound wanting to be let out, and Psycho Cat wanting to be let in. He must finally be settling in – that’s twice in the last few days where he’s gone out at night. But normally the window’s open, so he comes back in as and when he wants during the night – except last night Herself closed it. So Psycho Cat is pissed off.

Straight away, he starts yowling away, wanting food. It won’t stop ’til the food’s down, so that’s the first job. All the while accompanied by yowls. He literally won’t shut up ’til the food is placed in front of him, even when the mouthy little shit can see that I’m doing it.

And then as soon as the cat’s been done, the fucking dog starts up. It’s not fair, the cat’s been fed and I haven’t. Wah wah wah. So she gets her happy pills next (homeopathic pills that stop her from being quite such an irritating fuckbag most of the time) before I can even begin to think about my own breakfast.

When I’ve done my toast, I get tracked into the living room by Hound, who sits waiting for me to finish each slice of toast so she can have her last little corner of each slice. (Yeah, yeah, I know, we should wait ’til we’ve completely finished before giving her anything. Hey ho. Rod for our own backs, although it was put in place way before I came on the scene, although admittedly I’ve continued the tradition) Then she’s still hungry, so I feed her the half-bowl of dog biscuits that weren’t eaten last night.

Finally, when that’s done, Hound’s still hungry. So I get up to top up the bowl, during which the irritating little ballbag barks incessantly until told to sit down and shut up. Which, in fairness, she does.

Only then, because I’ve told her off, she decides she’s no longer hungry, and wanders off into the garden, with that look of “Ha! That’ll teach you, human.” in her face.

Bastards.

Nervous Wreck

I just got this message from Herself, who’s at home today, decorating…

“Just had thunder and huge flash of lightning. Things went fizz, and we now have a powercut. Hound is beside herself. I’m now sitting on the bed. Dog dived underneath, and the bed is almost shaking.”

Hound is such a big fanny it’s unreal.

Exterior

This morning, thankfully, it’s a nice day. The living room is in chaos, as we’re midway through doing the floor tiling, and then today Herself is working on doing some of the initial decorating work in there.

Which means that it’s currently 6am, and I’m sat out in the garden, connected on a wireless network, with birds singing, a cock crowing, a Poxy Hound barking at anything that moves (and wanting me to play with her), and bright sunlight, in a garden packed with trees and rose bushes.

It’s a massive change from even the previous place, let alone the places I lived in in Manchester.

We’ve come a long way, baby.