Tag: cars

Adelaide, concerts and home to dogs

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

Scruffy - because she really was. :o)The drive down to Adelaide was quiet and uneventful. It was a five hour drive – four and a half or less if you want to go  a fair bit over the speed limit – but I find that 110kph is fine and takes me where I want to go in the time I want to get there. Really excellent day – warm and sunny and being mid-week, little traffic on the road until the outskirts of the City. I drove into the city and met up with my son. We had lunch together. He is down at the corporate office for a while learning a different aspect to the organisation than what he is used to. I think they are going to change him from the mining section for a while.

I spent some time in the city before heading off  for a shower, change of clothes and off to the Adelaide Entertainment Centre for the Celtic Thunder Concert.  I have to say it was a great concert and it was all over far too soon.  I cannot remember when three hours passed so quickly. I really enjoyed the concert and it was a very good Christmas Present from my sons.  The only drawback is that they have to put up with the music – Hey!! It’s MY car  :o)  The drive back home was also uneventful and I did not get to the Garden Centre because I left early. On a warm to hot day it’s best to  do the driving in the morning before the sun starts to bite.  I didn’t have any dogs with me this time down and – barring incidents – I will not be back inAdelaide until late May.

My dogs are odd when it comes to cars. The little man curls up and goes to sleep – sometimes he comes over and sleeps on my lap. The other one, Chienna – she whines non stop. This is something we just don’t understand. We have had her since she was seven weeks old and she has grown up with us. She has never had a bad experience in the car but she does have ultra sensitive hearing and noises really stress her out, so perhaps that has something to do with it. We had her at the Vet. last week and changed the medication that she gets in the event of a thunder storm. We can also use these to calm her down if we ever have to take her for long dont Askdistances in the car. One of my very first dogs had cancer and the vet (at that time) wanted to put her down. I refused on the grounds that this was a pretty rough way to repay all her devotion over the years. I said I would be willing to nurse her, knowing that it would not end well. He gave her medication to  take away the pain and we nursed her, carrying her outside when necessary and just making sure she was comfortable. We only had her for a few months more but we all made certain that she was in no doubt that she was loved and cared for and one day I sat on the floor beside her, she put her head on my lap and she died. I was heartbroken – we all were because she went everywhere with us – making sure that anyplace we went to was “dog friendly’. Not as easy to find as you might think – although starting to become a lot easier today.

Jazz, conferences, Warships and dogs.

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

My FordI suppose the last post, quoting an American President, was a bit cheeky, but there you are. I don’t really bother with political commentators, but I sort of liked Reagan – not taking sides here, but liked the man.  My idea of planting the plants in pots rather than in the soil seems to be working – well they are still alive so that’s a plus. I didn’t go to the garden centre on the way back out of the city.  It was a long and not very productive day and I just wanted to get back home. These days, we talk a lot but we really don’t do much. The next conference is in April and I think I might have a cold, or something…   It had been my intention to pay a visit to the State Art Gallery where there is an exhibition of the works of JM Turner.  Hanging above my desk is a reproduction of  ” The Fighting Temeraire” and it would have been really excellent to see the actual painting.  Now, that’s interesting – the SA Exhibition is ‘Turner from the Taite” but the Fighting Temeraire  is part of the National Gallery (London) collection, so I should think it unlikely that the Temeraire will be in Adelaide and that’s a great pity.

There was a little girl  (Fox Terrier) requiring a lift down to Adelaide so I said I would take her with me. However, she was picked up from SADR and taken down yesterday, so she will now be settling in to her new home.  I head off to a concert tomorrow and that will be me finished with Adelaide until May and I will be there for a week for the General Assembly. Days are taken up, evening I have to myself. There is a dinner on the Tuesday  night, but I will not be attending that;  however not far from the hotel is a Pasta  Restaurant and I am a sucker for Italian and Chianti.  “She who must be obeyed”  cannot travel, so I will be there on my own – me a computer , a smartphone and a Kindle. What more does a fellow need – except his babies, and I will miss them. It’s been a couple of years since I was away from them for more than two days at a time.

We did a fundraiser out in the bush in the middle of nowhere – Jazz Under the Stars – and this is a photograph I took of the car in the middle of nowhere on its way to that ridge you can see up ahead.  Good going in, fun driving out in the dark.

I was always told that if there are two dogs the female generally sleeps with the male human and the male sleeps with the  female human. No one could have told my two because he sleeps Samsung the noo 036with me and she sleep with herself.  If I was really desperate and because I have small dogs, my hammock is way out of their reach and besides,  they don’t like the swinging motion of the hammock – it seems to upset them. I know this because I took one of them onto the hammock with me and he was not very impressed.  He fought to get down and I could not let him just jump down onto the paving  because he could really have hurt himself. I had to  put him back down to earth.   The hammock is outside under the pergola, not in my bedroom  :o)

Dogs, Pounds and Rescue.

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs
This is my Main Man – the MalteseTerrorist!
“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”
    -Mark Twain

This is Australia and we have a Socialist Government. Actually we have two Socialist Governments, one State and one Federal and one is about as bad as the other because both love to pass legislation that takes the fun and excitement out of everything – except crime. We’re good with crime, we smack people on the wrist hand them lollies and give them suspended sentences. And for those of you in a more enlightened society where you send criminals to prison,  a suspended sentences is where the Judge tells you how naughty you have been, you look contrite and say you are sorry and the judge tells you she/he cannot be swayed by this  (and then is) so he has to make an example and sentences  you to three years – suspended. This means you walk from court free, even if you have been drag racing, crashed into another car and killed someone, you can still walk from court free on a suspended sentence.

I have two dogs a Foxy Lady and a Maltese Terrorist. The foxy Lady does not like going in the car – we do not know why, but the little man does and when he is in the car he likes nothing better than to curl  up on my lap and go to sleep. He is not a barking, head out of the window sort of dog, he just likes to be comfortable and comfortable is sleeping in daddy’s lap. Legislation says that this is illegal. All dogs must be restrained  or kept in a dog carrier when being transported. Tried both ( to obey the law, of course) and the dog carrier just upset him and the restraint, using the seat belt clip,  had me pulling the car off to the side of the road and getting out and  around to the other side and releasing him because he just about strangled himself trying to get across into my lap. Ok, I confess, I is a criminal – I breaks the law – I have an unrestrained dog in my car – a full size, dangerous, bite your head off, Maltese Terrorist. As you can see by the photograph, he is definitely dangerous.  The only time I restrain a dog is when I am transporting a dog down to Adelaide for the South Australian Dog Rescue.(SADR)

The sad thing about this place is that people just wont get their dogs desexed and let them have litters, which they then dump on the RSPCA. They can’t cope  so they go to the pound – which is a KILL pound. Ten days and then the animals are put to sleep. The  SADR rescue do  what they can and try to find the dogs new homes – mostly out of here, so when I am going down to the State Capital, I generally have a couple of passengers with me.  I remember taking one dog and told the SADR that ” if this dog gets Dognapped on the the journey, don’t blame me – he was such a lovely little fellow. It’s ok – he arrived safely to be handed over to his new mummy.