Thanks to all of you who wrote asking after our dog. As most of you may know, while we were in the UK we got the bad news that our dog, Barnum’s, heart condition had worsened, and that he was not predicted to live. Barney is a fine dog, we took him from a pound and gave him a good life. We’ve known for some time that his health was failing, and his once unquenchable thirst for walks was now becoming diminished, and he was spending most of his days just sleeping.
Since our return from the UK, and with some sterling work by the good vets at Belconnen Animal Hospital, he still plodding along, and seems happy enough. On the other hand, he may just be pretending that he’s enjoying life so he doesn’t get the final jab. At the vets a few weeks back day we found out he had gained a little weight, nearly a kilo, so was cleared for light exercise. He stopped eating when he was unwell, but over the past week his appetite has returned. He is now interested in the family again, and started taking, (what for him,) would be short exercise walks.
His current meds regime is;
Pirilium; heart meds, hypo down throat. 20 mg daily
Vetmedin: heart pills: one morning one night.
Diuretics Flusapex two morning two night. B
Arthritis tablet; Calpex one morning, one night.
Ok, so the other day we thought that as he’s now well maintained on his heart meds and diuretics, we can rest a bit easy. But then we got another “panic stations” alert from the mother-in-law. Barnum spends his days at the mother in law’s house as he can be indoors there, and she is able to let him out for a piss. If he was at our house he’d either be locked out in the garden, which at this time of year can get very cold and wet, (more on this later,) and he’s too dumb to shelter from the rain, or he’d be indoors where he would happily piss on the furniture. So each day the two dogs get dropped off with Mary for the day. But the other day Lee-Anne got a phone call from Mary, who declared that he was “Dying, he won’t get up, I can’t move him,” and that he, “wouldn’t see the day out!” When Lee-Anne got around there from work, the dog was happy to see her. He was probably most happy to see her as he knew he would be going home, and at home he isn’t constantly hassled to prove he is still alive every five bloody minutes by the mother in law. (She has issues.)
So as I say he is now back to doing reasonable length walks, in fact we do some of the walks which were our regular walks before he became ill. However these are taken at such a sedate pace I have to remember to keep awake during them. Consequently he’s gained another 3 kilos.
One unfortunate side effect of the diuretics he is on is that his failing eyesight has worsened. He now constantly walks into things, (furniture, me, trees, ) and spends long periods staring into cupboards and wardrobes. Yesterday he leapt down from our car, missed his footing and landed on his face. He gets a little concerned at his loss of eyesight, and who wouldn’t? Lee-Anne I keep him by her feet and talk to him constantly so he knows where we are, and that he is not alone. He is confused if left alone. Though seeing as “confused” was his normal state of mind before he got unwell it’s hard to know what is blindness and what is stupidity.
There is no way just losing eyesight would be a ticket out for the smelly old hound. He has to try harder than that! His blindness means that he has to have an eye kept on him during our walks, as he can veer off and get lost so easily. Oh, and he now has a tendency to fall into drainage ditches, wombat holes, and over cliffs, or to try to cross rivers and motorways as he encounters them, if a eye isn’t kept on him.
The nights are the worse though. Well for Lee-Anne they are, not for me. Being deaf does have some advantages. Every night her hearing is attuned to noises that may come from Barney. One night it was a funny sort of noise that got her investigating. There he was, stuck fast in the corner of the toilet trying to find where the door to the backyard was, so so he could go out for a wee. He’d missed his exit by about a yard.
Edited to add; We had a scare with him last week, not so good news. His condition took a abrupt turn for the worse. His heart was not pumping out the fluid in his abdomen and lungs. Rob, the vet (apt name!) gave him a jab to try to boost the diuretics he was on. Also the diuretics he was taking were doubled in dose. We made the heartbreaking decision that, if there was no improvement in his condition over the weekend, the coup de grace will be given on the Monday.
The doubling of his diuretics, and an increase in his anti-inflammatories however had the desired result which means he’s now made a slight recovery, good enough for him to be granted a stay of execution. Fortunately the dog is still not suffering, or at least pretending not to be suffering. Last Sunday he had a fantastic walk down by the lake, which he obviously relished. So we’ve put off his final vets visit until there is a change.
We now have a mop and bucket on standby for when he has a little “accident”, and he’s now being walked four times or more a day, (one main walk, then a lot of short walks) to keep the fluid moving through him.
