:: terrierism

The first thing Ozzy did on arrival was to run straight under Bertie (yes, that's right, under) to his food bowl. Bertie's food bowl. And he stood there eating steadily while Colin handed over his luggage and we chatted. Bertie just stared in amazement. I finally had to haul Ozzy's nose out of the trough, at which point Bertie nipped in and finished off his dinner -- he doesn't usually eat much during the day and likes to leave himself a late-night snack. (The solution was to put Bertie's bowl on a high stool, and to give Ozzy some of Bertie's bikkies in his tiny wee dish.)

We had a walk and then it was bedtime. But hey, who can sleep in a new house? It's much too exciting! He barked at the neighbours arriving home at 1:30am, he barked at distant voices at 2am. At 4am he found Bertie's squeaky toys. It was like that the whole weekend: Ozzy manically excited by everything, Bertie so laid back he seemed comatose by comparison. When Bertie caught a hedgehog last night Ozzy's excitement went right off the meter. We were right under the bridge at the time, so his hysterical yipping could probably be heard in Edinburgh. He's a very cute dog, but man is he hard work.

Colin was picking him back up this evening -- a relief for me, and I imagine for Bertie too. He likes sleeping even more than I do!



In case you were wondering what Oz looks like -- he's the same kind of dog as Toto. Hence the name.

:: oz

Oz is staying the weekend! Oz is John and Penny's dog, a Border terrierist. He's very cute, and he and Bertie get along famously. John and Penny are in the US for their daughter's wedding (she's getting married in Las Vegas, in the Starlight Chapel), and Colin and Jenny are minding Oz -- but this weekend, Jenny's away and Colin is rescue-boating at a regatta all weekend.

I'm working on Sunday night, so Colin will let himself in to collect Oz.

Work is just insane, I'm so busy. I'm on top of things, but just barely. I'm having to make inhuman efforts not to burst into flames. I've got Saturday off, then back into the maelstrom again from Sunday to Wednesday. I was then due to have a gloriously long weekend, from Thursday to Monday, but am having to come in on the Sunday. Grrr.

That's all for now, I'll try and post pics of Oz and Bertie together, they look really cute.

:: the big blue

I finally finished painting my bedroom over the weekend and moved back in last night. It's very blue.





Also over the weekend I had a good go at the garden, front and back. I mowed and weeded and strimmed for hour after hour, and it's now looking reasonably cared-for, in a ragged sort of way. My mower doesn't have blades, it has a little plastic tag that whirrs around, and it leaves the grass looking a bit chewed. Also, the hedge is a bit wobbly -- I have no idea how people get their hedges looking so neat.

And finally, I went for lots of walks. The weather was lovely, warm and sunny.





The weekend's over, though, and I'm back to work tonight. It's going to be a very, very hard week. From Thursday I'll be on my own for a full week, with only Saturday off (normally there are at least two of us, and often three). The bonus is that from the following Thursday I'll be off until Tuesday -- a mini-holiday!

:: forgot to say

Bertie didn't need a biopsy -- the swelling's gone right down & is nearly normal. He's got another vet visit on Friday.

I was going to go sailing on Monday but it was too windy in the afternoon. Colin came over in the evening but when we got to the marina the red flag was up, meaning we'd be confined to the harbour area. There were three Wayfarers booked and a school group, so we decided against it. Apparently the waves were 3ft high out on the river. Ulp.

:: ticking boxes

I sat down with my Palm today and forced myself to do things I'd put in my Task list (instead of sitting in the sun eating strawberries and reading a computer magazine). It was quite satisfying to tick the little boxes and see the Tasks disappear from the wee screen.

So, dear Mother and dear Janos, you will soon be getting birthday cards. I've got an appointment for a smear test, and my mortgage update is done. Tick, tick, tick.

