:: dog wars

Apparently X along the road has had a letter from the factor of the flats across the road complaining about her dogs. She is *furious*. She's an angry person anyway, and this is just about to tip her over the edge. NO-ONE ELSE has had a letter, she says, and anyway her dogs never poo around the flats and she carries bags anyway. She blames Y - who lives in one of the flats opposite her and has three dogs - for the factor's letter. X went into an angry rant about how "aggressive" Y's dogs are, "especially that black one, he needs a smack". (Actually the dogs are all perfectly OK, and Bertie gets on particularly well with the black one. X's two dogs, on the other hand, regularly growl at and nip Bertie.) X had gone across the road to confront her but got Z instead, who didn't say much.

So anyway then I met Z, who walks Y's dogs because Y has MS and can't manage them(I'm not sure if Z is her partner, her brother, nephew or even son - she's about my age and he's in his 30s). I mentioned X's letter to him, and he said they'd got one too. In fact every dog-owner in the whole complex had got a letter. X was the only dog-owner on our side of the street to get one, though. Z's theory is that the culprit is a cat, because the poos are quite small. There is a big black fluffy cat that seems to be outdoors all day and night. And when I think about it, something has been peeing and crapping on my front lawn, leaving bleached patches. That's highly unlikely to have been a dog. I forgot about that until I mowed the lawn this afternoon - the grass was so long it hid a pile of poo until it was too late.

I should write a letter of complaint to all the cat owners in the street.

:: cruising

Ah, having a (nearly) new car is lovely. Electric windows! Electric wing mirrors! Central locking! Most of all - extreme cleanliness. The last means, of course, no dogs allowed. I did take Bertie for a birl at the weekend, but he got (white) hairs on the (black) upholstery despite the seat cover and slobbered all over the windows, so he's banned again for a while. It won't be too long before I've tashed it up myself though, and he'll be back in the rear seat enjoying the 70mph breezes.

Also at the weekend I went to a party across the road - Dave & Diane's 35th wedding anniversary. It was fun! Dave has a jazz combo so I'd hoped for music - but they didn't play. I did meet most of the band, though, and their spouses, all real characters. And I also met a lot of across-the-street neighbours, who all knew me as "the woman who walks the tall skinny white dog". Hee hee! D&D's house backs on to the river, and it was wonderful to sit outside watching the yachts and dinghies and ships.

On Sunday I made jam - a dozen or so jars of gooseberry and just two of raspberry. The rasps are not up to much this year - possibly not enough rain. The gooseberries did surprisingly well. The fencing guys trampled one bush, breaking several branches off and damaging the others. But although the remaining branches were lying right on the ground almost hidden by straggly grass, there was an abundance of berries. The other bush suffers every year from some kind of insect attack or disease, not sure which, that strips off all the leaves just as the fruit are ripening, so I end up with a weird bald bush covered in gooseberries. The jam was excellent, a beautiful colour (green skins and seeds and pale pink jelly) and perfectly set.

The blackcurrants are coming along nicely too, should be ready in a week or so depending on the weather.

Oh, I forgot to mention last week's fun - meeting some flickrites in the flesh. I've never done this before - met internet contacts - so I was a bit nervous. Brendada came up from Durham and stayed with me, and we met up with Birdw0rks from New York and Chumplick from Texas. Not their real names! I also got to meet Shooz and Ladybobo briefly.

I'd better get back to my work - will write more later.

:: new wheels

Or nearly new, anyway - I've signed on the dotted line for a one-year-old Ford Fiesta, boring car in boring silver. It feels very nice to drive though, so it'll be ok. Also, the sales yard I'm getting it from is giving me £50 for my poor leaky, dented old bomb! Which is £50 more than anyone else has offered.

I have Tuesday off, so I'm collecting it then. I didn't like to ask if I could try putting my dog in the back seat to see if he fits, so too bad if he doesn't!

I'm looking forward to getting it, I must say. The window in my car is really hard to wind up and down - the mechanism is broken - and because various bits have broken down it has three, count 'em three keys. And now ... electric windows and just the one key. Luxury.

It's under warranty until May 2007 - and that's when it has its first MoT test!! No MoT (WoF) worries until then!

So anyway yes, I am still driving my old bomb around, as it happens. I went over some speed bumps today & suddenly thought - erk, that doesn't sound too clever. The suspension bearings are "worn to excess" in the back. Fingers crossed.

Yesterday Bertie and I went on the Make History Poverty march. It was quite something - up to 200,000 people aiming to form a white band around the centre of Edinburgh. This was organised before Geldof's Live 8 thang, which kind of overshadowed it in the end. What really struck me about the Edinburgh rally was the amazing variety of people there - all political persuasions, from Socialist Workers to church leaders (including the cardinal), punks to hippies, tres chic folk to teenage hoodies. The atmosphere was good too, relaxed but purposeful. People had come from all over the place, even Wales.

Bertie did brilliantly well, considering the place was heaving with children, and most of them were blowing whistles. He hated it, but he didn't freak out. Afterwards, as a treat, I took him to the Water of Leith.

:: argh

Bad news today: my dear old Peugeot, which has ferried me back and forth to work pretty much faithfully for five years, has failed its MOT (WOF, for kiwis). The repairs needed for a pass would cost £500 or so, and it's just not worth it.

Worse news: I thought I'd be able to sell it for scrap, but no-one I've phoned so far has offered a bean! They don't want to know! "I'll take it off your hands but I won't give you anything for it," they say. Bah. I'm going to offer it to the lads down the road who mend cars in their driveway - if I'm giving it away I'd rather it went to someone I know. They might not want it either, of course, it is pretty rough. But hey, it has four good tires! Errrr.... and that's about it.

The mechanic says it's actually dangerous to drive, so I'll probably have to hire a car to go car-hunting in. One of the chaps at the garage offered me a P-reg SEAT Toledo for £150, but as I said to him, it's probably time I got a proper car.

So, car-hunting. Tomorrow is my day off, but it's also, wait for it, Make Poverty History rally day. Yes, not only would I rather be rallying myself, but a) I can't and b) car-hunting/hiring/scrapping will be made difficult by road closures, heavy traffic, police, steel perimeter fences ... oh, it's going to be just lovely.

Oh, and of course then there's car parking at work - you only get into the car park with your own car, the one registered as yours. So I'll have to explain to them about my hire car etc etc.

An added complication is insurance - apparently some car dealers will insist you have a certificate of insurance before they'll let you drive your car away. So that means giving them a deposit, arranging insurance, waiting for the insurer to post a certificate and then picking up the car.

Grumble grumble grumble.

Plan A is to get the bus into town and hire a car, then tootle around looking at car yards. What is missing from this plan? Bertie, that's what. So I have to walk him, get the bus, hire a car, blah blah.

Everything else I was planning to do on my day off goes out the window.

I'll stop grumbling now. It's a lovely sunny day, hurrah.