Wierd

Afternoon walk , Belsay Hall , spooky tree .

Sad little Greyhound

Poor Poochie still looks a bit sad with tummy upset , click to enlarge and look at that little sad eye . Dont you just want to cuddle her ?

British Summer Time starts with a walk at 6am ( old 6am ) as Alice is very unsettled . She gets me up at five forty , then again at six and then once again two minutes later . Most unusual for her ; fairly typical little greyhound who loves her routine and as soon as shes been in the yard and had her breakfast and been back in the yard all she wants is to sleep for an hour and then and not before , her walk . But this morning , she couldnt settle at all . She paced the floor , lay on the quilt , wouldn't get up on the sofa ( its usually three moves from yard , to sofa , head up to get blanket wrapped round her , head down and poked under covers to block out first light , sleep ) and her tummy was making loud wierd gurgling noises vaguely reminiscent of those of my own inner workings of the last few days . So we pack away any thoughts of an immediate lie in and head for the sea . Overcast now slightly , it was lovely at six , the sun warm as it rose and the sea breaking in perfect surfing waves across the LongSands . There were three surfers out there already but too distant for photography , and none in King Edwards Bay where they are easier to capture with the camera . An early morning fisherman trying his luck , and the three of four walkers I met all friendly and cheerful , more so than the usual eight am crowd .
Hoping that the exercise would help Alice's tummy , I ponder on my stomach bug , apparently less an issue this morning and wonder if it is possible for a human virus to cross species and affect an animal . I have had two days of gripes , including a salutary half hour spent waiting for a friend on a beautiful suede bench outside the Laing art cafe , using all my meditation skills to control myself , and trying hard to breathe menthol type thoughts deep into my lower abdomen .
I'm sure it can't be the case( human to animal cross infection ? ) , in which case I hope Alice's wound is not infected . The gash on her thigh where she was attacked two weeks ago by a Jack Russell was healing well but the stitches have either dissolved or she has picked at them on the surface layer and the wound is open again . She may need another trip to the vet but I dread the thought of another anaesthetic for her .
We walk for almost an hour , I return her to the house , read for a while " A Spot of Bother " by Mark Haddon which I am hoping Nat will also like as she loved the Curious Incident , then head back out to feed and let out my little cat down the road . She seems delighted to see me and squirms and wriggles in a pool of sunlight in the sitting room . I will return this evening to empty the bins and make sure things are tidy as M is back tomorrow and I will have less time in the morning if I am fitting in Alice's walk as well as getting to the Day Job at a reasonable hour .
I battle with the is it really seven or eight am now and if so ( which ?) is it still early enough going back to bed with the papers and my new book " Notes from an Exhibition " by Patrick Gale which I am dying to pick up . Alice has no interest in her post walk Bonio but is flat out on the sofa , and happily accepts wrapping in the tartan blanket .
I head upstairs , papers , coffee , phone .
The rest of the household is still fast asleep .
Bliss.

Still a way to go

but getting there .

The thumping head from yesterday continued and I missed all sorts of excitements today in the road where we live .

I set off on foot to feed one of my favourite CatCalls charges , a tiny ginger puss who eats like a horse ( she consumes about the same amount across a week that my four eat , or rather don't eat but pick at ) and having let her out into her back yard and re set the cat flap so she can get back in again I wait to check the magnet on her collar is working ok . Overcome by a bout of sickness ( migraine being no respecter of other people's bathrooms ) I decide it is safer to wait until I feel better before walking home ( I had left the car there as Steve the mobile mechanic was picking it up to service it for its MOT so I can tax it ) . I sit on the sofa and contemplate the day ahead , remembering another occasion when I was ill when out on an afternoon CatCall and that time fell asleep for half an hour on a leather sofa . When I woke a very large happy cat was sitting on top of me singing like a kettle and I felt much better . That was an apartment overlooking the sea which was all decorated in white and I had been momentarily dazzled by the sparkle of the sun off the water .... realising a migraine was coming on fast I had taken one of my nasal sprays and knocked myself out nicely .....I guess it could be described as all part of the service , cat sitting being just what I was doing , as far as the cat was concerned , close company for an extra hour .

Little Puss appears back through the flap at a rate of knots and we play with a feather for a while , me somewhat half heartedly but that's the great thing about animals , they dont really comment when you're not at your best , they simply adapt and play a bit more carefully . We sit on the sofa for a while in companionable silence and I read the book titles on the wall to wall shelves , noticing how many are the same as the ones I have at home . M has more poetry books than me , and more hardbacks . Now that I'm working less I rarely buy a hardback and I also have spells when I take most of my reading from the library but still , despite our very different professions there is a lot of reading material in common . Drowsiness is setting in and I decide its time to get shifting , the joiner will have arrived to fit the door , my car should have gone , and I can see what to do about this headache . I say goodbye and lock up and walk back through the sunshine . A lovely day , the roads are streaming with cars on the school run and parents walking the primary school children to school , many of them with buggies and dogs attached . I feel a bit bereft without Alice. The joiners have arrived and it transpires that they have seen a blue Mercedes drive past our neighbour Eileen's car scraping it along its length , glancing as he went but failing to stop . The joiner noted the registration plate so D duly handed this over to Eileen who with great observational skills realised this car belongs within the neighbourood and rather than report it to the police , heads up to the house and bravely knocks on the door where the car driver's partner appears and acknowledges that he had passed the car but did not realise he had scraped it . Yeah right! Eileen has already had a quote made at her local garage and states how much she will need to have the car repaired . The consensus is that the money will be paid as likely the car has no insurance ?! Meanwhile Steve arrives and my car disappears for the day . I take Volterol and thats the end of me for the day .... but when I wake , progress , we have a door , with shiny chrome knobs and beautiful escutcheons . Bubbly glass which I have despised for fifteen years , is gone .