Walking a blind dog is an adventure in itself.
He’s still very loving and wanting to be with us, so we’ll not deny him that until he starts showing signs of suffering. The vet is happy with his quality of life, and there’s no rush to have the coup de grâce administered. As Rob said; “his quality of life now revolves around walks, food and sleeping, see he gets as much as he wants or can handle.” Fingers crossed, he should be with us for a few more months, at least until after he gets a trip to the seaside, when we take a week’s break there in later in April. He may not be able to see where he is, so may not realise he is at the coast, but his nose hopefully still work well enough to inform him. Of course getting him to manoeuvre in a strange house with no sight will be interesting. (Have I mentioned he isn’t the brightest spark in the fireplace?)
The mother in law, when she heard of our intent to take him down the coast was infuriated. “He’ll be too confused”. She stated that she hoped he passed away before he went to the coast to save him from the fears of being in a strange place, which earned her a rather sharp rebuke from Lee-Anne.
She then had the audacity to say to me that she would have had him put down months ago. A little memory refresher for you;
Slight deviation; Mary comes up with some crackers too. The other day her and Lee-Anne were walking around one of the Lakes in Canberra. Naturally Lee–Anne had taken our dim mutt Barnum with her. Mary also has a dog; a vastly overweight, ancient, and arthritic black Labrador called “Chibby”. Chibby wasn’t on this walk as; “it would be too much for her.”
At one point on the walk, Mary turns to Lee-Anne and being serious says; “I may buy a pram so that I can bring Chibby down to the lake and push her around in it, she’d like that. What do you think?” Lee-Anne’s reply; “You really don’t want to hear my answer to that question, mother.”
In fact Mary declined to have Chibby put down until the dog was blind, incapable of walking at all, and incontinent, Chibby was virtually dead before she got the final jab. So I treated her thoughts with a sea-full of salt and profound contempt.
Edited again to add. Yesterday I put my back out. I did this by the amazing gymnastic feat of “getting out of my car”. Yup, rodgered by back totally, and I’m off work today. But, this was the day that Barney was due to be put to sleep if he hadn’t made a recovery. As I say above, Barney is doing a good enough impression of a well dog to be allowed to keep going. So, last night at three am, Millie decides to throw up blood, more blood than you would think it possible for one small dog to own. This morning we rushed her to the vets, she’s still there, hopefully recovering. She has had a gastric bleed problem in the past, we hope this may be just the same, and resolve itself without the need to resort to ($$$$) surgery.
It’s all fucking fun and games around here folks!
Yep, we’ve got another holiday booked. It’s been weeks since we last had one.
Ok, this is odd but quite nice. We had planned a week down the coast, as a winter break, in April, (Lee-Anne and I also have a “dirty long weekend away” planned for May, but don’t tell Bethy)
So I checked my leave allowance total to make sure I have enough days owing to cover the days away. Seeing as not so long ago I had a six week break in the UK, I was worried I may be a bit low, and have to use my flex days.
I found I have 321 hours of leave remaining. To find out how many days leave; 321 / 7.2 = 44.58 days. To find out how many weeks leave 44.58 / 5 = 8.91 weeks owing.
Looks like I can keep my flex days for when I really need time off.
Ah, come on, it’s not my fault! I didn’t use hardly any leave up last year, as our only holidays were booked during the time I was off work for 2 1/2 months following my bike smash, and so that was taken as sick leave. So the leave I didn’t use got carried over into this year, plus I’ve started accumulating this year’s leave now. Also the time we took off over Xmas had loads of public holidays in it, so although I was off for six weeks, I think I only used three weeks leave plus some flex for that.
We’ve booked this place Waves Beach Villa.
Beautiful, modern, clean. Spectacular parents’ retreat. Directly situated on and overlooking Tura Beach coastal reserve and white water views of Tura Beach. Walking access to Tura beach through the nature reserve at the front. All 3 bedrooms are beachside.2 bathrooms and wcs. Double lockable garage with internal access and remote. Nice yard. All modern cons in kitchen with dishwasher,microwave and entertaining equipment. BBQ on front upper deck, looking over the narrow nature reserve full of birds and kangaroos, onto the white water views of Tura Beach. Plasma TV,DVD in lounge area and tv and dvd in parents retreat. 2 Separate decks to parent’s retreat to enjoy some time away from the kids. 2 bedrooms on ground level opening out onto the yard. Laundry,w machine and drier, iron etc downstairs.
