Intruder alert!

We ended up going to Crystal Palace Park to walk and play with the dog yesterday and it was a lovely afternoon. We took his flying squirrel that I got from the US (like a soft Frisbee with feet!) and sat in the sun. Pluto’s not great with stopping. If he wandered off too far I would whistle for his return. He would swing round and thunder towards us like his tail was on fire. Unfortunately, he couldn't or wouldn’t slow down and would barrel into us full force – and believe me 26kg of dog at top speed is some force!
My partner also bought me some birthday plants! 4 snap dragons and a strawberry basket. I think I might have my birthday more often you know… ;0)
We then went home where she put up the last of the shelves and we drank champagne - all in all a great weekend and a lovely birthday.
There was something in our garden last night. The dog ran out barking and my partner went after him to remonstrate, except he then ran back into the house and she could hear something growling! She swung the torch around and something ran off. Probably a fox but a little scary and the dog seem to think so as well. He couldn’t settle so we put his blanket in the hallway (he normally sleeps in the kitchen) but he choose to sleep outside our bedroom door all night instead. He seemed OK this morning but he was really shaken up at being challenged in his own garden like that…
I always seem to be tired at work recently. Admittedly we got to bed late last night and then there was the garden intruder drama but I feel absolutely shattered. I need a pick me up but don’t want to be downing cup after cup of strong coffee. I think maybe I need more exercise, apparently that helps with lethargy and exhaustion. Or maybe I’m feeling really fulfilled at home; working in the garden and on the house and spending time with my partner and the dog and then I am coming into work where I’m perhaps a little less inspired and it translates into tiredness… hmmm… answers on the back of a packet of seeds…

Birthday surprise

I’m having a fantastic weekend because it’s my half year birthday! My partner told me to keep this weekend free and was extremely mysterious as to why. This is perhaps not as unusual as it sounds, early into our relationship and continuing even now we take each other on dates. It could be a restaurant, comedy, music… and sometimes we keep what we’re doing a secret until the last minute. I don’t want to be one of those couples that forget how exciting and lovely it is to treat each other well and to be spontaneous, creative and romantic.
I was to meet her in Tottenham Court Road at 5:30pm and this I did, which is where she greeted me with birthday balloons! I should explain. My birthday is on Christmas Day – long over looked by even old and dear friends, it’s just something I’m used to now. But everyone else of course gets meals and parties and surprises. Try organising a birthday party round Christmas time, or ask anyone to remember anything other than all the CHRISTMAS presents they have to buy for friends and aged relatives. Like I said, at 32 (and now half years) you tend to be a bit stoic about it all and count your other blessings of which I have many.
So you can imagine the look on surprise on my face when given my birthday balloons. It was lovely! But that wasn’t all; she took me to a lovely French bistro and gave me two envelopes. The first envelope I was allowed to open after we had ordered. It contained a birthday card and… two tickets to see the musical Footloose. Footloose is my FAVOURITE film and one of my favourite soundtracks. When I had seen the posters for the new musical I was really excited and filed it away as something I really wanted to go and see. So I was genuinely thrilled to be going to see the show. The second envelope she let me open a little later and in it was another birthday card and a wish list. As today (Sunday) is my new birthday I could do ANYTHING I wanted. Absolutely anything at all. She provided a list of alternatives including a Duck Tour of London (the amphibious vehicles that go on the road and on the water), a visit to a butterfly house, the afternoon in a pub, the day in bed!, a woodland walk etc., etc. Well I was finally able to make a choice… I had breakfast in bed this morning (except I was too fidgety and got out of bed!) and this afternoon we’re going on a woodland walk with the dog. You might wonder why I’ve chosen something relatively humble when I could have gone into town and gone a bit mad but I racked my brains and really, I just wanted to go for a nice walk and then maybe have a pint in a lovely pub. And that, dear readers, is exactly what I’m going to have!

