Good dog!

We’ve had a breakthrough with Bess’ training. We seem to be more in control of the ‘running up to dogs and barking’ thing. In fact we’ve managed to prevent it on three occasions! I bought a pet corrector, which is an aerosol containing compressed air. When you press it, it sounds like an angry hiss and a hiss is a noise which a lot of predators make. It interrupts the bad behaviour along with a command (such as leave or no) and eventually, you can just use the command without the corrector. We’ve also been using it on Pluto who barks when the boys go upstairs, or if people are too noisy when they go passed the house! We’ve been interrupting his behaviour and he’s a lot mellower as a result because he doesn’t feel he has to ‘guard’ us all the time!

If we can get Bess to stop opening the kitchen door at night so she can go and sleep on the sofa, we will have very well behaved dogs indeed.

There’s still work to do but we’re heading in the right direction!

To do and already doing list

• Just eaten a lovely bagel
• Writing two job applications
• Hoping for a white Christmas
• Waiting for a delivery
• Looking after my wife
• Need to walk the dogs
• Appreciating the sunshine
• Planning a day out (and tonight’s dinner)

Generally hoping for the best...

Glamour

It may surprise you to know that my life isn’t all glamour. Which explains why at 7.17 this morning in the half-light, dressed only in shorts, a t-shirt and a pair of workmen’s boots I was cleaning out the chickens with bar-b-q tongs and getting soaked to the skin in a soft English drizzle...

Those of us with animals – actually, those of us with animals and who take out pastoral duties very seriously – have long ago realised that you do a job when it needs doing, regardless of how convenient it might be to you. So when I slipped out to feed the girls and collect the eggs, I realised that they needed cleaning out again. And fret not, if you ever come to a ‘q at mine, I will not be using the chicken cleaning tongs! But they are great for getting the muck out.

What I lack for in glamour, I make up for as an animal lover in satisfaction! Well, that’s what I tell myself anyway.

Yesterday was bugger all to do with glamour as well. It was all about housework and wedding photos. Honestly if there is a job that takes longer than you can ever think possible, it’s wedding photos. It took all of last Saturday to select and upload the photos, I got them printed during the week and yesterday I sorted them and started to put them in albums. On Friday night I framed three of our favourites and hung them in the hallway (including a large panoramic shot of everyone on the beach – it looks incredible). I filled two albums and now need to order several more (we also have some photos that other people took and our holiday photos). By the end of the day I was almost blind... on the plus side though we have fantastic photos of a fantastic occasion that will last forever! The other nice thing is we have one ‘main’ wedding album which contains 72 of the nicest pics at 7”x5”. When people ask to see wedding photos, they don’t often want to see several hundred! (I love looking at photos, but I think it pays to be a little self-aware and realise that your photos will never be as important or as interesting to other people as they are to you!)

We were supposed to be in Yorkshire this weekend to see our best woman and goddaughter. But my partner is still unwell and we had to cancel the trip. My partner was hoping to go back to work tomorrow but it’s not going to happen. The slightest activity exhausts her. My only advice is if anyone else feels they are coming down with flu, get yourself to bed immediately. She never gets ill and is very fit but it has completely wiped her out. I’ve never seen her so unwell.

I’ve got Match of the Day on in the background, I don’t know why, I don’t really like football but it occurred to me that someday someone’s going to get hurt with some of the silly goal celebrations they do, jumping and grabbing and laying all over each other. You don’t see that in rugby – although to be fair if 20 stone men start jumping on each other someone will get hurt – but if I was a football manager I would ban the more extravagant celebrations. Some of these players are worth millions (although I personally wouldn’t give you tuppence for most of them) and getting injured during a match, or even during training is part and parcel of the game, but to get injured because your team mate has just flung you to the ground and jumped all over you is taking the piss. I’ve just seen one celebration in which I was convinced the scorer would need a neck brace at the end of it...

Right now I have to decide on another cup of coffee of to go back to bed for more sleep. I think if I’m worrying about the antics of players I don’t care about in a game I’m not interested in, I might need more sleep. Good night.

