Dogs, Gardens, R & R

With all this Biblical stuff going on, fire, floods, pestilence, snow, the garden has been very much neglected.    Ok, ok, I lied about the snow!!!                    The adverse weather conditions, being surrounded by trees  that drop branches and leaves at the slightest cough, and  my being inconveniently ill,  the garden has the appearance of a building site ( actually bomb site would be a better description)  I would love to get out there and get on with things and I will – with some things –  but I am discovering that there are limits to what I can and cannot do at the moment.  I made that mistake in Adelaide last week.  I am sort of trapped between a rock and a hard place – I want to get out there and get on with things, but I know that I am limited in what I can do until such times as we discover just what exactly is happening. Will know more after Tuesday when I undertake some tests.

In the 60’s, people took drugs to make the world weird.

Now the world is weird, and people take antidepressants to make it normal.

Chienne is much the same and the Man is still with us. He’s slowing down and I  still have to rescue him, but he’s fine. I hand feed him in the morning and I have started to hand feed -sort of – in the evening. What I do is bring him and his dinner over to my chair. I sit on the floor with legs out. I put him over my left thigh – back legs one side front legs the other – with the food bowl on my right thigh and he eats away quite happily without falling or in any pain. I know it might sound a bit awkward but he’s comfortable enough and eats away until his food’s finished, and, more importantly, without any stress. Yes, I was born for this – to be a food trolley to a Maltese Dog.  :o) Oh, and why the left thigh? He does not like  the right thigh – different aspect perhaps. However, something odd has cropped up in recent months. I thought at first it was a “one off” when I watched it, but I see it happen a lot these days and Herself says Chienne has been doing this for a while. She is grooming  The Man. He just sits there and she licks his face and his ears. I  am puzzled – I thought only cats did this.

I did some work out in the garden today. Nothing too much, just some sweeping up leaves and using the leaf blower/vacuum. I did throw some rubbish into the trailer but nothing heavy.  I was also thinking that if the weather remains fine, I might just break out the hammock and stand. We’ll see how things go.  I should be heading off to Adelaide next Friday morning but I will have to wait and see. It’s  only been two months since the last meeting and I guess it’s a bit much to expect the minutes of that meeting to be available this early. – The meeting, it would appear, has been put off until the 14th Feb. so, in essence I have been two and a half months at home without really doing anything much other than catching up with some reading;  a little bit of work outside and going for walks with Chienne and sometimes with The Man. When he is with us we don’t go very

far and even the little distance we do do, takes ages since he is slow and tends to wander. It makes for an interesting walk. If Chienne wasn’t so freaked out about going in the car, I would take them  to the beach. I could take him on his own but if I strap him into the seat he screams and cries all the way. He wants to come and sit on my lap and whilst I used to do this, it is now illegal  to have an animal on your lap when driving and it carries with it a hefty fine and demerit points. In fact to have an animal in the car not strapped in is illegal.