The show was fantastic – so high energy. Afterwards people were singing, laughing and dancing as they left the theatre. And the dancing on stage was out of this world! There were lots of people my age there, all of us chattering away about the film. If you want something fun, a bit nostalgic (don’t let that put you off if you hate / weren’t alive / were to drunk to remember the 80s), and a surprisingly good story then Footloose is the show for you…

Anyway, this is my birthday so no more blogging for me. Oh, final thing, the sponsorship manager and myself as press manager, landed £50,000 worth of sponsorship this week for our rugby club. Not bad!

Summer of love festival

Well, the headache is almost gone and generally I feel a lot brighter. I’ve even been more use at work today although only marginally; my neck is still uncomfortable and there’s still the rusty residue of a three day headache.
I am a little concerned that I haven’t even started my partner’s goddaughter’s – let’s call her B as writing ‘my partner’s goddaughter’ each time is taking far too long – story. So this morning on my walk with the dog I resolved to start today. Although saying that the dog and I are going on a little trip tonight. After all the hassle of trying – and failing – to find suitable doggie accommodation for when the missus and I are on holiday, we’ve finally managed to book a weekend with Jo the lady who home boards. She’s been highly recommended by three people and is always booked up. Tonight is a mutual interview – do we like her, does Pluto like her home, and does she like the cut of our jib? If it’s a paws up all round then we are going away for the weekend in July. Anyway, the point is, tonight is not a good time to start the story either, yikes! It will get done I know, but I just have a lot on at the moment...
We’ve had a lot of RSVP’s to the good for our summer social affair, and the offer of another band doing a live set in the garden for us. How exciting! Maybe it will turn into a mini festival. If we don’t do something with the flower bed and it rains, we can have some authentic (as opposed to faux) mud and if I could get Kylie to headline as well, we’d be all set!!

Send painkillers...

I have a horrible headache and shouldn’t be in the office but once again work comes first. I took yesterday off, but then seeing as until about 2pm I couldn’t sit upright without feeling nauseous, I didn’t really have much choice. My neck is stiff and I’m borderline grumpy. I did actually manage to cook last night and it was lovely: tuna steaks with onion and pepper, noodles and broccoli and lots of soy sauce. I really enjoyed it and it did me good to eat properly. My partner bought me some a gorgeous bunch of peonies and they also made me feel better! But today I feel a bit poo. I also seem to be in an email argument with a friend which I’m hoping I’ve now put a stop to. He sent a joke text that I took offence to and I told him I was offended. But the problem with honesty is that it can be messy and unpredictable and now he’s taken offence to my taking offence…
We’ve finally chosen a date for a summer party and I’m looking forward to throwing our first proper social affair! The garden should look good, as should the house, and I’ll be firing up the bar-b-q and there will be lots of cocktails and hopefully some live music, so even if only 4 people turn up, we should still have fun!
We spent Sunday planting. My headache had started to come on so I was a bit useless by the late afternoon, but we both got lots done. The carpet was professionally cleaned on Saturday and it now looks like we have a brand new carpet!
Pluto was almost a field-length away from Charlie when he spotted her this morning, and once again took off after her. It’s not the complete lack of control I have over my dog at these times that bothers me it’s the extra walking I have to do to keep up! Anyway, I walked around with Charlie’s owner and the dogs played together, one chasing the other and then swapping around so the chaser became the chasee…
I did a big order from Amazon and everything arrived this weekend, the Rize soundtrack CD, the new Dixie Chicks album, a new MP3 player (turned out to be better than the last one - and better looking - and is much easier to use!). And finally a dictionary on fairies; to help me write the story for my partner's goddaughter. The DC album is brilliant, they are without doubt one of my favourite bands, if not THE favourite and they never fail to blow me away with their music - this album is no different.
Tonight I’m hoping I stay awake long enough to watch the football. I’ll be shouting ‘come on England’ very quietly.

