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Mad Dogs and

What’s the definition of a mad dog. Definitely one that has worked out how to climb onto the kitchen work tops, pinches a box of tea bags and then sprints around the garden scattering tea everywhere. Definitely top canine entertainment for the mad one.

After that mad 10 minutes then there could only be one record I played as I sat down to do some work. Yes a bit one music perfection in the form of one of Yorkshire’s finest. Joe Cocker is sadly missed.

This is one if my oldest records. I accidentally pinched it from one of my older siblings. They never noticed all those years ago, so I’m probably safe now. My kind sibling bought it in 1970. I kind of acquired it around 10 years later….

They don’t make them like this anymore. Gatefold with full size poster.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun…..

Well we have a mad dog. We have an Englishman. Still waiting for the sun sadly……

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Hyper

The scene from last nights late Hawklad walk. A scene of apparent calm. It doesn’t paint the mayhem which accompanies taking Captain Chaos for a walk. Someone gets hyper on his walk. As he is the most hyper dog in Yorkshire at the best of times, that’s a shed load of hyper….

But it’s not just walks. Most things can send him hyper.

Me trying to tidy up the garden is up there on the hyper league table. Maybe it’s the novelty factor, the garden doesn’t get the attention it deserves….

So today as I tried to weed it was the usual pet mayhem. Helpful frantic digging. Burying anything he can find. Rolling in anything resembling dirt. Crazed running around in circles. That kind of thing.

Then a break. A dog walker walking across the distant fields. A distraction. Much barking. So I had better make the most of this. So I did 5 minutes of rapid weeding, manic digging and rushed raking.

Job done.

One slight problem. Don’t let your mobile fall out of your pocket when your doing speed gardening. Finally only located when I phoned it. Couldn’t hear it ringing inside. But the second phoning attempt, and an usual ringtone coming from the garden rubbish bin.

That could have been a disaster as the bin collection day is tomorrow. Just goes to show the risks inherent in gardening. Might give it a miss for a while now.

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Pruning

That tree did need pruning…. Saves me a job.

Problem is that now the gardener wants to bring his new toy into the house. Must be a gardener thing. But I bet the branch would last longer than his last toy. The unbreakable dog toy that lasted 10 minutes.

Which all explains why I’ve just noticed in the corner of the living room a very well chewed branch. I guess we can call it a bit of Art Deco.

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Cars

The Head Gardener seems to be enjoying his work…..

Don’t you just love cars. My car went into the garage to get its breaks fixed, the petrol tank made less corroded and then pass its annual test. The brakes and tank have been delayed since February due to parts being on back order. They can only be sourced from China for my car. Getting the parts was a tad difficult because of the pesky virus. Well a year later we tried again.

All good until the dreaded phone call. The petrol tank needs another part which is still unavailable from the Chinese supply chain. So the car has been partly fixed and partly patched up. It’s somehow fudged its way through the test. So I can drive it but not too far until the other part turns up.

Oh what fun. But as the car is doing about 0 miles a week at present. It’s not an issue.

However

What the Head Gardener is doing to the garden might be an issue.

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Are you sure

A moment of quiet contemplation between the mayhem. A penny for his thoughts.

I wonder if it was ‘in a few minutes I get a chance to really bark at the shopping delivery driver’.

Well he needed patience today. Definitely late delivery.

We are so fortunate to be able to book a weekly food delivery. Ok what comes is a little random but it so helps during these strange lockdown days. The drivers are usually really friendly and helpful. Today it was a new driver who looked only just old enough to drive the van. About an hour late the phone rang.

“I’ve been sat outside for 10 minutes and your not in. I’ve food to be delivered.”

Sorry but you are not outside our house.

“Yes I am”

Sorry I can’t see you on our drive.

‘Well I am parked on your drive”

Sorry but your not. You might be at the wrong house.

“Definitely not, I’m here”

Wait a second and I will see if I can see you….. I can see you. I’m waving at you. You are at the wrong house.

“No you must have used put the wrong address on the order. It says xxxxxxxxx as the address ”

Yes that’s our house address. It’s the one that has been used by the supermarket for 9 months. It’s the address to this house not the one your parked at.

“Are you sure…..”

Strangely yes I am sure. I’m currently stood outside my house and you are parked outside the wrong house.

*******

Finally the van arrived at the correct address. The food was delivered and then the deep philosophical discussion continued.

“That house had the same colour door as the one you included in your instructions..”

I don’t think it does. I put on the order that our house had a white door. That one over there has a brown door.

“It’s very confusing I bet the other drivers have struggled to find you.”

No you are the first to get lost.

“For the future could you add some more detail to the delivery address.”

So apart from the correct address, the correct colour door, instructions on how to get to our house from both village entrances. The ones which are on the order already – what would you suggest.

“Anything to make it clearer….”

*********

So on the next order maybe I should include the door colours that do not apply to our house. A note saying that it might be an idea to check the door number on the door matches the one on the order. And listen out for the really noisy dog. That should do it…

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Muddy puddles

This will be where I go for my one permitted trip out of the house. The farmers field at the back of the garden. One bit of outside exercise is now permitted by the Government. So that’s taking the dog for his morning constitutional. A few laps round the deserted field.

But look at those puddles. How tempting are they. So want to channel my inner Peppa Pig and jump in those muddy puddles. But I don’t want to get the dog drenched and caked in mud. So maybe I could go back home, drop him off and then come back.

