Skip to main content

Things we love to do


It's Sunday again - where do the weeks go? This weekend we have mainly been ,making the most of the autumnal weather and doing the things we love. Abi has been at Angie's and has come home tired but happy after having pretty much the run of the yard to herself all weekend. Today she was left to get on with stables and sorting the horses out while Angie left for Cornwall and Claire was not sue until lunchtime. I have said a number of times that the responsibility she has there is quite something and she responds to it brilliantly. It definitely feels like a better set up for her at the moment to go there every other weekend and have all the advantages of a proper yard and decent horses rather than trying to make it work locally. 

Izzy has been off with Glenn today motorbiking again. As much as Abi is loving her horses, Izzy is loving her motorbiking. He as booked her in for a days coaching in half term and she cant wait. Today she was making friends with a couple of people at the track that they've now seen a few times and so she's beginning to feel a little more accustomed to what's going on. I will try and focus on the positives of this - she comes home glowing and full of what she's been doing - rather than the fact that she happily told me today that she'd had a bacon sandwich for breakfast, a Mars Bar for mid morning snack and a burger for lunch... that's a proper man's nutritional planning for you!

Autumn colours

While this has been going on I have mostly been despairing at the fact that Betty can wee for England and no matter how many times we take her outside, she can still produce a wee again when you least expect it. This weekend she has been loving the fact that we can spend more time outside and is fast getting used to her surroundings, getting braver every hour. She has so far found the guinea pigs (which she is fascinated by and tries to climb in with them if the doors is open for cleaning), the woods at the bottom of the garden and 2 (yes 2) dead pigeons in the hedges. These she brought to me very proudly - much to my horror - she hasn't had her jabs yet and I'm sure she is not supposed to be eating this sort of stuff!  She loves all the leaves and will happily spend hours playing in big piles of them as I rake up, with her and Bertie racing through them as they play. This does not make for a quick clean up task!

Bertie and Betty have been getting on brilliantly and he has taken her straight under his wing. As long as he is with her she is happy and confident, as we have found out at night time. The first few nights were a bit fraught, not least as the one thing we know she definitely does not like is being contained in any way. We tried in the small wire crate (she got her teeth stuck), the small travel crate (she yelped) and then the adult crate (she climbed the sides and yelped even more). We then got the dog play pen (bought for some other reason that I can't remember), and within 10 minutes she had managed to climb out over the top - bloody Houdini! At 1am on Tuesday morning (after the dirty protest of the night before) I gave up and shoved them both together in the utility room and bingo, not a peep for the rest of the night and no mess at all - sorted! So this is how they have been sleeping - 10pm until 6am clean and dry with no complaints. 

Unfortunately for all of the upside of Betty's breakthrough, poor Bertie has had an upset stomach since Wednesday which has been leaving him feeling a bit miserable. It isn't affecting his appetite, but I've been getting increasingly worried as there seemed to be blood in his poo by yesterday which is never a good sign. I could take him to the vet but they never seem very conclusive so instead I did a bit of my own diagnosis and I think he has Colitis which apparently is quite common in Boxers (of course). It's basically IBS and all the symptoms seem to be there. It should pass but if he's still not better by mid week then I will bite the bullet and take him to see the vet. I've put him back on the gastro food and we will see - he seemed better this afternoon so fingers crossed. This means that after coming down yesterday morning to adult sized disaster (which of course Betty had danced in and Bertie had then laid in), I'm now getting up in the middle of the night to see if Bertie needs to go out - give me strength!!

Besties

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Cough, cough

Izzy - can't do a photo without rude finger gestures It's fair to say that the last couple of weeks have been rough. I managed to get the cough Mum had a while back and it has been horrible! Both Dad and Glenn seemed to get a very mild version of it but Mum and I got the full dose and I can safely say that it has been a stark reminder of just how bad a viral infection can be. It also illustrates the whole Covid experience - some get it worse than others. For me it has meant that for over 2 weeks I have had the worst cough which has left me unable to sleep properly. I still can't sleep lying down fully, and have to be propped up on pillows on my back which is not my favoured sleeping position! It has also meant that Glenn has spent the last 10 days in the spare room because I have been coughing so badly he is unable to sleep in the same room. Thank goodness we didn't all have it - we'd have shaken the house to its foundations! It has also meant that I have been exhau

It's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas...

I was sure I write the blog last week.... but, it seems another 2 weeks have flown by and now we are staring down the barrel of the Christmas holidays and the end of the year! Currently it's all about Doug and what a star he has proved to be so far. He has now been with us for 3 weeks and he is (so far, I keep thinking at some point it will change) a pretty chilled out puppy. As a second dog he has been thrown in at the deep end and has been to Sunday lunch with Alan & Sarah (which he loved), socialised at home with friends and their dogs, met babies (he loved Elsie) and started to go for walks. The walking has been a bit different to our previous approaches with new dogs. In the past we have ventured out carefully, making sure that our new baby only walks a short distance so they can experience all the new sights and sounds. Doug's first walk was after Sunday lunch last week, just him and 8 other dogs for bout 45 mins - he loved it! In our defence we didn't let him wal

March!

Betty kisses! Blink and 3 weeks have sped by - just like that! The good news is that it's a) beginning to feel like Spring (well, some of the time), and b) that means we are nearly through year end at work which is a blessed relief - that last couple of weeks have been pretty intense.  Although it's been busy, we have a good few weeks, including a lovely weekend where Glenn and I managed to get away on our own for the first time in 2 years - amazing! We only went to a cottage in Devon for 2 nights but the cottage was really nicely arranged and we settled in very quickly. We did have to adjust a bit t the fact that it was in the middle of nowhere - us and sheep - but Glenn had Wi-Fi and the rugby and I had plenty of time to walk so we were both happy. Kerrie and Elsie came and stayed with the kids so they had a great time also, with lots of time to realise that a young baby might look like fun but it's a lot of hard work! Betty and Doug went to Mum and Dad's. They surviv