Stranny Dayze

Hiya,

Rumours that I fell off the planet are greatly exaggerated.......I have had shingles and I'm only just beginning to feel really well despite some nasty recurring headaches. I did not even find out I had it until the little rash I had turned into the nasty red bits....even the gp thought I just had an allergic reaction to something so when I went back once the nasty bits appeared I was surprised to find out I had the dreaded lurgy...........apparently if you have had chicken pox you are more at risk of shingles than someone who has not had chicken pox - thank you young Alfie!!!! I just have a couple of nasty red bits left on my jawline that just won't go (oh and a little on my ear) so I look a bit manky!!

Sascha is now 3months old (and larger than in this pic even though it is only 3 weeks ago!!) and a little madam....she just won't stay still so taking pics is not easy!!! She now weighs a hefty 18.5lb!! She is attending puppy association classes (we are also learning, as adults, all about the less savioury things with regards to pet dogs.....and being shown samples of the same but then I do know what a tick and a flea look like, it is the other things that left me feeling a bit queasy!!) and the other two pups weigh less than 8lb each as they are only little Jack Russells........they look so odd playing together especially as one of the JR's is a miniature one.....so tiny that you could hold it in the palm of an adult male's hand; mind you they give as good as they get from one another!! Sascha is walking well on the lead, enjoying going out in the car and has learnt fetch, sit, stay etc really well.

Now, will someone answer me a question....sorry only for uk readers.......what is it with Gaffa tape and Fords? Mainly old Mondeo's & Sierra's; the majority I see seem to have their bumpers stuck together with oceans of Gaffa tape - usually silver, with the odd one having a mixture of white and black!! Is it the new trend or a Mondeo/Gaffa tape owners club sign of membership? The other day Rob and I were out and out of the 5 Mondeos we saw 4 of them had this tape on their bumpers......usually the front offside, or could it be a warning to other drivers that if they come too close they are in danger of being Gaffa'd!!! Maybe we will never know but it would be cool to have a game called spot the Gaffa & do a survey on which car's have it on them the most!! On another note we saw a Renault this morning that had packing tape on its bumper......was it planning to be posted???

We are a bit fed up at the moment, we are looking for another singer for the band!! We are definitely not having anyone under 25 again......the commitment just is not there and everything seems like too much hard work; the voice may be good but as for attitude and commitment - forget it!! We have someone temporary for the time being but as she is with another band it is just not feasible for her to be with us on a permanent basis.......she is very, very good; lovely voice and attitude but her commitment is to the other band unfortunately.

Anyway, time to have lunch........will catch up with you all again very soon!!!

Hi there, Hope you are all well. We have had a hectic weekend, culminating in a visit to the Vauxhall Motors Heritage Museum which was open to the pulic today. This museum is a private one so it was good to be able to see inside. There was not an awful lot there in comparison to other museums but what was there was interesting, including the very last car made on the production line at Luton (Befordshire). I've put some pics on for you to see at the beginning.

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Sascha had her first trip in the back of the Frontera yesterday; needless to say she let us know she was there and did cry a little but before long she will be too big to travel on my lap, so we decided to start her in the back before she gets too used to the comfort of being in the front with us. She will get used to it before too long - Sam loved it so I am sure she will very soon. We took her to our local Pets at Home for her puppy food as usual, trouble is it takes us 3 times as long to get round as everyone fusses her!! I wonder why? Lol. She is also a tv addict!! Now we have a larger screen she loves anything to do with animals, and anything that has a lot of movement in it. Sascha has her 2nd jab tomorrow (monday 21st) so she will be going for proper walks any day now....we are looking forward to that!!!

I had an eventful afternoon at work on friday, a disgruntled client of one of the other teams in our building ran out of the room where she was being counselled and into the ground floor loo. I was on reception and about 20 - 30 mins later she emerged looking very aggrieved; a few mins later the member of staff that was with the girl said 'oh it looks like the toilet is on fire' and laughed!! I went nearer to check and just smelt the smoke coming from under the door and alerted everyone to the fact it was not a false alarm this time (the damn thing goes off every so often for no reason!!) and then phoned the fire brigade. Now here is the laugh with regard to the fire brigade.....from the building where we work the fire station is roughly 2mins away if that, well 2 mins for normal drivers so faster for a fire engine I shouold imagine; anyway, said fire engines (all 3 of them) took 10 mins to get to us!! The building could have been well alight by then but fortunately it was put out by the time they got there so they were 'politely' told to go away!!! It is amazing though how some people refuse to budge cos they don't realise how serious it is, or they don't think it will come to anything......maybe it was only a fire in a waste bin in the loo but it could have got out of contol, who are we to decide that it won't be that bad........a fire is a fire is a fire - big or small the building had to be evacuated. Tell you what my priority was, in order of importance....bar of chocolate(unopened I hasten to add), handbag, car keys, mobile phone and then my pass swipe card....all picked up in that order in less than 10 seconds!!! The police will be involved so we will see what happens.

Anyway, I am off to check up what is happening with our sales on ebay, they are due to finish in an hour or so. Hopefully we will make some cash!!