Speed aware

The get and go I ordered hasn’t turned up. First I was woken up by the chickens (yes, I forgot to shut the lid of the run again) so after feeding the animal family, I headed back to bed and drifted back to sleep, only to be woken up by a delivery, and no, it wasn’t my get up and go either...

I gave up then and made a cup of coffee. My partner is still quite rough so hopefully will be asleep for a little while yet. Now the dogs are dozing on the sofa and so it’s just me that’s up.

Last night I was at a speed awareness course. About two months before the wedding (BW as it’s now referred to in the Christian calendar...) I received a speeding ticket. I was shocked and a little embarrassed. I was doing 37 in a 30 zone. Which doesn’t sound a big deal but clearly it is. I got offered – instead of 3 points and a £60 fine – to do a speed awareness course costing £95. I took the course because obviously I didn’t want the points, but I was actually quite curious. In the immortal words of Top Gun, I don’t feel the need for speed. Speeding drivers irritate me. They are dangerous and inconsiderate. So if this was already my opinion, what could I learn?

The course was very good. It lasted 2.5 hours and was quite draining. We weren’t lectured, preached at or told off, we weren’t shown photos of lots of mangled bodies either. Instead we were shown a picture of an accident scene when a car had hit an 8 year old boy. The boy’s body had been removed, there wasn’t even any blood but it was eerie and hideous and four years on the driver still has nightmares every night and considers his life ruined – just as, I suppose, the parent’s and sister of the dead boy also consider their lives ruined. He was going 38 in a 30 zone. He wasn’t under the influence and was considered a ‘safe’ driver. Had he been going at 30, he would have still have hit the boy, but there would have been an 80% chance that the boy would have survived. Going just 2 miles over the speed limit decreases those chances by 30%. So going 32 miles an hour, it becomes a 50/50 chance of survival, a flip of a coin...

It was very sobering. I think car drivers generally have a certain level of arrogance – all of us, especially if we are ‘safe’ drivers who don’t usually get speeding tickets, don’t get into accidents and don’t get pulled over by the police. This was a timely reminder to get back to basics. People don’t die when you slow down, but they can die if you speed up. There was loads of interesting information in the course: did you know that when you see the word SLOW written on the road, it’s because there have been at least 3 KSI’s (Kills or Serious Injuries) in that spot?

Anyway, you make your own decisions in life. I am a good and safe driver and don’t generally speed but I got a speeding fine,so clearly I do speed even if it's not that often! So I know what my decision is and it’s to be more responsible. I’m honestly not sure I could handle the alternatives.

A lovely autumn day

I didn’t get the job, which sucks. I knew it was unlikely (after a week of hearing nothing) but they called me this morning. A definite rejection as opposed to a probable rejection always stings slightly more...

Apparently I interviewed “really well” but they employed someone with more direct marketing skills.

I feel a bit ‘meh’ at the moment. This weakened state might explain why I’d quite like to see High School Musical 3. The adverts keep coming on TV and it looks all shiny and fun and now I want to see the damn film. Even though it will be probably be pants. Why do I want to work in marketing? Clearly they prey on the weak...

I took the dogs to the park this morning at the same time as everyone else took their dogs. Bess had to stay on the training lead quite a bit and was a bit barky. But it was a nice walk regardless and we bumped into a friend and ended up chatting for ages. We were waxing lyrical about autumn and it turns out it’s his favourite seasons as well. Being outside on such a beautiful day made me feel better, then it was back to make breakfast for my sickly wife and now, back to the grind..!

Training

I did something very bad yesterday. I didn’t walk the dogs. It’s ok as long as you only do it once in a blue moon. They do have a garden to stretch their legs in and relieve themselves and seeing as if interviewed they would say their favouritist thing ever is being on the sofa, and they spent all day on there, they actually had a very fine day indeed. With my partner being sick and me up to my eyes in job hunting/applications time just slipped away.