A horrible start to the morning yesterday . On our way back off the beach with Alice , as we steam up the one hundred and so steps we notice the fifty something man who is often at the top with his two dogs having some kind of incident with them . The dogs are an elderly labrador and a younger staffordshire bull terrier type dog . The man is usually at the top of the steps , he doesn't walk onto the beach with the dogs but sits on the seat overlooking the sea and throws a ball down the steep slope so the dogs get their exercise running down the slope of scrubland and back up to him having retrieved the ball . Each to his own . However the younger dog is yelping and we see he has it held up by the neck dangling in mid air and he is laying into the pup with his fists , the dog swinging from his blows . He curses the dog angrily as he bashes it and this goes on for some time . The labrador watches anxiously from the sidelines . We continue up the steps trying to reach the top ( never easy ) and trying to make sense of what is happening . I am trying to control my emotions at the same time . When we reach the top the man has thrown the dog to the ground and then tries to tie it by its rope to the railings . He then throws the ball down the slope and as the dog scrabbles and whines trying to run after the ball he shouts again , cursing it for doing what it was trained to do . But obviously this was part of the punishment . The labrador was to chase the ball and the bad pup was to look on .
I stood for a couple of minutes then without thinking walk towards the man . The pathway took me above where he was standing and I stand above him just staring down at him wondering what was going through his mind and how come he thought this was an ok thing to do to a young defenceless animal . I had no idea what I was going to do or what I wanted to say . I didn't know whether it would be better to do or say nothing . But somehow to say nothing would be to collude and I couldn't bear that . After a couple of minutes of my staring , the guy turns and glances back at me then realises I am doing nothing other than just looking at him and his dogs .
" What's the matter with you " he says . Hostile , obviously .
" I don't think that's any way for anyone to treat an animal " . I say . Not the most brilliant thing I could have said , but .... that's what came out .
" It bit me " he said then , with a sneer " mind your own business anyway " perhaps feeling he had given away too much .
I stood and looked at him for a while longer . By this time D had walked along to see what was happening , and I said to him I did not know what else there was to be done , so we left and walked home . I felt sick . D pointed out that maybe by my intervention he would take it out later on the dog ...... I hope not . Both dogs look well cared for , well fed . I guess he lost his temper and he thinks this is the right way to manage bad behaviour .
But I have a sneaking suspicion that his dog is going to bite him again .

The day passed in a haze , writing a court report in the office , attending a parents evening about Options ( no not hot chocolate options ) at key stage 4 . Everything is key stage this and IC that . I feel a little old . As I look at the powerpoint presentation I have to remind myself that both my spelling and grammar are rather more accurate than the presenter's , even if I know nothing of what they're trying to teach me . Luckily Nat knows exactly what she wants to do and has her options form already completed . My attendance and understanding is a formality really .
I head for home , to start painting the wood window and door frames at 8pm .
This is not a good time of day for me to be taking up a new task . My head thumps and I think roll on tomorrow ......

Easter is over , the snow is almost ( but not quite gone ) , I woke at three four and then five am feeling very frightened of something though I couldn't quite put my finger on what , though the words( or concept) that sprang to mind were "scary pancake " . Mke what you will of that .
Minus two on the beach and athough all went well , Alice managed to open up her wound somehow upon our return .
I headed off to the day job , just a morning stint though , packing up at two pm and heading for a CatCall and then the pool . Swimming has been neglected so much of late that my card has gone missing and at the final hurdle ( the changing into the swimsuit hurdle ) I bottled it and decided to head off into the gym instead . Much less bother in the changing , drying , hair fixing dept after the exertions and a pleasant half an hour was spent remembering how all the machines look .
Immediately prior to leaving work , and notwithstanding the small carton of cottage cheese I ate instead of my usual bag of Starbucks coffee and cakes , the stud holding my jeans popped off . My final pair that fit me now gaping open like all the rest , so I call at Silverlink and try on a replacement pair ... result , one pair in my size! I begin to wonder whether all this belly expansion may signify something out of the ordinary , perhaps a large cyst filling with fluid ?
So much pleasanter than facing facts and recognising that I am gaining weight and just dont want to admit it ...?
Now how many Easter eggs are still to be consumed ?