THIS, THAT AND A BIT OF THE OTHER

WEIRD

Well, I did remember my blood test which I had this morning. I had 3 people remind me by email and one by text message. As I know I have more than 4 readers, I gather the rest of you have the same C.R.A.F.T. condition as I!!!

I did my swim and all was well until I got back from the surgery. My plug got pulled and I couldn't even knit I was so weak. I went to bed but couldn't sleep. (Spell Check thinks couldn't isn't a word!) I feel better now and my hands don't feel like they weigh a tonne with sausages for fingers.

I say all was well with my swim, by which I mean I was able to do it, and enjoy it, though my hips weren't(spell check thinks that isn't a word too) that keen on it and my left hand went pins and needles and then numb again. It does that frequently and I assume it is because of the crumbling discs in my spine. You'd be amazed at where those discs cause problems. Maybe though you would not be as I am sure that you all know your nerves are in the spine!

KNITTING

I am really into it right now. Okay, so I always am but I am sure you have noticed I am doing much more machine knitting too. I have that feeling again, the urge to create with the wonderful yarns I have.I might even be kidding myself that I can knit it all. Given time, Yes, about 300 years worth. (Why does spell check think abotu is a word? Is it?)

READING

I have a tonne of books to read too. I am having to resist the urge to buy those books I see that I am sure I will like because I must have about 2 years worth of reading already. Mmmm, does this sound familiar?

I am reading RAVEN'S GATE by Anthony Horowitz right now and am enjoying it. I think it is aimed at the teenage reader so I am enjoying it very much. Not at all patronizing or childish. I have tried re reading the Narnia books but they are childish.

PUPPIES

Are almost lead trained. They do walk on the lead well but they still stop and especially so when they see people or traffic. Little Dorrit squares up to the cars as if daring them, whilst James , Dudley and Carly all back away. I have to take them out one at a time for training as they much learn to stand on their own feet. Most importantly, they are not freaked by the outside world and not so stubborn, as Apso are prone to be, that they fight the lead. I always start training at 8 weeks on the day. I get pissed off with some I meet at shows with a puppy of 6 months or more and they boast it has never been on a lead! Shows little care for the poor puppy I think, expecting it to go a lead for the first time in such a situation. Then they wonder why it freaks. Too many of them, adults too, only ever go out when they attend a show. Apart from that, they are kept confined indoors, some of them in cages where they are kept most of their time and never even get to play with each other. They get taken out to the garden, one at a time, to pee and poo and str8 back to the cage or pen.Never mind how cruel that is, why have the dogs if that is how you keep them? What is the point?

I often think that people who keep their dogs like this miss out on so much. When I get down on the floor with my dogs and pups, we have so much fun! When I go to bed, I always have a dog with me. When I am watching TV or knitting or reading, the dogs are around me. They are confined when I am not in and at night time, for their own safety. I do not go out all day unless I have a dog sitter, I will not keep them in their cages that long. I wish I could say that all my fellow exhibitors / breeders treated their charges the same way but alas they don't. To some they are a means to an end and that is it. A spotless house always is a warning to me of a poor life for dogs. I certainly would not entertain the idea of one of my dogs going to live like that.

All of my dogs play and run around in the garden. They play with each other, with me, with visitors. I have made concessions that don't affect the dog: I have fenced off all the hedging so they cannot get into it and wreck their coats. Other than that, they do as they please. My way of thinking is that if they can't get a floor length coat living a normal life, then they have the wrong type of coat for an Apso in the first place! These are hardy, tough dogs from 16000 feet above sea level, in the Himalayas, Tibet. They are not toy lap dogs. (not that there is anything wrong with Toy breeds just that the Apso is not one.)

Shaking The Bed

The new pool is good, or rather the experience of going there is good. Very helpful. Same distance form home. Has the advantage that their best time for going is 8am-9am so I don't have to be up at 5am and get up at 6am instead. Of course this just means I go to bed an hour later and therefore sleep the same amount of hours but it feels like I sleep longer.

The new pool is old fashioned. It has stairs cut into the walls. they are vertical and thus unusable by me. I jump in at the deep end and get out by way of a chair lowered into the water and hoisted up and out. I am not that keen on it. It feels precarious and also makes me somewhat visible. Still, I am at least getting my swim still and the pool I normally attend will be open again after it's refurbishment on the 2nd.

Some people don't just lack brains but manners too. Twice this week I have been happily swimming lanes, as are the others, and twice two rather large women have have got in right in the middle of us and not only that start doing backstroke! They then wonder why they get kicked by us doing the laps.

Did I tell you that when one is swimming in a pool next to a large person, it makes swimming more difficult? Well, it does. It's like swimming in the wake of a ship.

Last night in bed, I was deeply engrossed in my novel, The Gaudi Key, when I heard a loud fart! Ghosts? A ghost with gas? No. My 11 year old Nechung who sleeps on the bed with me. Did she excuse herself? No. She's French. Did she even look up? No. Not even when I shook the bed laughing.

Speaking of reading, I have just finished reading In God We Doubt by John Humphries. A really good read. Agnosticism is really the only sensible position to take. I only take issue with one thing he wrote, and that is that he does not think it is harmful to indoctrinate children, that belief is harmless. I am astounded by that and it spoils an otherwise sensible book. If you read it, don't expect any answers because rather sensibly he recognizes there are not any to give, or at least none we as humans can understand. He, like me, has no time for Fundies or for atheists.

I am feeling good in myself but not in my body. When I walk it feels like each bone in my foot is crunching, my hands are screaming at me all the time, my hips are whining. Yet i fell cheerful. I have been taking drugs just before I go to bed and it seems to help. I have slept better. I think becasue the drugs keep the pain at bay and thus I am not waking up all the time. I also take them before my swim. That is usually it. Just the two does a day for now.

On Saturday, I have another dog show, at the NEC. That will be it for this year but they soon start up again in January. There is not a month now without a major dog show.

Shameless has been showing well for over a week now and today is really quite large. I think she may well have a large litter. They should be here in just under 3 weeks.

Next week, on Tuesday, assuming I am still in the body, I shall be 18250 days old. That is some achievment for me. I cam so close a few times to not being.