Plagued by guilt however, I got up this morning and with less than half a cup of coffee in me and still so bleary eyed I put both contact lenses in the same eye (how does that happen?) we headed off for a longer than usual walk to make up for the previous day. We walked for ages and for most of the time it was just us and nature, but then two other dog walkers appeared with a gorgeous little Staffy girl, who unfortunately Bess chased. Bess is going through a period of anxiety where she runs up to other dogs barking. She doesn’t attack or growl but it’s still unacceptable behaviour. So much so, I’ve bought a 10m training line which when we’re walking somewhere extra busy or where I don’t have clear sight of what is coming up ahead, I can have her on lead but with a bit more freedom than if she was on her normal lead. The other dog owners weren’t happy and I can’t really blame them. I did apologise but even those people that know Bess and know how gentle and loving and silly she is, would have to admit that if she was running toward them at full tilt there would be a moment – albeit flickering – where they might have wished they hadn’t had such a large breakfast.

It’s all about perception and because we have allowed people to brutalise certain breeds, Staffy’s being one of those breeds, society thinks that when they see a dog like Bess (Staffy/Mastiff x) trouble isn’t far behind. Ironic then that after a life time of being beaten and treated so appallingly, the worst she can come up with is running up to dogs barking and then running back to me looking guilty...

Still, she shouldn’t be doing it whichever way you look at it so we’ve got to do some training.

I’m working on a proposal for a consultancy gig – writing an equality booklet; something I’ve done before, and if I can finish that today then I’ll be right on schedule. I’m trying to do things as soon as they come in. It’s partly in the vain hope that lots of well paid jobs come up in Cornwall. I don’t want to have applications stacked up which may mean I miss deadlines or rush them.

So on that note...

Yule mojo...

My partner is not very well and had to take the day off today. I’m making tea, doing laundry and stopping the dogs going in to the bedroom and trying to climb under the duvet. That has to be the true definition of hope: the dogs have never been allowed on the bed and yet each morning they bounce into the bedroom and for a brief, hopeful, giddy moment they think that today will be the day that they will be allowed on the bed for a nap and a cuddle...

If I can get organised I also need to do a job application and submit a proposal for a consultancy project. Whatever I do, I need to do it quietly so my partner can get some rest.

Our wedding photos should arrive today. It took me all of Saturday to upload the photos we wanted to print. I’m also expecting some more Christmas presents to arrive – what can I say, I’m fiendishly organised regarding the yuletide. I love Christmas and I love buying presents! We’ve bought 5 so far and I’ve even planned a Christmas menu. What with that and our Christmas break we are potentially the most organised people. Ever!

Spare room chaos

I’ve sorted out the spare room. Sort of. I bought two ginormous plastic storage boxes and the bed which previously looked like a small nuclear warhead had gone off scattering laundry, clothes in the ‘don’t know whether to keep or give to charity’ pile, stationary, a large plastic windmill, a badly hidden Christmas present, tea towels, a wooden bowl and some camera equipment all over the place, now has the aforementioned items in the aforementioned storage boxes and for the first time in three months, the bed looks like a bed. It’s still chaos, but a neater more orderly form of chaos.

I haven’t heard from the job I interviewed for so I’ve reconciled myself to receiving a letter in the post in the next couple of days saying thanks, but no thanks... It’s a huge blow but there’s nothing I can do. Back to looking for suitable jobs and filling out dreary, soul sucking forms in which the eager job seeker gets to prostitute their skills, experience and enthusiasm to complete strangers. Not that I’m fed up with the whole process you understand.

Bess is snoring so loudly on the sofa that it’s hard to concentrate on typing and I’ve given up on trying to hear what’s happening on Murder, She Wrote. Good job I’ve seen every episode several times over. Maybe that’s my cue to get up and do the washing up anyway...

Who knows!

I had my interview yesterday, and honestly, I don’t know how it went. For some reason I was incredibly nervous which didn’t help. Some answers I was bang on, other answers...

It was the hardest interview I’ve ever done. I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t get it – I am missing a qualification they want, but they still seem really interested in my skills and experience. So who knows!?

After the interview in Bristol I headed to the Cotswolds to stay the night with a friend. It was lovely to see him. We had dinner in the pub and caught up on all the news. I also picked up my Toledo Mud Hens (baseball) t-shirt that his partner got for me in the States. (I’m wearing it now, very cool!)

Our friend is moving over to Baltimore for six months next year (his partner - who got me the tee - is currently out there working until next July) so I spoke to the missus last night and we might try and plan a trip in the new year, which will be fantastic if it happens.

