:: An annoying day

First off, a nice sunset at Blackness Castle:



I blogged this from the phone, but for some reason browsers don't like it and eventually the photos go away. A mystery. So I sent the photo to flickr and linked back to here.

Anyway, the walk at Blackness was a nice interlude in an otherwise fraught day.

First off, I broke a tooth. And this is complicated because my dentist "sacked" me a few years ago when he went private. I should have gone straight to a local dentist and signed up to a dental plan. But of course I didn't. I have an absolute horror of dentistry, having had awful experiences as a child at the hands of school dental nurses with slow drills and quick tempers.

But now I have to have a dentist. And because my work situation's a bit wonky and because I already pay National Insurance, preferably an NHS dentist. But dentists who are taking NHS patients are rare beasts. I turned to the NHS itself for help. The website ("NHS Lothian at your service") had a couple of numbers to ring to locate your nearest NHS dentists.

The result was the same at both numbers: it rang a few times, a recorded voice said "goodbye" and the line went dead.

So I got to work compiling lists of dentists and phoning them, starting from the one up the road and working my way out. Very cunning, those dentists. It turns out you have to have a "clean bill of dental health" before you get on a plan, ie you have to have all your teeth fixed before they'll afford you the privilege of paying up to £40 a month for any subsequent dental treatment. And the prices!! £75 just for an initial examination, without any treatment.

I phoned and phoned and phoned, getting more and more despondent as the apparent cost of fixing my tooth mounted. Finally, a cheery receptionist said, "Yes we take NHS patients." I almost fainted. The appointment's not until next month, mind you, and it is 15 miles away. But still!

I could have annoyed myself still further by doing what was on my schedule before the tooth broke: giving Bertie his weekly treatment shampoo. But I think that would have broken me. So instead we went for a nice walk at Blackness. Because it was such a nice walk, with lots of friendly dogs and walkers for Bertie to schmooze, I took longer than intended and had to race around when I got home, getting ready for work.

I needn't have bothered: there was a whole new set of roadworks in place on a major road on my route, the traffic was crawling along. This is for new gas mains, same as the roadworks that have closed off the street I work in, which means I have to do a big complicated circuit around streets choked by roadworks for the trams - and by traffic that's doing a big complicated circuit around my work street and a couple of other major thoroughfares closed by tram works. There are also various random roadworks - for example there's one little side street that's crucial to my circuit that is sometimes blocked off because of building construction work.

What with all the hurtling around earlier, I didn't prepare anything for my dinner - I like to take a salad box or sandwich or something, because the canteen food is really pretty dire. Tonight's offering was big dish of mince with a pastry top, simmering in half an inch of fat - served with chips, of course. Ick. But it seems I won't have the chance to turn up my nose much longer: the canteen staff were told today that from March it's closing at 2:30pm. Not only that, they're all being sacked and will have to reapply for a much smaller number of jobs - 13 staff, 4 jobs.

And then tonight was hard, hard work, from go to whoa. I'm on my own tomorrow as well, so it will be even harder work.

However. The moral of my day is, no matter how annoying it was, at least I'm not having to compete against my workmates for a new job (yet). And at least I didn't have to slosh around in the Hudson River after my plane crashed.

:: bertie update

Bertie had his second treatment shampoo today. He's dim enough that he walked happily into the bathroom; but he suddenly remembered that the last time he was in there Bad Things happened, and tried to back out. There followed a mad struggle, with lots of flailing and swearing, and finally splashing. The third bath will be even more entertaining.

He's on his fourth course of antibiotics, the infection not having completely cleared up. The vet also told me to give him 1,000mg of evening primrose oil a day, so that's on order via the internet (only £18 for a year's supply, not bad!).

The vet and I had a bit of an argument over his diet. She thought he was looking a bit skinny and asked what I feed him. When I told her half a pound to a pound of meat, raw or cooked, plus as much high-quality kibble as he wanted, she tutted and said, "No, no, dogs shouldn't eat meat." Eh? "They're not designed to eat meat." I'm sorry? "They should eat dog food." We had this discussion as I was grappling Bertie on to the scales, where it transpired that he's not underweight after all. But she still insists he's not getting a balanced diet.

I explained how the last time he lost a lot of weight was before I went away on holiday, when I had to feed him dog food at regular meal times because I was training him up for life with the dog minder. There's only one brand of packet food he'll eat at all now - Nature Diet, 100% natural and of course madly expensive. Liz reported that he didn't eat at all for the first couple of days and was picky after that. He used to like Butchers - only the tripe flavour - but he's gone off that. The only kibble he likes is Judge's Choice Greyhound Maintenance (By Royal Appointment). He'll be enthusiastic about other brands for a few days, but then turn up his nose - and he'd rather die of hunger than eat Bakers Complete. He's as picky about treats: yes to Frolics and Markies; no to Gravy Bones and Winalot Shapes. He's crazy about Greenies Smart Sticks at the moment too - they're teeth-cleaning treats made with green tea ... and of course they're insanely expensive.

