Doggy Calamity

Poor Thai has had a bad time of it recently - she and Sherb had a spat the other day and Thai ended up needing a stitch in her ear. Although she had to wear a cone, it was a cut off one, just to protect the back of her ear from scratching.
After a couple of visits to the vets and extending her antibiotics we then went in for what I hoped was having the stitch out but, over the weekend she had cut her foot while dashing round the garden - not bad enough for a stitch or so I thought but it wouldn't heal.

So we left with the stitch still in an a spectacular bandage on her rear foot.
So today we went back to the vet and this time the stitch came out and they rebound her foot with the prettiest bandage EVER!

How cute is that! And she has to have a proper cone on now.

The weather has been weird for the time of year - clear blue skies and very warm with frosty mornings - more like early autumn weather really. Any way it has meant some great light etc and very very early flowers budding and blooming. My Mum was saying that she used to collect daffodils for my Nan's birthday in March but she has never known them to be out before her birthday (end of Feb), let alone, K's birthday (early Feb)!

And of course we can't leave out the monster...

Or JJ, particularly as his contract has been unexpectedly suspended (council not paying their bills basically) so he is no longer in Birmingham and instead he is messing up the place...

A delivery and getting lippy

I waited today for quite some while for the rudest delivery man I had ever met. He dropped off our new kitchen cupboard doors whi are splendiferous. Our old kitchen cupboards were not to my taste at all so a few summers ago, my sister and I painted some of the doors on the back lawn with some special silver cupboard paint. Unfortunately, it got dark before we had finished and eventually we gave up with the weather and remounted all the doors and would finish them later on. So for the last few years, we had a somewhat patchwork kitchen effect. Now, normally this would be a source of annoyance for most people but I wasn't too bothered as it soon became evident that the cupboard paint was about a robust as a chocolate teapot. The closeup of the handle is of a top cupboard so saw little wear and tear compared to the bottom cupboards, which were bashed by big dogs.






There were 29 boxes that were delivered - of that 29, the delivery man carried 7 on his sack trolley and I carried all the rest. And he refused to bring them into the house as there was one step - I was not best pleased.

But it has been one of those weeks, the women in my family have not faired well this week. Poor Thai had to have a stitch in her ear over the weekend. She then cut her foot in the garden and, as I cleaned and bandaged it, she nutted me and split my lip and gave me a blood blister.



When my sister rang to say that she had got the flowers that I had sent for her birthday, I fully expected her to tell me that she had accidently stabbed herself with them. She is suffering - she has an exam tomorrow and so much coursework on her plate that she has put off her birthday celebrations until next week, however she deigned to allow Mum and Dad to cook her pancakes tonight. We are putting off the pancake day in our house until John is home - no fun having pancakes on your own...

JJ hits the slippery slope and the Museum

Well yesterday John became even older, having reached his 36th (that's right folks, 36th birthday. Who would have thought he would have lasted this long? Anyway, as he is in Birmingham at the moment I hopped on the train to see him for the evening. It was a fairly chily day and by the time I got there it was dark. We arranged to meet in the coffee bar just outside the station, unfortunately it was shut so I wandered to his building and waited in the foyer until his flat mate came and found me. JJ was only about 10 minutes behing me so, once Martin had headed off to Scotland and JJ had opened his presents, we decided to go to Broad Street, through the Mail Box, and find somewhere to eat.
After wandering back and forth a couple of times we found the "Around the World in 80 dishes", a buffet restaurant with chinese, mexican and italian food. The food was good but not excellent, but the service was very good and the drinks were even better - we were gently glowing once when left, stuffed to the gills, to go in search of the rock bar that JJ passes on a daily basis but had never been in.
We couldn't have been more obvious in there - with J in his suit and being almost twice the age of everyone else, still we enjoyed it and had a couple of drinks before deciding to move on. Unfortunately, as John stood up, he smacked his head on the underside of the metal stairs and had really hurt himself, so we decided to head home.
Next day JJ had to work so I had a couple of hours to myself. JJ pointed out the museum to me and as it was only two minutes walk I headed that way. I stopped in Victoria square on the way and took some photos of the statues and fountain:











I then realised I only had about 2 and a bit hours to go round the museum, but when I wandered around there, it turns out it doesn't open until 10.30. Luckily, I spyed a maccy d's, so I grabbed some breakfast and sat in the chilly sun to eat. There was some filming/photo shoot going on across the square, the giant box said I want a referendum, but I didn't work out what it is they want a referendum on.




The bench I am sitting on has a great view - statues and ornate architechure surround me:






and the requisite pigeons:



The following seed pod (?) was nigh on impossible to take a picture of as it was so windy that I had to shorten the shutter speed radically and use flash, hence the werid lighting. If anyone can tell me what this is I would apprciated it as I have NO idea.



I then realised that my hands had gone numb and the museum was open so headed into the building. I signed up for a photographic permit and headed off. The first thing that greeted me was this statue of lucifer which I never did get a decent photo of.



I then, quite quickly, became quite obsessed with a group of statues that were really quite disturbing. They were human height and, unlike most statuary, stood on the floor so that, when you walked around the room, you almost felt that they were going to follow you.













Other items of beauty:











I finished dashing round and headed towards home but got momentarily delayed on the way back by the architecture, fountains etc and the blueness of the sky.



















Then we headed back home to drop off JJ's stuff and then headed to London to see Lord of the Rings. It was a bit disappointing but I did still enjoy it, whereas JJ loathed it. I felt that the music was unmemorable, that they choose some of the wrong points to emphasise (such as the dancing in the prancing pony which I enjoyed for a while but quickly became bored of) and the crow-barring of women into the story line. Now I am a feminist but, if the women barely enter the orignal story, why do they every two minutes have them turn up and sing a long and boring song?! Drove me up the wall. On top of all that, the elves all seemed to been deaf as they made hand gestures whenever they said anything and Galadriel had a strange nervious twitch which was really off putting. But despite all that, I did actually enjoy most of it, the sceanery was amazing, the costuming wonderful and the acting, though dodgy at times, wasn't bad enough to ruin the story.



We finally headed home to our bed, pooped and were snoring within minutes.