Today before heading back home I decided to go to Bath for the morning. It’s one of my favourite cities and I have a soft spot for the Bath rugby team as well (who incidentally I saw training at their training ground and I was so excited I almost swerved off the road!) I went for a lovely veggie breakfast and then had an amble round the shops and admired the autumn foliage; which was stunning. I didn’t spend much (very unlike me) but I did buy a present for my partner and a little something for her grandmother as well. Then I headed back to the car via the river. It was such a beautiful morning and I really enjoyed the couple of hours I spent there. Then it was back in the wagon and home. I got back to two very excited dogs and a big box from the Open University. It was my course materials! (I’m doing a course in Environmental Science so I can apply for environmental jobs – like the job I interviewed for yesterday).

The interview keeps going round in my head and I forgot to ask when I might hear one way or the other. I wonder if I can email and ask? Anyway, I can’t keep over-analysing everything or I’ll go mad, so for now I’m going read through my course book and then later, make dinner for my gorgeous wife...

Interview preperation and a grandfather clock...

It’s been a stressful day and I’ve spent a fortune in Staples. Oh, and the Sky remote isn’t working either!

It’s the last day before my interview and I did my interview prep with a friend yesterday evening (I was terrible but it was really useful and helped loads). I finished off my presentation this morning and am now just doing some research. When I do a presentation, I always do extra copies to leave with the interview panel so they can go over the presentation afterwards. So I popped along to Staples this morning to get some nice presentation folders and some more paper because to run out of paper would have been a small disaster! I looked at ink cartridges but we had bought ink very recently and so I moved on...

That was until I got back home, realised I did indeed need to change the ink cartridge and couldn’t find where we put the new ones. Two phone calls to my partner with no response and I realise (a) she’s in a meeting and (b) I was wasting time and just had to get back in the car and go to Staples. Again. This time I also bought a few other bits.

I got back in time to meet the delivery men who had brought the grandfather clock, that we have inherited from my partner’s grandfather (funnily enough), up from Hove. Luckily they put it back together quickly and efficiently and then it was off out again this time with the dogs who were demanding to know what the hell had happened to their morning walk. The walk was nice – someone had a bonfire and it smelt lovely – and I began to calm down. The dogs ran around like lunatics and now we’re all back home on the sofa with two thirds of us asleep, one third of us snoring, and a remote control that refuses to do what it’s told. I also have a pile of research (thicker than most novels) I need to get through, preferably before my partner gets home because I need to also do a huge – and I do mean huge – pile of washing up. Put it this way, I had to make my coffee with a chopstick this morning and that’s not an easy thing to do...

I also need to eat at some point, pack a bag and maybe even try to fit in some rest and relaxation. Although there seems to be fat chance of that so far!

Presentation

I've just finished the presentation for my job interview... well, the first draft anyway. I'm knackered. Tonight I'm doing some interview prep with a friend who is a senior manager experienced in recruiting and interviewing. Let's hope it's all worth it!

Food

Thursday night a friend popped over for some soup and a catch up... toward the end of the evening, I made a throw away comment about our laptop being out of order and he got excited because unbeknownst to us; he’s a bit of a computer geek! He took away the laptop and worked on it for a couple of days and guess what I’m typing on now? Yep, he worked some kind of magic and discovered that we had a virus. Although our security was good, it still wasn’t good enough to protect us from a Trojan virus. Anyway, thanks to him everything is cleaned up and functioning really well!

Friday we had more friends over for dinner (spicy bean pie – courtesy of Abel and Cole organic grocers – roasted sweet and baby potato, roasted baby turnips and parsnips, steamed broccoli and onion gravy; followed by a strawberry and rhubarb cheesecake. And oodles of wine! Then we played the board game my mum bought me last Christmas – the CSI board game. It was very good! I was leading until one of our friends got a good throw and the opportunity to say who the moiderer was! I had known who it was from almost the beginning of the game. (It was a particular word that gave it away!) But you need to land on the relevant square before you can get a shot at guessing the perpetrator so even if you know early on you can’t say who you think it is until toward the end of the game...

Yesterday we went down to Brighton to see the in-laws and my partner’s grandmother. It was a lovely day even though we were clearing out her grandfather’s room (who passed away just before the wedding.)