One thing I haven't bothered to put on my task list because there's no chance I'll forget to do it is: Paint the bedroom. I finished the papering on Monday and plan to paint on Saturday. The only thing is, I couldn't resist dabbing a bit of paint (B&Q Fresh Sky Blue) on from the test pot ... and I don't like it. It suddenly seems very bright. Changing Rooms bright. Plus the brilliant idea I'd had for a home-made bedspread (ivory brocade with butterflies on it) was blown out of the water by the discovery that it would take 10 metres of fabric -- let's see, at £19.95 a metre, that's ... aeiii! I'm thinking of waiting until I go to Paris & buying something in Montmartre -- there's a whole street of wonderful fabric shops there. Or I could just do curtains in the butterfly brocade.

In the meantime the spare room is a disgusting tip, with piles of clothes everywhere & too much furniture.

:: further update

The swelling is going down slowly, so I've asked them to put off the biopsy until Monday. That's my day off, so I'll be able to ferry Bertie around and hold his paw while he gets over the anaesthetic.

:: update

Bertie's blood test came back clean: no sign of an infection. So he's booked in for tomorrow morning (yes, he's letting himself out quietly so as not to wake me -- well hell, the clinic's practically at the bottom of the road, only one busy street to cross!) and I've been told to starve him from 9pm, because he's probably going to have a biopsy.

Of course I've been hitting the internet and have diagnosed a sialocele, a salivary gland cyst. How impressed will the vet be when I trot that out? Not very, I suspect, so I'll just let them get on with it. But it's good to know he's not about to keel over.

This morning the swelling seemed to have gone down a bit, so it may even just get better on its own.

Yesterday I had my hair done and whizzed round town doing 50 things, all in blazing, sticky heat, and roared off home thinking I would have time to mow the lawn before meeting Fiona. It started raining at Barnton. Fiona and I had had equally knackering weekends so gratefully agreed to put off drinks. I should have rushed upstairs and at least primed the bedroom walls, but instead I whipped up a lovely tasty dinner and then joed out -- after walking Bertie.

:: poor dog

Yesterday morning while out walking Bertie ate a lot of grass and honked it up. Uh oh. I checked him over and noticed that the glands on one side of his neck were swollen. Uh oh. I phoned the vet and whizzed over to Linlithgow for a consultation. He's not keen on the Linlithgow surgery because one time I left him there and the evil vets knocked him out and he had to wear a boot for weeks afterwards. However he was pleased to discover that the other pet in the waiting room was a rabbit in a cardboard box. Also the next pet in was another greyhound, hurrah. Lucky old rabbit owners.

So the vet had a look and couldn't see anything down his throat. His other glands are ok and his temperature's normal. She gave him two shots, antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory. The vet said the antibiotic shot "might sting". Well, apparently it hurt. It really really really really hurt. He squealed and cried and cried and cried. He cried so much and so loudly that the receptionist came in to see what was going on. He cried so much that the other greyhound howled along. The vet gave him a biscuit, and he managed to eat it without stopping crying.

I've got to take him back in tomorrow morning, and if he's not better they'll knock him out and have a good look down his throat. I fear it might be a hedgehog quill stuck down his throat. He isn't any better today; in fact his neck is more swollen than yesterday. He's not eating as much of his dry dog food as normal, but he is managing to choke down a huge quantity of treats. He's in good spirits, chasing rabbits and bouncing around, and his nose is still cold and wet so I'm not too worried. But I feel a massive vet's bill coming on.

I've nearly finished stripping the wallpaper off my bedroom -- ghastly business -- and I should finish tonight. Tomorrow I've got the vet, then I'm getting my hair done and going to the Christian Aid booksale in George St, then in the evening I'm meeting Fiona for a drink. But that could change depending on whether I have to collect a zonked-out dog from Linlithgow -- they don't have an operating room at the local branch. The bedroom's going to be blue. Eventually.

Last night I went to a great concert, Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sea Sympony, plus Elgar's Sea Pictures and a couple of other things. A woman at work is in the chorus and she flogged us tickets: John, his wife and I went. We'd also been asked to go by Martin, who knows someone else in the chorus, and he was there with his son. We all met up in a pub & had something to eat before the concert, then went back to the pub afterwards. We had to move pubs because it turned out that Martin's son is barred from the first one! He's not a ruffian, just a free spirit.