Bethy’s boyfriend, Reece, is coming down with us too. They will be sharing a bedroom under the same roof as us. Does that make me feel old or what?
Bethy turned 17 in February, we had a meal out with her dad, Reece and his grandparents. (Reece lives with his grandparents, for various family reasons which I won’t go into.) We had a fine bit of grub at Zen Thai and a pleasant evening celebration. I love the fact that Bethy chose to have this Birthday celebration, rather than going out and getting pissed and arrested like some of her peers do.
God we’ve had some wild weather of late. It’s almost like the weather gods have conspired to make me feel homesick by transplanting the UK’s normal wind and rain quota over to Aus. Check this out for the way Canberra has been affected. The flood drains outside my office have been well up, and I was worried about our local “storm drain cats” population. I was glad to see that after the floods had reached the top of the flood drains, the cats were still out on patrol.
Here’s some phone footage of the drains during the storms. You lucky things, how many other friends do you have who would share video of their drains with you? No need to thank me.
These drains are about four foot deep, and for 99% of the year have no water at all in them. So idiots have been kayaking down them during the storms! Oh and here’s a shot of our Lake Burley Griffin dam being overrun, they put the lights on it at night, which is nice.
Our brand new, only yet part-built, domestic water reservoir dam was totally over run by the flood water. That’s cost us!
The budget for the Cotter dam enlargement project is set to blow out to more than $400 million. The ACT Government has revealed the cost of the project rose by $33.5 million to almost $379 million, before floodwaters inundated the construction site earlier this month. The project by Canberra’s water authority had been costed at $363 million and was due to be completed by August. But the project has been plagued by wet weather since construction began in 2010.
A dam project being “plagued by wet weather”? Only in Aus!
Oh, any arachnaphobes reading this?
Apropos of nothing; Can I just add here that it was FUCKING FANTASTIC that Wales won the Grand Slam. It would have been better if the matches had been televised over here, or if I were not so mean as to refuse to pay for Sky TV. Mind you, Wales are doing a tour of Aus in June, they will be playing Sydney. Lee-Anne has agreed to go up for a (dirty) weekend with me and to watch the match.
Oh, we had tickets to see the PM’s XI against Sri Lanka, but, as above, it pissed down the whole day. So luckily we got our money back.
I interupt this load of old bollocks to raise this issue;
Ok, the “British Sausage” company, makes an “uniquely Australian” South African “Boerewors” sausage. Am I alone in finding that a odd, stupid, and just plain fucking wrong?
Ok, speaking of food stuffs my eating fish, how’s that going? Well I did think that following our meal at Heston’s I’d become a rampant fish eater, and live on nothing but fish. This would be done much to the disgust of Mark and Jenny, and much to the indifference of everyone else. But not so. I had a fish curry in the UK, which was very disappointing, and pretty much resisted any temptation to indulge in piscatarianism following that.
Until…
Lee-Anne has a vested interest in getting me to eat fish, it makes catering to the family far easier, and she thinks it would be more healthy for me, and I’d get (even) bigger erections, (as if that were humanly possible.) So, combine that with the fact that Lee-Anne is the best cook I have ever encountered outside of professional kitchens, and I’m fighting an unfair battle. The first temptation of Taff was the offer of a fish vindaloo, which is a fucking low blow to start off with. So, following a couple of nights being fed the world’s finest Barramundi curries, (vindaloo and Rogan Josh) I found myself agreeing that , yes, every so often, I would agree to a fish curry.
Last Saturday night she used her feminine wiles on me again. “Fancy fish and chips?” she asked sweetly, “you could make Heston’s perfect chips, and I could do you fish in curry beer batter.”
I do a fair stab at Heston’s perfect chips, (see here,) and the thought of fish in “curry beer batter”, which includes my two favourite food types, was too much to resist. So that day, a rare weekend off day for me, saw us down at the local fruit and veg market, buying “Royal Blue” spuds, and then venturing to the fish sellers. I have to go into the fish sellers, to see what we are buying, so no one can accuse me of being a moral coward. This time we bought some flathead. That night we did our parts, or rather, that day we did our parts as Heston’s perfect chips can take up to and over eight hours to prepare. So, for the first time in three decades, I had fish and chips for supper.
And they were fucking wonderful! Oh my god, the fish was flaky and soft and flavoursome, the batter crispy and slightly curried, the chips, (even though I say so myself,) were like glass on the outside and soft and moist on the inside. It was the best meal I’d had since the Fat Duck.