So, with all the effort I go to to give Bertie tasty, nutritious food, you can imagine how thrilled I was to be lectured on how he shouldn't eat meat. I had visions of a wolf in the pet supermarket, leaning on its trolley as it reads the labels: "Hmmm... carrots, rice, ok. But lamb - I don't think I'm meant to eat lamb..."

To reassure myself that I'm not going mad, I did some internet research and found that while dogs are classed as omnivores and can eat grains and vegetables (unlike cats, which are carnivores), their diet should be based on .... MEAT. The only caveat about giving fresh meat was that dogs might eat too much of it and become obese. Which is not really a problem for Bertie.

:: happy new year!!

I hope everyone had a better Hogmanay than me - I've got the cold that's been doing the rounds for a few weeks now. I'm at the hacking cough stage, and I've been trying to take it easy because I've got a ticket to Handel's Messiah tomorrow at St Cuthbert's Church in Edinburgh. It's put on every New Year by the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union, and one of my work colleagues is a soprano. I've been a couple of times and it's great. Everyone brings along a picnic and you eat it in the interval. Normally it's held in the Usher Hall, but that's being renovated so this year it's in St Cuthbert's. I don't want to be that annoying person coughing through the whole thing...

Today I went to another traditional event - the Loony Dook right here in Queensferry. Normally it's at noon, but this year the tide was too low at noon so it was put off until 1.30pm (not that I realised that - I thought I was late, but in fact I was early). I read afterwards that there were about 600 dookers.



Some of the costumes were fantastic - there were pirates, hula girls, nuns, gangsters, even a Zaphod Beeblebrox. This was my favourite:



The front of his thong was "anatomically correct" - really, really funny! If you click on the photo and look at the biggest one in "all sizes" you can see the reaction of people across from me. Priceless.

I took a little movie too - spot the kiwis! There were loads of Antipodeans there. I think Loony Dooking is like running with the bulls in Pamplona.



It was seriously cold, frost on the ground - rather them than me!

Bertie had his own dooking yesterday. He has a mystery skin condition and the latest treatment involved a medicated shampoo that had to be left on for ten minutes. (I'd had the camera out in the freezing cold on a walk for a couple of hours and it steamed up when I took it into the bathroom. Tsk.)



It went a lot better than I'd anticipated. He didn't struggle too much when I dumped him in the tub and stood reasonably quietly while I wetted him down and worked in the shampoo. He did try to climb out a couple of times during the ten minutes of waiting, but on the whole was very good about it. The result was great - he's all lovely and silky smooth and soft, just like a shampoo ad! And scab-free, for now.

It's all very tedious though. At first - as reported in an earlier post - I thought there was something wrong with his back, because he flinched if you stroked him, to the point of almost collapsing. So the vet prescribed painkillers and spoke worryingly about tumours on the spine.

But then one day after his walk I took off his coat and his back was covered in a kind of dandruff. On close inspection, the skin on his back was all scabby and reddened. Plus he was nibbling away at his flanks. Back to the vet, who took skin scrapings and prescribed antibiotics. The talk was now of mange - oh dear - though the vet had her doubts because he wasn't itchy enough, the scabby bits weren't in the right place (should have been his mouth and legs) and his hair hadn't all fallen out.

As a precaution I replaced his duvet and boil-washed his bedding and jacket. I also started putting him in a T-shirt at night.



The skin scraping results came back negative for mange. The scabs were from a "bacterial infection" - a bug that dogs have on their skin all the time but that can get out of control if they're run down or elderly. More antibiotics were prescribed, a longer course this time. I also ordered Bertie a new jacket (washing the old one had stripped out all the waterproofing) and a house-coat.



Last week he finished the latest antibiotics and was still scabby, so the vet (a different one - there are two of them at the Queensferry clinic) prescribed another course, a steroid injection, plus the shampoo. Oh and she said I shouldn't put Bertie in a house-coat. "They're not designed to wear clothes," she said - though she did concede that it was ok for him to wear a coat outdoors in the subzero weather we're having. Greyhounds do need coats in the cold - they've so little body fat and such thin coats they need a bit of protection.

Despite all the inflammation and scabbiness and medication though, Bertie has been in good spirits throughout, with undiminished appetite and energy. He loves his walks, especially in his favourite parks, and people are always exclaiming, "Eleven! Really? He doesn't LOOK eleven!"

So - another new year. This one is going to be challenging for me. I'll find out in the coming month just how challenging - there's a chance I'll be laid off, but at the very best my working patterns will change dramatically and not in a good way. I'm keeping as positive as possible and counting my many blessings, but I can't help but be nervous about what the future will bring.