Today we’ve had a perfect day – and we treated ourselves to a lovely breakfast at the Blue Mountain cafe this morning. Tonight, organic steak stir fry! Have you noticed I keep talking about food on my blog? Anyone would think I was pregnant... although in my case that would be a miracle birth! ;0)

Wake up fool

I forgot to shut the chickens in last night (they put themselves to bed and then you shut the lid of the run for security). So this morning, upon discovering they were not incarcerated, they decided to come up to the kitchen door and let us know – very vocally – that they were still waiting to be fed and that if we had a shred of decency we would rectify this without any further delays. I sprung out of bed like a demented marsupial and scattered chicken feed outside the kitchen door and silence was instant and golden....

I slept well (even with the chicken wake-up call) and made up for my less than two hours sleep the previous night. I had some VERY weird dreams (they were so weird I had to put the ‘very’ in capital letters). But I feel a 100% better today – the downside is that there’s now no excuse not to do the chores. Especially as we have guests for dinner tonight and tomorrow night and then we’re down to Brighton on Saturday. Oh and did I mention I had a presentation and interview prep to fit in, and two other applications? I feel tired again…

Iglu & Hartly

Just got the Iglu & Hartly album & then boom, and it's absolutely bloody fantastic!

Porta-potty

I’m knackered. Last night I barely got any sleep. I found out that I got the job interview that I really wanted which of course I’m over the moon about. But last night I lay awake fretting about having to move down to Cornwall without my partner and the dogs and having to take temporary digs so I can find us a house to buy…

Of course I should be taking one step at a time i.e., going to the interview and trying to get the job in the first instance. But if I can run before I can walk it’s the usually the route I prefer to take.

We’ve discussed this of course. In fact I’ve blogged about it recently, but it’s a really big deal to live apart from your family. I love being with my wife and I love having the dogs around and there is a very strong possibility that for a month or two we won’t be living together and frankly, that sucks.

The interview is in Bristol so no trip to Cornwall this time (although that’s where the job is based). Anyway, I shall go looking fabulous, with a great presentation and oodles of skills and let’s hope that’s enough!

Today has – with the exception of an in-car kettle – largely been about name changing. I’ve got two bank accounts and needed to tell them my new married name. Just driving licence and passport now and that’s the main stuff done. I spent so long in bank and post office queues I considered taking up squatters rights just to demonstrate my displeasure at only two counters being open and four staff standing around chatting and ignoring customers. Customer service is a paper exercise which means nothing to any bank I’ve ever had the misfortune to deal with.

My mum wprries that because of the amount of travelling we do that one day, on some motorway, everything will grind to a halt, the snow will start to fall and we will be trapped for 8 hours. Consequently she has just bought us an in-car travel kettle for just such an occasion! True, if I were trapped for 8 hours on the M4 a cup of tea might be nice, but the worry is you sit there having endless cups of tea you then have to pee on the hard shoulder in front of several hundred equally trapped, equally bored and equally annoyed drivers… maybe we’ll get a porta-potty to be on the safe side…

Search string

Someone got to my blog, by putting "where, purchase, egg, carton, foam, mattress, topper, ireland" into Google. Two questions: 1. What where you looking for by putting those words into Google? 2. How did you end up at my blog?

Anyway, however you got here, welcome!

Monday morning malaise

This morning Pluto, Bess and I had trouble getting going. (They still haven’t got going. They’re both asleep on the sofa.) We had a lovely weekend, entertained all three parents, made and ate some good food, watched a great movie (Be Kind Rewind) and took the dogs on a couple of nice walks… and then Monday came around.

It was sad seeing my partner go off to work this morning, I realise there may be other issues (such as her leaving reminds me that I don’t have a job!) but we always have such great weekends and it would be nice if they lasted a bit longer…

I finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and am halfway through Mike’s Election Guide 08, Michael Moore’s guide to the American elections. Very funny, acerbic, enlightening and painfully accurate – I say painful because some of the worst people that hold office, don’t just wake up and find themselves as politicians, we put them there... Shame on us!

