Mulberry (pedigree Labrador) produced eleven puppies earlier in the year, thanks to Stanley (Rottweiler/Great Dane cross). Here, a few of them are playing with Mabel (St. Bernard). All are at present members of my brother and sister-in-law's pack, but most of the puppies will go to new homes fairly soon.


( Read more... )

On Saturday morning I went out to do a few errands, and then spent a while on the radio. We had friends round at lunchtime, and cousins round at suppertime, so it was a good social sort of day ( Read more... )

The car's sunroof problem turned out to be blockages in the sunroof gutter's drains. My mother's tame mechanic took it away on Friday morning and brought it back in the afternoon. All the car needs now is parking in the sun on a nice hot sunny day with its windows at least partly open ( Read more... )

We went back to the doctor's on Tuesday afternoon, and my mother was sent home with a slightly extended course of medication and instructions to return the following Tuesday. Since then it's been a case of trying to keep her as quiet as possible ( Read more... )

Saturday had its good and bad bits. One of the IARE candidates didn't turn up. The other two got through the paper to their satisfaction. With luck we'll know the results in a month or so. The drive to the shack wasn't too bad. The drive back had its moments, and I was so late for lunch that my mother had given up waiting ( Read more... )

We hung around for a while on Thursday morning waiting for the internet provider's engineer, but then decided it was time to go out for lunch. Half-way through lunch we got a call from the engineer. We told him he'd have to wait. We called him when we got home, and he came round and fixed the problem an hour or so later. It seems the radio had lost ( Read more... )

One casualty of the heavy rain early on Tuesday morning was the main internet connection here. I've been living off tethered mobile phone connectivity since then, and it's not quite as reliable as one might like. I have also re-connected my mother's iPad via its mobile connection, so she's getting emails, but the new computer has been offline since ( Read more... )

On Saturday morning I took my mother over to the hospital for a post-surgery check. The doctor seemed happy enough to sign her off. We came home via a Japanese/Korean restaurant. Having been there before, I played safe and had an excellent teriyaki chicken. My mother went for sushi and sashimi, and ended up with more wasabi than she'd bargained for ( Read more... )

I spent a little while Wednesday morning getting things like gas for cooking and fuel for mowing. Then friends came round for morning coffee, and we spent some time in conversation in the garden. A bit later, I went back to the shops to deal with another list of requirements. Just before sunset I went out again to hack an Ingress portal and keep my ( Read more... )

Just because I didn't have to go to the hospital didn't mean I could avoid tedious driving tasks... First was a quick trip to the local mall to get essential supplies and visit the banks. Then a rather longer trip to deliver some insurance payments, hand a letter to a courier, and buy food for the dogs. The traffic was somewhat tedious for that one ( Read more... )