TTFN peeps, love to you all.

Hello Peeps. Hope you are all well and have been enjoying the little bit of sunshine we have had the past few days!!

I am feeling a bit silly at the moment as we have had 3 incredibly stressed days to the point where we thought things would not improve….but this morning – well lunchtime to be exact – things suddenly went from horrible, manky pear shaped to nice squidgy choccy cake shaped!! I am an extremely, well almost extremely, happy bunny right now..…. There is still the subject of Sammy’s ashes to be rectified but after what we have been through the past few days I can cope with that and I have had a lovely email from Susie (Susanbunn) that has made me feel quite peaceful with regard to the Sammy issue….thank you Susie. Yes I feel quite content at the moment.

Work is proving very taxing, more mentally than physically due to the nature of it!! The work is interesting, the majority of people are okay but as I have said before there are a couple of people that work here that are not so nice. The work itself is to do with Mental Health Assessment, which is quite traumatic at times as a lot of issues are to do with suicidal thoughts etc., and when you have to type the notes out after the CPN’s (Community Psychiatric Nurses) have done their assessments it can get to you at times!!! Also there have been a couple of occasions when I have had to hand the notes over to someone else, as I know the people (not closely) that the assessment refers to. Life does get tricky at work sometimes. 

Aaaargh!!! Not happy!! Have just done a nice long entry on word only for a power-cut (all 1 minute of it) switched everything off and so it was all lost!!! The lights have been flickering on and off for the past hour or so but that is usual for here due to the power switching grids every so often, plus some of our power comes from the wind farm up the road so when it switches over it sometimes has a short delay.....that is probably what has happened this evening!!

Sascha has settled in well, and seems quite a content puppy!! She is sleeping well at night and has adjusted to wearing her collar very well!! We are giving her short 'walks' with the lead in the bungalow so she gets used to it before setting paw in the big bad world..........she has her first vaccination tomorrow so hopefully it won't be too long before she is socialising with other doggies.

Our budgie fell off his perch and passed over the rainbow bridge yesterday. Yes he did literally fall off his perch and I have to admit we did laugh at him at first, but as he struggled to get back up on to his perch we realised he was not that brilliant but felt sure he would be okay by the time we got back from the shops - unfortunately he was not.

I am so very tired at the moment, I fell asleep on the sofa this afternoon for almost 4 hours on and off and I never do that!!! I have subsequently felt rough all evening and still feel really tired; I can only assume it is due to early mornings with Sascha, I normally don't wake until 7 am but she has had me awake at 5.45ish most mornings, either that or I am just in need of a catch up......I used to sleep for entire weekends every so often when I was younger!!

Anyway, it is time to upload and put graphics in so hopefully we won't get a power cut again, lol!!! Oh, by the way I have my laptop back after Kevin has fixed it for me.........only drawback is I have lost most things on it apart from my pics because the hard drive was a mess apparently. But it is running great again and is faster than it was before.......i'll just have to re-install the stuff that I still have drivers for!

All my love to you all,

First of all, please let me say a huge thank you to all of you who have left lovely comments with regard to our loss of our lovely Sam; also a huge thank you to all of you who took the time to send us cards and personal emails - we are both so grateful. This is one of the reasons I could never leave J-land altogether despite moving over to BT!!! You are all such lovely people.

It is getting a little easier but certain things will stay with us forever like the way Sam would rest his head on the window-ledge to watch out for anything happening in the street…….very little did/does as we live in a cul-de-sac but that never stopped him!!! Also his love of sausages (we had them a couple of days ago and I still could not use the last remaining one as Sam always used to have it!!), chicken and anything that was not normal dog food that was okay for doggies to eat, lol !! We had initially thought of scattering his ashes at the pocket park, but decided he would be too far away from us; consequently we have bought a special white rose named ’Remember’ to plant in a patio pot and have his ashes placed round that. We also bought a pink rose for the Cancer awareness scheme……yes I know it is for human cancer but Sam was almost human in his antics so I think we can allow for that!! We miss him desperately and I am still crying quite a bit, but he is out of pain now…..even though he did not let us know he was in pain……and I like to think he is having a good time where he is!! We will get another pup soon but we need to get the garden back to a good state after the lousy weather we have had, plus make the pond puppy friendly; no way will the new pup replace Sam (nothing could ever replace him) but a new pup will be loved just as much.

I am not happy ‘cos I dropped my laptop at the weekend and it is now running sooooo slow and erratically; Kevin is going to have it at some point so he can see if he can sort it out for me; it won’t even do a proper system restore so something is not right…………yes I was calling myself all the names under the sun for doing something so stupid, but unfortunately my laptop is not the lightest of things being almost 2yrs old and made before the new lightweight ones were made!! The most annoying thing is not being able to get out of a level in one of my games because it so slow…..frustrating cos I have sailed through all the other levels - hopefully Kev will sort it for me and I can beat Rob at completing the game (we are neck and neck on the levels) and I have to beat him!!!

Anyway I am off to cook dinner and eventually catch up with emails!!! Love to you all,