Vaccinations and funerals

Pluto went to the vet yesterday for a routine vaccination. He loved it! He loved the fact there were two other dogs to sniff in the waiting room, he loved the nurse and he loved the vet. He was a very brave boy, although a little wriggly. But the good news is that he has clear ears and eyes, a strong heart and clear lungs, his temperature is spot on and his belly is good to! He was, shall we say, a little surprised to find a thermometer up his rectum but who wouldn't be…
He didn’t even flinch when he was injected although I did when I paid the bill. So he’s in tip top condition and will no doubt be as happy getting his booster as he was getting this first injection. Which is a relief, because having a dog that afraid of even going to the vets, let alone have treatment can cause problems.
I have a lot of confidence in our new vet (Mayow Surgery) she struck me as both competent and caring – a very good mix. Although I did notice that one of the vets’ drives a new black Jag and I suspect that yesterday I may have provided the down-payment for next year’s model… Flea treatment was £24! Still you can’t muck about with fleas, they are pernicious little bastards that cause untold grief and are buggers to get rid of.
I’ve finally filled in my insurance claim form which was hard work, not least the running around trying to get the supporting evidence you need. I suppose if I’m to learn anything from this (other than don’t leave your bag in the back of a taxi, of course) is that for expensive items I should just keep the receipt for the life of the product.

My partner is at a funeral today of a friend of ours. Diagnosed with bowel cancer she was dead within a couple of months. It’s heartbreaking to imagine her closing her eyes and never opening them again. She was intelligent, vibrant, caring and passionate.

RIP SH, you will be missed.

Love thy neighbour

What a lovely morning! I was a bit grumpy after being woken twice by my partner and once by the dog last night, but I soon got over myself. Pluto and I caught up with Charlie and her owner on our walk and the hounds ran themselves ragged and I got two very good pub recommendations. And then, when I went to the station I bumped into Charlie’s owner again, and another dog walker that I always look forward to catching up with, so we all travelled in to Victoria together and had a rather nice start to our day!
When Pluto spotted Charlie (clear the other side of a very big field) he took off at a gallop to see his best friend and charged straight into her. I suspect it’s the canine equivalent of pulling her pigtails in the playground…
My partner and I have vowed to check out at least one of the pub recommendations this weekend and the great thing is they are both dog friendly!
Last night I was helping a woman off the train – twin boys around two years old, a buggy the size of most 4x4’s and four big bags from Hamley’s the toy store. No wonder she looked ragged – I took the buggy and a man helped with the bags. I had seen the man before: he had rescued a frog from his cat and took it to a friend who had a pond. We got chatting again and it turns out he’s gay, a garden designer and lives a few doors down from us! We’re hoping to do coffee soon. So all of a sudden there’s a real neighbourhood feel to SE26, which is fantastic.
It’s raining again today, so I’m also very happy about that!

*These pictures were from an email titled “why dogs kill their owners…” – enjoy!

Rain!

This morning at around 5am, both my partner and I woke up to the soft rumble of thunder and a heavy downpour of rain. We both grinned at each other and fell back to sleep! It has been raining for hours now, not lashing down but a steady consistent thrum of water that as we speak is soaking our new lawn! When it’s been as hot as it has, the last thing you want is a short shower of hard rain. It’s unsustainable; running away and not soaking into the grass and flower beds / pots, where obviously it does the most good.
Even the dog whom I had always believed wasn’t a big fan of rain was running around this morning like a balloon someone had let off at a party.
Dog walkers should have their own political party I’ve decided. We are all eminently sensible and cheerful people. Despite the conditions and the fact that most of us were soggy down to our socks after only a few minutes, everyone had something positive to say about the downpour. And yet people at the train station (I would lay good money that none of them were dog owners) were moany and bad tempered.
Last night I did some cleaning that was very overdue and managed to sit in the garden and managed to get an early night. By the time my partner got home though I was looking pretty rough around the edges and was horizontal by 8:30 and asleep by 9… the gardening must have really taken it out of me. So now I’ve caught up on my sleep, I’m much more focused at work this morning as well!
The only cloud to my silver lining is that generally speaking, insects view me as a sort of all you can eat buffet and thrashing about in the weeds over the weekend gave the little bastards a great opportunity to chow down on me. The result is some quite spectacular bites and now, some bruising where I’ve been scratching. I’ve bought some aloe vera into work which is helping to douse some of the itch, but I’ve got a rather large bite at the top of my thigh; rather embarrassingly quite near my bottom! So itching that without drawing undue attention to myself has been quite a challenge.