But surely that would count as a second exercise trip out. Breaking the rules.

I bet those sheep would dob me in as payback for feeding them cheap biscuits.

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Almost ready

The apples are almost ready.

It will soon be apple crumble time. Now what to go for with it – Custard or Ice Cream?

There is always something to be thankful for. Even in 2020.

I heard someone on the radio say that to him 2020 was the worst period he had ever known. We are all different. We will have our own very unique years to forget. Suffering years. To me 2020 has been an odd year. Yes some new battles. Mainly filled with old battles. More isolation but not that much more than previous years. BUT crucially some wonderful things have also happened.

Eventually when I look back at my life 2016 will take some beating as my worst year. But even then that oversimplifies things. The first 6 months were not bad at all. Then the 6 weeks from hell. Lost my mum and then my partner. Came crashing into the competing worlds of grief, depression and single parenting. Those 6 weeks changed everything for ever. The despair associated with those 42 days and the following weeks just mark 2016 as a bad one. But you easily forget the good stuff that happened before and after. For example November 2016 witnessed the arrival of this well behaved and sensible four legged chap.

Yes it’s easy to forget that good stuff happens all around us, even in the darkest years.

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Two things

Two strange things have happened over the last few days. And NO it’s not that I have found sleep….

The two things are that clearly we have moved back into winter and I have switched to the new WP editor. I’m hoping both are short term changes.

Not sure the cover to my waterproof exercise bike cover is Yorkshire weather resistant

It’s winter. Very cold, very wet and exceedingly stormy. In fact the storm force wind has managed to shift the exercise bike a few feet since last night. I struggle to do that on a good day. It’s been that wet I’ve spent most of the morning trying to stop the rain from flooding out the Utility Room. Too bad even to exercise outside, so it was an indoor session. Problem with those are trying to find enough space and the PETS. The sight of me on my back trying to lift up weights is too much for a dog and cat. Suddenly it’s play time for the not so little hooligans. What chance do I have I’d focusing on posture and technique when I have various well chewed soft toys dropped on my face.

Using the new WP editor feels a little like having a soggy, well chewed pet toy repeatedly checked at you. It kinda works but only on its terms. It does like randomly reformatting posts, messing up links, deleting posts and generally messing up my blog. The deleting of my posts may well be seen as a wonderful feature amongst many. It’s basically as well behaved as our pets, which is not behaved at all…..

Unbelievably this little white flower continues to survive the buffeting. Clearly it was designed to cope with ‘its raining cats and dogs’ weather. I suspect it’s not designed to cope with mad pets although it might be able to design a more user friendly WP editor.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 68 Comments

Pond

A brief moment of colour before the next band of rain arrives. And yes it’s still two jumper (sweater) weather.

As a child my Dad created a reasonably large pond in the garden. He filled it with little goldfish. It was a haven for wildlife. A protected haven. It had its very own guard dog. Our large family dog called Mick. Mick was lovely but he had issues. He took his guarding the ‘family and the garden’ role very seriously. He bit a postman. He then bit a policeman. It’s amazing how quickly some people learn to understand the meaning of a garden gate sign. Do not enter – Dog who will bite strangers beyond this gate……So he was not a chap to be messed with. And the garden pond fell under his care. Fish, small creatures and small birds were most welcome. He would even let the small birds drink from his water bowl. Unfortunately the same privileges were not granted to larger creatures and large birds. So strangely they quickly learnt that Darwin might have a point and they had better quickly adapt. Adapt meaning give that particular garden a wide berth. A policy which was also observed by the postal and police services.

That garden pond is a long time ago. Since then I have never had a pond. That is until last week. Bad weather interrupted a garden tidy up session. So the wheelbarrow contained a few pulled up weeds. However the rain has transformed the scene. The weeds are doing rather well in the slightly damp conditions. I’m calling that a pond. Just lacking some goldfish and a guard dog called Mick.

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Kinda day

Surely it’s that kinda day.

The alarm rings and I drag the body out of bed and stumble towards my gym kit. Before exercise the important stuff. Feed the pets.

Start with the Gerbils. They will only eat one type of small animal feed and strangely it’s not the cheapest. Trying to change the food and water is always a challenge when you have three little white chaps scurrying up your arm.

Then it’s the big boy cat. He suffers after years of substance abuse. He has had far too many trips to the vets after sampling various harmful items – usually from the farm. Now he’s banned from going out and has to go on a strict diet. He can only eat gluten, grain and dairy free food. Special food which happens to be three times the price of normal cat food. He’s far from impressed and he is surprisingly fleet of foot which he eyes other food opportunities – usually my dinner.

At least the dog has cheap food tastes. He will eat anything. So he dines out on cheaper branded food. Anything works for him. Cat food, our food, vegetables from the garden. His favourites are particularly healthy options

Yorkshire Puddings

Chips and crisps.

Although cheap to feed he does have his very own foible. He can’t and won’t eat food direct from his bowl. He picks up each individual biscuit and carries it to a chair or the sofa. Munches it there and then returns for the next little piece of food. The process repeats for hours. Takes him ages to eat anything and the mess…..

Here’s the key thing. Yes the pets cost money, add workload and create so much mess.

BUT

They bring so much joy to our son. They bring life to the house. Bringing them into our world was the best parenting decision ever.