Tess had her stitches out this morning and all seems well. After a couple of days feeling sorry for herself and a bit sore she was back to her normal self, keen to help round up the menagerie and sort out the horses. We haven't had the bill yet - Neil asked them to invoice us (preferably after payday!) so I await that landing with a thud in the postbox outside.

This computer is driving me to distraction and has become increasingly unstable of late. Having watched a bit of Glastonbury last night I decided to download an album from a group I hadn't heard of before. Just to download the mp3 files it seemed I needed a ton of software which has probably added to the unstability of the laptop, but oh, how lovely to sit and listen to some new music.

Our housesitter Jason kindly left us some speakers for our ipod (and anything else it will plug into) which are absolutely fantastic and probably giving the barking chasse dogs up the road a run for their money.

The workshop now has a new window and door. Neil had carefully planned the window size according to the catalogue at a (not very) local DIY store so that it would be easily available. When he was ready to order it he decided to check the website, which turned out to be completely useless - you could find and put items in a 'basket' but then there was no facility to check if it was in store, order or indeed pay for it.

So with a feeling of inevitability he drove to the store (about an hour from us) only to find that although it was in the catalogue, that you had to order it specially (obviously no mention was made of this in the catalogue).

I wasn't with Neil to see the steam coming out of his ears, but I have no doubt a full hissy fit accompanied by toys being thrown out of his pram followed this statement. We have given up telephoning the store to check on availability as we don't think most staff can actually be bothered put themselves out to check their stock and so the answer you get is unreliable also.

Neil ended up having to buy a window too large for his especially made hole just so that he could get on with fitting it, so a whole day was spent making the window space larger and fitting the window.

The door was less of a problem, having been donated to us by an ambulance colleague of ours Kate. Far too nice to put in a workshop really (I actually ducked as I typed that!) but it will do the job and is good and solid.

I went and got six geese last weekend, and they are settling in well and are lovely creatures (although they are still at fluffy stage) they are curious and chatty if that makes sense - far more sociable than our ducklings. The plan is that hopefully there will be a nice pair amongst them to keep to provide us with geese for the table each year. As it is pretty impossible to sex young geese we will just have to wait and see!

Dog vs Anaesthetic

We decided it was time to get Tess sterilised - despite frequent tugs at heart strings regarding filling our house with cute little collie puppies our minds were made up when the last time she had her vaccination the vet told us that the longer we left it, the higher the risk that she would become incontinent as a result of the operation.

Although we are not living on quite the miniscule budget we were, money is still somewhat of an issue and so I asked the vet how much the procedure was likely to cost. " How much does she weigh?" he asked. I said that although I know she used to be around 15 kilos, that I thought she had got a bit more chunky of late. "Lets work it out on her being 18 kilos" says he, and then if she is less it will cost slightly less or vice versa.
He said it would cost roughly 200 euros.
With a deep breath I booked her in.

I was quite pleased to be working on the morning of the operation, which meant that Neil had to take her. Tess like most dogs, hates the vet surgery and starts shaking as soon as she walks through the door. Having had one dog who was completely accident prone, I know that horrible feeling of leaving them in the surgery and was glad it wasn't me doing the deed. The vet took her straight in when Neil arrived so that he was there when the vet weighed her (just over 16 kilos) and gave her the dose of aneasthetic.

Tess was having none of it, and fought the dose and refused to go under. Not giving a toss about our budget she wouldn't go off to sleep until she had had enough aneasthetic to drug a 30 kilo hound.

Neil and I both felt terrible about subjecting her to this ordeal and worried about it all morning, not really able to concentrate on anything else. Neil went to pick her up and was so desperate just to get her home that he almost ran with her out of the surgery so that the vet had to come outside and find him to tell him they wanted to see her in a couple of days to check her over.

That night she chose to come up to our bedroom to sleep under our bed ( rather than in her basket - she thinks under the bed is a bit of a den) and unusually for me I had difficulty sleeping, being aware of her moaning from time to time.

Amazing how quickly animals recover though, and although she is still a shade quiet she seems remarkably perky after her op

Not looking so clever though is Romeys ear. Or what was left of it after the vet tried to cut the cancer off it - unsucsessfully it seems.

The vet has given us tablets and drops for it, but the upshot is there is nothing more they can do. "She won't mind if she sprays blood up the walls, it doesn't bother her" says the vet - and she certainly seems happy enough. It's all down to quality of life at the end of the day isn't it.
She is a lovely cat, although she does regard the entire house as a cat litter tray (and particularly the barn which drives Neil mad), but she lived here before us, and to lose her would be losing part of the house, so we just have to do our best for her.

So all we have to do now is wait for the vet bill to arrive. I always wondered what it would cost to sterilise a great dane. Arghhhhhhh!!!!

ps apologies again to those kind enough to leave comments - I still am unable to reply to them - I really must work something out...

Back to reality..

There are some people very at home with having a hammer in their hand, much in the same way I am with a slice of banoffee pie or a glass of something chilled and bubbly. Alas hammer skills do not come easily to me, and this afternoon has been one of mild to extreem fustration depending on the task in hand at any given moment. I cannot believe just how cack handed I can be whilst trying to hammer in the hooks to hold the fence to the posts. Just when I think at last! a hook is going in straight - I would realise I hadn't put the damn thing around the very wire I was trying to pin down and the hook was useless.

The fox around here has once again decided that we are the "drive in chicken take away" of choice - and has made off with our cockerell and three of my favourite young chicks. I now have constructed an alcatraz style chicken run with an electric fence surround.

It would have been made much easier had my reel of electric wire not exploded on opening. It now resembles a 'slinky' on acid.

I sat on the grass trying patiently to untangle the thing when Neil kindly came to see me with a cold drink. He tried to help but within seconds I could sense his blood pressure rising, and he was just about to throw all of his teddies out of his pram when I sent him off again before he turned the air blue.

He has been doing really well with the workshop despite two trips away and several visitors - here are a couple of pics of the latest progress...

We are about to take Tessy off to the lake to have a nice swim. She is being sterlised tomorrow (after much soul searching and discussion) so we want her to have a nice day today.... lets hope it all goes well, wish her luck!

Its all dutch to me....

I've just got back from a trip to Holland. My friend dutch bird has a sister who lives about 60km from Amsterdam and was having a birthday party. So Neil, me, dutch bird and her french husband, his father and uncle and aunt jumped into two cars and set off up the country, through into Belgium and off into Holland.

Many things struck us about Holland, some of which were

1. how incredibly tidy it is
2. how many people actually do ride bikes
3. what an unbelievably difficult language it is and how different to English/French..
4. how cheap and beautiful all the flowers were
5. how strange that squirty cream is called 'slagroom'....


Being in another country with French people is also interesting...

1. anything not immediately recognisable and available in France is regarded with extreem suspicion
2. as is not having bread available with every meal
3 or vin rouge and ricard...
4. even if the menu says 'entrecote' it most definately is NOT proper entrecote as found in France etc etc.

Having said that, what a lovely bunch these French people were, they put up with us chatting away in incredibly bad french and were really good company.

Anyway I will tell you more about it when I am not so tired.

Apologies to those who have left comments and those whose blogs I try to keep up with - for some reason my google account won't let me leave any comments whatsoever - so it isn't that I am ignoring you and thank you for leaving your comments!!!!