Garden heaven

Where to start?! We have a lawn! We have a garden (other than a parking lot for weeds I mean)… it’s all very, very exciting!
We picked the hottest weekend of the year so far to clear the garden and lay turf. I sweated off half my body weight (fear not, I put it all straight back on with beer, cheese sandwiches and chocolate biscuits) and used muscles that only now after 32 years was I being introduced to. It took a day and a bit to get two thirds of the garden cleared. Some of the weeds were up to my shoulder (I’m 5’10). Don’t be fooled by the previous photo I included on the blog; that was several months ago! We still have to level off the back of the garden, which is where we will put the composter and wormery and maybe even a small shed – very small. And there is a strip of ground on the other side of the path that needs to be de-weeded and re-planted with lupins, honeysuckle, sweet peas, sunflowers, lavender, poppies and other such delights!
The lawn looks fantastic though and perhaps even better for having been laid by our own labour. After each day we had dirt on our dirt and our bath water was brown! But we loved it and had, believe it or not, a lot of fun. Sunday night we had dinner in the garden and surveyed our little kingdom with a great deal of satisfaction.
The dog loves the lawn! He loves lying on it, rolling on it, chasing bees on it, chewing toys on it and sunbathing on it. He seems to have no interest in chewing, clawing or digging at it but watch this space… for now he just appreciates (from an aesthetic point of view I’m sure) the improvements.
I also laid some fresh red-chip bark for the concrete area to the side of the house, and cleaned the bar-b-q!
Unfortunately the house has been a little neglected and is a COMPLETE mess, but it’s not bothering us too much at the moment, we’re just enjoying what we’ve achieved and then we’ll tackle the cleaning!

Green fingered effeciency

Yesterday was an extremely productive day. Not only did I work from home and get the things done that I wanted work-wise, but every time I took a break, I did a little job around the house. In the end (forgive me for listing every single one but for some reason it makes me happy!) I sorted the recycling, put a new handle on the front door, put a hook on our closet door, put the pictures up in the bedroom, put the lampshades up and planted some more seeds. As well as walking the dog twice! So you can see why I’m feeling a little smug. We also went for dinner at the in-laws who rustled up a baked mackerel affair that was very tasty. And as a belated moving in present they gave us five low-energy light bulbs.
Our turf is ordered and should be arriving on Saturday. Apparently it’s going to be scorchio this weekend, so sun cream and floppy hats are the order of the day methinks. We ordered a special mix that is called the drought buster. It needs less water in the first two weeks than traditional turf. Our pots are already beginning to show signs of life and my three mystery bulbs (I bought them over a year ago, and have been stuck in a drawer ever since) are shooting up and looking very healthy. Part of the excitement of course is that I have no bloody idea what they are!
My partner’s tomato plants are propagating on the kitchen table and should be ready to plant in the next couple of weeks. And we now have Geraniums on our windowsills at the front of the house. I think I may have scored a free water butt as well!

Karma chameleon

We’ve settled back down to our everyday lives and both my partner and I are enjoying being in our own home – especially so for her I think, because she had the three week trip to Africa before being away for over a week in the States. We spent an absolute fortune at Homebase in our continuing quest to do the flat up and make it exactly how we want. Pluto is being very mellow about the disruptions – he’s just glad to have us both home. Cancer Research is – as we speak – picking up five boxes of stuff that we couldn’t sell at the car boot. I’m so glad to see the back of it!
I have decided to write an original story for my partner’s goddaughter’s birthday (she will be 3 in September). I’m really looking forward to this next writing project and am absolutely itching to get started but have been busy with work etc. This weekend we are clearing the garden and laying turf so I’m not sure when I’m going to get started but soon, hopefully…!
My insurance forms have arrived to claim for the bag I lost in NY but they want original receipts included with the paperwork! Original receipts! I don’t have any! My camera, for example, was three years old and any paperwork has since disappeared, recycled no doubt. I’m still going to try and claim, otherwise why have insurance?! It really pisses me off though. I’m not naïve I know that people put in fraudulent claims. But if I wanted to do that I would have said my old camera was worth £180, instead I have put down its real value, which is £80. Call me old fashioned but I do believe honesty is the best policy in these cases... it’s a karma thing. Will my belief in karma work on a heartless insurance drone trained to reject 99% of the claims that find there way into the tiny, anonymous cubicle in which the said drone sits watching the clock and wondering where it all went wrong?* Watch this space…

News just in, Wayne Rooney's foot is almost better and there is a growing fear that our security services choose targets by sticking a pin in an A-Z and hoping for the best...