After this (it’s not a particularly long book and I’m a fast reader) I can’t wait to start on David Simon’s massive book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Simon’s was the first reporter ever to gain unlimited access to a homicide unit (in Baltimore). He is also the creator of the smash-hit series, The Wire.

But as tempting as it is to spend the day reading, I need to job hunt. I’ve gone for a couple of jobs, but I need to start stepping up the job search. The money won’t last for ever and as Pluto and Bess will testify, chew toys and dog treats need to be paid for!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

My partner works hard and sometimes long hours, so on a Saturday I like to leave her sleeping so she can really stretch out in the bed, and I take care of the animals and normally blog, watch TV, do a bit of housework or just have a shower and a coffee. Today is no exception. Although I am writing a to-do list because there’s a lot to do before my mum arrives for tea. Not least a bit of housework! (What is it about parents visiting that inspires such domestic endeavours!?) Of course, there’s a large part of me that thinks it would be sensible to go back to bed and drift back to sleep…

I’ve decided I want to photograph vegetables. Not as a career choice – I don’t want to be known forever more as the veg snapper – just as a slightly different and unusual assignment. I think vegetables look interesting (look only; I don’t eat a lot of vegetables. I leave that to my partner and the dogs).

I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and cannot recommend it highly enough. You might recognise the name in association with the best seller, The Poisonwood Bible. My partner read that and another of her books (name escapes me) and became an instant fan. I saw this new book at the Eden Project gift shop and picked up a copy. Her and her family decided to live for a whole year only eating seasonally and if at all possible only what they could grow or rear. At the same time they (her daughter and husband also write in the book) decided to investigate the state of food and food practices – predominantly in the USA.

(Incidentally she is a big fan of farmers and understands many are working under difficult conditions and are having to farm, not in tune with nature, but in tune with massive corporations where the quality of the bottom line is far more important than the quality of the soil.)

This book works because she’s not preachy; but she is a very good writer and also warm and funny so you find yourself digesting (no pun intended) some seriously shocking information on intensive farming, food miles or pesticides without images of your slightly psychotic school science teacher throwing complex and boring facts at you like spears, or some crusty hippy entreating you to just, like, be kinder to the earth. (Not that I have anything against crusty hippies. Many great things have been achieved by hippies crusty or otherwise.) In other words, she doesn’t tell you that you must change what you eat and how, she writes about what she chose to do and if you want to do the same or similar, congratulations, but really, it’s nothing to do with her…

It really is a remarkable book and already I have plans to purchase a second copy as a Christmas present. As loyal readers know (both of you) we plan to become small-scale farmers in the near future and hold dear the principles of organic farming and having the utmost care and respect for the environment and our animals: be they pet or livestock.

Anyway, back to the point. I’ve started looking at vegetables in a whole new light (she’s slightly evangelical about veg, which is no bad thing I guess, I’m certainly only ever going to buy heritage seeds from now on) and so I thought with my new camera lenses I might try some shots. We certainly get some strange stuff sent to us in our organic veg box each week, and in our own very small-scale - some would say tiny - growing operation, we've grown some very odd looking marrows.

It could work or it could turn into the most boring series of photos since I got the camera last year and in my excitement took lots of pictures of our legs…

Winter's coming...

It’s a clear but cold day. The dogs and I have just been to the park to blow away the sofa cobwebs. I’ve been wearing a jumper this last week or so but the weather’s been relatively mild, today however, I needed a coat and scarf on our walk, winter is coming…

(Although depending on which reports you read/watch it’s going to a warm, wet winter or it’s going to be a freezing cold winter!)

As much as I like meeting friends and other dogs on our walks, I like it when it’s just us because I can switch off and daydream. The park is looking beautiful; the ground is covered in acorn husks and there are big piles of fallen leaves in various shades of red, brown and gold, that even at 34 I can’t help but kick through. The only other beings we saw were squirrels (being harassed by Pluto and Bess) stocking up their winter larder, and the crows ‘cawing’ and hopping about drunkenly. Apart from that it was just us: the dogs chasing each other – or the squirrels – and me relaxed and lost in thought.