One of the interesting things about my now eating fish is that all the fish I am trying are new to me, last night we had snapper and chips. I’m still 95% vegetarian in my eating, and still cling to the last of my moral and ethical ideals. But by fuck it’s hard doing it!
Lee-Anne wants to go here for her birthday, Tetsuya’s, amazingly it’s even more expensive than The Fat Duck. So we’ll do that then.
The trip to Dartmoor has reawakened my lust to create, so I’m halfway through making my next CD. Taking on board the feedback from “The Dartmoor Suite”, I’m now concentrating on making “music” which is less “heavy’ and more approachable and accessible to the great unwashed, (you.) It’s still be mainly orchestral, but not so deep, and more pastoral. I’m also hoping to get a great deal of ambience into the tracks, and am attempting ambient tracks just for the hell of it. One track ; “Interlude by a Stream”, is almost folky. Each track will relate to a particular emotion engendered by being back on the moor. I hope it will reflect my experiences there, and strike a chord with anyone who joined us on the moor. Be warned; you may receive a copy, like one or not.
In case you are interested; “The Dartmoor Suite” is now downloadable via torrent if you fancy owing this unique musical masterpiece.
The other day I had to get another assessment done for my insurance claim. This was by, yet another, doctor. He was a rum old cove, I’m sure he is used by the solicitor dealing with my case as he is very “amenable.” He spent a good two hours investigating my every bone, joint, muscle, ache, pain, physical structure. He also spent a great deal of time telling me about all my physical problems, ones I didn’t even know I had, up to and including my “loss of sex drive”. Fuck me pink, if he writes up all he told me, I should be in line for a couple of $$$ million in payout!
This spawn of Satan hell beast, which I came across on our dog walk, is in fact a “Mole Cricket” I would have got better images of it, but was too scared to go near it.
Culture vulturing. I went to see this the other day; “Handwritten.”
From medieval illuminated manuscripts to the letters and works of world-renowned writers, scientists and philosophers, visitors to Canberra have a rare opportunity to view priceless manuscripts created over a period of more than 1000 years.
Bloody amazing to be so close to the actual writings of famous people from centuries past, Darwin, Goethe, Kant, Einstein etc.. The biggest mind-blower for me was standing within touching distance of Beethoven’s handwritten manuscript for his 5 th. Symphony. Can you believe that? He wasn’t a bad composer old Beethoven, some of the stuff he churned out ff was up there with “The Dartmoor Suite” for quality.
Unfortunately “Renaissance” which I also saw recently wasn’t that great.
The exhibition offers Australians a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to encounter paintings by great Italian artists such as Raphael, Botticelli, Bellini and Titian. The exhibition highlights the amazing art of the Early and High Renaissance. Over seventy works, made between 1400 and 1600 by painters in Northern and Central Italy, will be on show.
I also took time out to go and see this; Music Today – How do you play it that way?
Tom Piper is the newly minted host of Ministry of Sound’s Australian radio program. His remixes and tracks are permanent fixtures in the record bags of Laidback Luke, Tiesto, David Guetta and many more of the global elite. During this session he will demo some of his well known tracks and then break down the process of creating a floor filling dance track using new technology. This will be a unique experience for anyone interested in music today and a must see for those bedroom producers out there
It was, again, a bit of a disappointment. The guy was really very skilled, but only as a producer, he couldn’t lecture to save his life. It was a bit embarrassing as half the audience walked out half way through. I didn’t learn much off him, I’m sure I could, but he’d need to take teaching classes first
Later this month we’re going to see John Cleese
Cleese, a force behind some of the most groundbreaking comedy of the 20th century, will appear live on stage in his brand new show entitled An Evening with John Cleese. Asked to describe his show he will bring to Australia, Cleese enthused “It’s an evening of well honed anecdotes, psychoanalytical tit‐bits, and unprovoked attacks on former colleagues, especially Michael Palin”.
and Ross Noble,
Ross Noble brings a brand new tour, Nonsensory Overload to Australia, following the success of last year’s UK 160 date THINGS tour. Nonsensory Overload is Noble back fresh from his travels, not to mention his own TV show, doing what he does best; spinning forth hilarious nonsense for your amusement. Now is your chance to see one of the best live comics working internationally today.
I’ll write you a review, no need to thank me.
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