*I’m sure insurance people are very lovely, insurance companies however are all bastards.

We almost couldn't get the sunshine through Customs...

New York is an amazing city! We had a few adventures before settling down to enjoy our holiday; namely not being able to get into our guesthouse for 24 hrs (avoid the East Village B&B. I won’t bore you with everything they fucked up, but suffice to say we had a great holiday despite of them, not because of!) I also lost my bag which contained my MP3 player, camera, money etc. Hopefully I can claim the bag back on insurance. Regardless of this, it truly was a fabulous holiday and I’m so glad my partner and I got to go. We met some lovely people. Far from being brusque we found New Yorkers to be warm, chatty and charming.
What did we do: Coney Island; Central Park (I took my partner on a horse drawn carriage ride with a bottle of champagne); Grand Central Station; Times Square; New York Aquarium (loved the sharks and the turtles, and saw a sea lion show that had me laughing my head off); Ellis Island (found some of my ancestors and had to go through Quantanamo-like security clearance to get on the ferry over to the island. Good job my trousers didn't fall down when I removed my belt!); New York Public Library (where they filmed Ghostbusters); Staten Island Ferry and we paid our respects at Ground Zero. And we ate so well: Italian, Latin American; Thai; Mexican…!
We did a lot of shopping as well. Let’s just say I’m OK for underwear for a while… as well as trousers, tops and trainers.
The rugby wasn’t bad either! Randall’s Island wasn’t the best place for a sporting competition simply because the pitches were so horrendous – full of rocks and glass. I sat down and cut my hand quite deeply on some glass so consequently spent most of my time standing and got very, very sore knees. But we caught the sun and saw some great rugby action. My team was knocked out of the competition which was disappointing. Ironically they played their consolation game against the LA Rebellion with flair and imagination setting up good passages of play and putting in hard tackles – so at least we left with our heads held high and a 30 – 3 scoreline in our favour.
We flew with United who upgraded us on the way out (and gave us a free bottle of champagne) and upgraded us on the way back. We got back on Thursday feeling pretty shagged it has to be said. Since then we’ve been DIY’ing and gardening and trying to adjust to (a) not being on holiday anymore (b) going to bed and getting up at sensible times!
Pluto was delighted to see us (I missed him so much!) and loved the toys and treats I’d got for him.
Anyway, I’m writing this on my lunchbreak so I need to get back to work. Would thoroughly recommend NY for a holiday though and we will definitely being going back soon…

TOP TIPS
Travelling around NY is dirt cheap. It’s $24 for a weekly unlimited travel metro card (it’s the equivalent of a weekly 1 – 6 travelcard - except at a fraction of the cost!) Yellow cabs are good value too: don’t forget to tip. There are some private cab companies, one of which approached us in the street. Maybe this is just me, but I would stick with the Yellow’s. I couldn’t see a licence or ID in this particular private cab and frankly I just didn’t think it was worth the risk. Yellow cabs also have huge boots (or trunks) and lots of leg room!

Getting from the airport to anywhere in Manhattan is $45 plus tolls. However for some reason this price is not advertised for the return journey. Make sure you ask whether you have the option of being on the meter or whether you can do the flat fare though. Traffic is really, really bad getting to the airport and if you get stuck in a jam, your fare could shoot up. At least asking for - and hopefully getting - the flat fare means you can sit back and relax…

The subway is a bit crap if you have any mobility issues, but the buses are fully set up for wheelchair access – much better than our own buses. And before you disappear down a subway, check which side of the street you need to be on! Different platforms are often served by different entrances and once you are underground, you have to come up, cross the street and go down again to access the correct platform. You can also only use your metro card once every 18 minutes!

We felt very safe in NY but obviously it pays to have your wits about you and always try and plan journeys in advance - especially in the evening / night.