Now we’re back in the warm which is nice but I suspect that one of the dogs has been at the chicken feed because someone has vile wind and it’s not me. My peaceful reverie is over to be replaced with the worry that one of them now has a tummy ache…

I’m off out this evening to help celebrate a friend’s birthday. He specifically said no presents but we’re giving him a jar of homemade marmalade! The marmalade turned out to be gorgeous and we’ve already received several requests for jars.

Tomorrow my mum is coming over for tea and to look at the ‘official’ wedding photos in case there are any she would like a copy of. I’m making hazelnut brownies, which could go either way. I either make great cakes or lousy cakes – I’ve yet to discover a middle ground. We also need to pick up a storage chest we’ve bought for the garden. Our small shed is literally bursting at the seams, so we’ve bought something to store all the chicken stuff in, and we should still have some room over left for pots. No doubt we’ll take the opportunity to do a garden tidy up before winter sets in. We should be doing some planting at this time of year, but with us desperate to move by the end of the year/very beginning of next, we don’t really want to commit to working hard to plant lots of seeds that we can’t nurture and subsequently harvest. We’re in vegetable limbo!

A new gadget arrived today. It’s a stand-by plug set and remote control. You plug in all the stuff you don’t want on stand-by (but which might be awkward to get to) into a special plug and then when you want to switch everything off, you just use the remote control – from up to 30 feet away! No more scrabbling around on hands and knees… unless you want to and that’s entirely your own business…

Right, I need try and work out how my new MP3 player works. As with everything that arrives in this house with a set of instructions, I may end up giving it to my wife with a plaintive look and a request for her to please help before I end up throwing it out of the nearest window…

Crime fighting!

It’s often the small and sometimes obscure clues that once revealed, lead the detective or forensic specialist into solving a baffling crime…

And in our case, it was my partner’s bedside lamp being on. I heard suspicious noises in the bedroom and having just changed the bed linen and knowing that my beloved Pluto loves fresh bedding, I jumped up to confront the little rascal, just as he sauntered past me looking innocent. I went into the bedroom and wondered how my partner’s bedside lamp had turned itself on? Our lamps don’t have switches; you touch the base to turn them on. My startling conclusion was that someone had been in the room and had ‘accidently’ turned the lamp on. But had a crime been committed?

So in homage to some of the world’s finest literary detectives, I lit a pipe and decided to investigate further…

There were distinct doggy style foot impressions on the duvet. I surmised then that the little git had indeed been on the bed, but why turn on the lamp? Since when did he need a well lit room to commit mischief? So I checked her bedside table and sure enough found evidence of a heinous crime… her ear plugs were missing!

Pluto had pushed open the door, jumped on the bed, searched her bedside table, found and ate her earplugs, accidently turned on the lamp with his nose, and then quietly left the scene of the crime. But he hadn’t factored in my extraordinary detective skills.

Of course the bigger mystery is why the hell Pluto likes to eat earplugs in the first place? Apparently it’s very common in dogs. But it's just plain weird if you ask me…

Fanny Craddock

The fish pie was a success! I didn’t like the parsley sauce (but then I don’t like parsley, so you would have thought I could have worked this out before I bought that type of sauce!)

Recipe:
Line caught haddock, 2 generous fillets (try and buy the best fish you can afford and make sure it’s sustainable!)
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Carrot
Sweetcorn
Parsley sauce (or an alternative such as a cheese sauce)
Potatoes

Boil potatoes for mashing
Cut up haddock and half of the broccoli, half the cauli and all of the carrots
Mix the veg (inc. the sweetcorn) and fish into a bowl
Make up the sauce and then mix the sauce with the veg and fish and put in an ovenproof dish
By now, the pots should have boiled and mash them up with butter, a dash of milk and seasoning; layer the potatoes over the mixture (you can also grate some cheese on the top)
Put in oven at 200 for 45 minutes
Do the rest of the broccoli and cauli for a side dish and voila!

It’s fairly healthy, very tasty and will provide two further meals. You can do it for under a fiver as I said previously, but even if you choose organic ingredients like I did, you can still do it for about a tenner – which for 4 meals isn’t bad!

Anyway, enough of the Fanny Craddock, I have a huge to-do list which apparently isn’t go to sort itself out...

(Tonight I’m doing veggie burgers, sweetcorn and homemade sweet potato chips!)