Big day!

Today is the day: lunch with an old friend in a couple of hours and a couple of hours after that, my tattoo! I actually woke up feeling excited about it. I hope it doesn’t hurt – obviously – but am less concerned about that than I thought I would be. I’m just looking forward to having it done.

Last weekend was the Bingham Cup in Dublin. I was one of the Directors for the tournament when it took place in London in 2004, then it was NY in 2006 and now Dublin (the first one ever was San Fran in 2002). For personal reasons I will blog about another time, I couldn’t go. At first I was planning to and even paid my registration fee. However, when I found out I hadn’t been registered (I thought the club were doing it, the club thought I was doing it) I checked my diary and decided I couldn’t go anyway. I’m hoping I get the registration fee back haven’t heard anything for a while…

Anyway, I have been looking at some of the photos on facebook and am delighted to report it was the best one yet – a huge success! This is exactly what we set out to do in 2004: make sure that every two years it got better and better but in my opinion NY was a setback (poor facilities and events), but Dublin pulled it out of the bag and got it back on track in grand style! Well done the lads. I would have loved to have been there but my family comes first and to be honest, we have so much else on it’s getting a bit stressful fitting it all in.

Of course, the biggest winner out of all this, is the game. We want young people knowing they can play rugby (or any sport) without fear of prejudice and discrimination.

I had another Dogwise client yesterday – two rather lovely Cocker Spaniels. It’s really interesting listening to people; how they interact with the dogs, what training they do, what they expect etc., etc. I still maintain that you could solve some problems after only speaking to the owners and not even meeting the dogs! There are two recurring problems; lack of consistency (one partner lets the dogs jump, the other doesn’t), not being enough of a leader (giving affection too readily and letting the dog control the relationship(s)). I have another client on Friday.

Right now though, it’s back to the day job…