a day in the life....

.... of a retired greyhound.

6.30 am

omg omg omg omg the PEOPLE are up! they're UP THEY'RE UP THEY'RE UP HELLO HELLO HELLO HELLO



6.35 am

omg omg omg omg the GARDEN! the SMELLS! the PIDDLES! more SMELLS!



6.37 am

Ohhhhhhhhh that was fun. But we just need a little rest now, before breakfast.



7.30 am

omg omg omg omg omg omg the PEOPLE ARE COMING! with BREAKFAST! and it's KIBBLE!!! my FAVOURITE!!!!

OK, it's not REALLY my favourite but .... BREAKFAST!
*nom nom nom nom nom*



7.36 am

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........................

time for a little after-breakfast-snooze.......



9 am

omg omg omg omg the PEOPLE are coming! into the GARDEN! UH OH -- she's got the HOSE. Better get back on our beds for a while......



3.30 pm

omg omg omg omg the PEOPLE are coming! ohhhh ... it's the PEOPLE PUPPIES! SNACKS! PATS! SNACKS!!



3.38 pm

time for an after-snack rest.



5.30 pm

omg omg OMG OMG! the PEOPLE ARE COMING! with WALKS!!!! BEST PART OF THE DAY!!!!!



5.40 pm

omg are we there yet?



5.45 pm

omg omg home.... foot bath... water.... bed...... *snore*



6.30 pm

omg omg OMG OMG OMG DINNERTIME!!! KIBBLE! and MACKEREL!!

*nom nom nom nom nom nom*



6.40 pm

*yawn*

omg omg omg BEDTIME!! YAY!! my FAVOURITE!! (it really IS my favourite!)

G is for garden

It's been a long time since I had a garden. And the hard work has already been done in this one. (yay)

Check it out.

My new backyard:



Comes complete with a small kitchen garden, surrounded by a rosemary hedge:

In here, there's kiwi fruit, a fig (beseiged with scale), a kaffir lime, a lemon tree, lemongrass, lemon balm, laksa plant, curry plant, marjoram, tomatoes, a melon (not sure what yet), a grapevine, a small banana tree, raspberries, a gooseberry bush, and spring onions.

                              *****************************************************
There are beds everywhere, with old-fashioned plants in them:

This hydrangea is slightly coloured by the bore water (orangey-brown).

And freckle-face! I love this plant, always have. Doesn't it look like the spot for a fairy garden?

                          ******************************************************

And here we have a very rare and exotic plant, Plasticus Principessa. You have to be VERY lucky to get one of these.

********************************************************

There's heaps more. The lady who owns this house loves her garden, and she has put a huge amount of time and effort into it. I hope I can keep up with the maintenance!
I should get fit and trim, at any rate.

the case of the standing skeleton

Strange Skeleton Incidents no. 4

Today, I started unpacking my craft stuff. Carefully placed a box on my desk. And a skeleton rose slowly up to stare at me over the box.



Turns out I'd set the box on his foot, which caused him to stand up.

I have to admit, I'm vaguely disappointed that he hadn't animated.

familiar

f is for ....

While I was packing, the kids near drove me into a Home for the Bewildered, with questions...

"*GASP!* Are you packing my toy/blankets/shoes/crayons??????????"

and denials....

"NOOOOOOOOO. Mum, I neeeeeeeeeeeed that toy/book/game for toddlers that I haven't looked at in 3 years. Don't THROW IT AWAY."

The day we moved, we took the kids to school as usual, from the old house, and picked them up as usual, and drove them to the new house. There they found their beds made up, their bookshelves assembled, and their desks waiting.

It was all very exciting for them. (although we were frankly too knackered to caper much)

Over the next 2 days, I slowly unpacked all the clothes, toys, books etc. And each day, when they encountered more of their stuff, they cooed over items that they hadn't seen for, at most, 2 weeks.

The familiar had become new again by being presented in a new situation.

It was quite amusing to watch. Until I realised that I was doing THE SAME THING!

The Princess in particular went crazy, insisting that all her soft toys be in bed with her, because they are all special, which is all very well until you see how many she has.

Oddly, though, when she saw some of her stuff in the new room, she said, "You can give that away, Mum." Seems it had lost it's appeal somehow.

And .... I DID THE SAME THING!

So there you go! the trick to combating hoarding is apparently to move house.
Too easy, mate.

throwing away my intelligence

Passive/aggressive spam comment:

Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point. You definitely know what youre talking about, why throw away your intelligence on just posting videos to your blog when you could be giving us something enlightening to read?

Yes. That's SO going to get me to click over to your spammy, probably-crawling-with-virus-site. Somehow, I suspect I'm not the ONLY one throwing away my intelligence here!

e is for everything

I'm late in getting this post up, but I do have an excuse. I'm packing my house. Everyone who has ever packed a house on their own just groaned.

Apart from the stress and the sad and heavy heart, it's all going well.

I've got rid of a lot of stuff (even more once the kids went back to school), and the new house is bigger than this one, so I'm hoping to be significantly de-cluttered.

*****

First week back at school is "awesome" (according to The Princess, and "yeah, ok" according to Mr 11.
They both like their teachers, and they both have had to explain that, sorry, we're moving, and Mum accidentally packed my scissors/calculator/art shirt, so she says I won't be able to bring it till next week.

Oops.

*****

In an effort to relax at night, I'm re-reading the first volume in the Otherland series, by Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow.
I love this book so much, I've read it till it literally fell apart (it's in 3 chunks now).

*****

I'm a little addicted to MasterChef The Professionals. Fortunately, the kids like it too, because we only have one tv.

*****

One of our hermit crabs died this week. MY GOD they smell horrible when they're dead.

*****

I will have no internet for a lifetime (5-10 working days) after we move. This is possibly the worst news ever. Good thing I have my book to keep me company.

mighty kids

Last night, at karate, our Sensei brought in some boards to be broken by the senior class. (MR 11 has been in the senior class for a while now).

We don't usually do this kind of thing -- Sensei's doing this as part of an exercise for a leadership/teambuilding program for some non-karate students, and just wanted to check how it would all go.

Mr 11 was first up. Everyone cheered and encouraged him as he lined up and WHACK! the board didn't break, but I could tell it was because he hadn't fully committed to the hit, and he had another go and this time, broke it.
BIG cheering! BIGGER grin!!
He was so pleased with himself, and later we talked about being nervous and then doing something anyway, and how good it feels when you accomplish something you weren't sure you could do.

All the adults had a turn, and there was much hilarity, and back-slapping, and board-breaking.

My Princess watched on, cheering and clapping as each board broke.

Then, Sensei brought one over, and stacked it on top of some broken pieces, and asked her to stomp on the board and break it.
So, of course, she did. And it broke.

The look on her face! she squared her shoulders up, and said quietly, "Well, no-one better mess with ME!"

That's my girl. Don't mess with her.