Wating for Flat Stanley

We are waiting for Flat Stanley in the post. He has posted himself from Texas and is looking forward to adventures in the North West of England. He wants to have his photo taken and send it back to his friends in the States.

I hope he can understand our accent.

A New Emotion

TJam is having a new emotion today.

VERY PROUD OF CHIPS

She took me to the new agility class. I did not get stressed. I sniffed faces with 3 other dogs on the lead and I did all the equipment. At first I didn't realise I was supposed to stay on the plank 5 foot off the ground and I kept jumping off. In the end, I got the hang of it.

A small border terrier got free and came for my throat. I used reasonable force to protect myself but nothing more. No blood was shed. When they caught the border, I let the whole matter drop and asked for a treat and thought no more about it.

I looked normal the whole time and the teacher said I can soon come off the lead.

Uncle Gardener's Party

This weekend we have all been down south to celebrate Uncle Gardener's 70th birthday.

Congratulations to the youthful Uncle Gardener and well done to the whole team for turning a small, sticky bar area into a balloon and streamer packed, candlelit, tableclothed party place.

The food was fab. I particularly liked the 2 labels on the food for us funny eaters.
1. vegetable rice (a bowl of rice with vegetables)
2. "contains garlic" (the mini pizzas)

I could only deduce from this that the rest of the food was not vegetable rice, and/or did not contain garlic. Or, I suppose, that Auntie Gardener ran out of labels :)

It was great for us to all get together. I loved it when people asked me, "How do you know G?". Inside I said, "what, Uncle Gardener you mean? The clue is in the name" and on the outside I said "He's my uncle."

There was plenty of, "Last time I saw you, you were this high, running naked round the garden covered only in red indian body paint" (I hasten to add that the, "this high" they were referring to dates the incident to about 1978, and at the time we had not heard of the term, "Native American Indian").

Now, I am a fairly open-minded kinda gal, so I wasn't phased when my cousin told me that his 3 year-old son may not answer to the name "T" at the moment. So as not to commit a social faux pas, I asked what name he was going by at that time.

Lily.

As it turned out, when Lily arrived, s/he was no longer Lily, but Princess Leia, which I shortened to, "Princess". The princess didn't seem to mind that and we had a good game of balloon sword fighting.

So all in all, a fabulous party and we went for Chinese all you can eat on Sunday.

Thank you Uncle and Auntie Gardener for inviting me!

Dr Chips researches again (so soon)

10 day old baked beans with mould on.

No news is good news

By Dr Chips - PhD (Dr of Phood)

I am Banned from Scientific Research

Today I have been banned from scientific research.

If you search the internet, you will see that grapes can be poisonous for dogs. Luckily, the word is "can", not definitely "is".

I did research this area once before and ate a bag of grapes. I also ran the gauntlet with nuts and raisins a couple of times. At the time, TJam thought it was funny, because she didn't know that grapes can cause acute kidney failure and death.

So today she was not laughing when she washed a bag of grapes and left them to dry on the side, and then went to work. She was not laughing when she came home and they were gone, and so was half a punnet of cherry tomatoes, which it turns out, can also be poisonous for dogs.

The internet recommeded agressive vetenary intervention, but 7 hours had already passed and I was fine and ate my tea and went for a walk. I didn't even have the decency to vomit. And those were expensive and tastey grapes and TJam had been looking forward to them.

I would like to add the results of my experiment to the growing body of research as one of the "a bag of grapes is not poisonous to all dogs" contibutions to add balance to this field.

However, I will not be allowed to research this area again.

Mould on mould

I'm guessing that mould growing on the mushrooms in your fridge is not a good sign

Ta da!

Ladies and Gentlemen

I present to you one scarf, modelled by the lovely Bamgee.

25 stitches at one end and 25 stitches at the other.

Knitted by my own fair hand.

Ta da indeed.

New Hobby

(Carlsberg fans will be glad to know that she has reclaimed her place on the bed, a sure sign that she is feeling better. So she should be after 2 injections of antibiotics.)

I have a new hobby. Or rather, I have reactivated an old one, but I hope that, 30 years on, I will be better at it.Here is a picture of my first attempt at knitting. You will see that I started with 5 stitches at point A, and then seemed to think every thread was a stitch, until my scarf for teddy doubled its size (B). Mum probably pointed out to me that you don't split the wool, and so my scarf went on a diet (point C) before becoming some kind of fraying giant, at which point I gave up (point D).

So, here I am, embarking on another scarf. I started with 25 stitches and so far (into my 2nd ball now) I still have 25 stitches.

Are you impressed?

Dangerous Dogs? - by Carlsberg

This blog is not a political one. Unless you count the (shortlived) "let dogs sleep in a double bed on a memory foam matress" campaign politcal.

But TJam did promise Linda a link to the 10 Downing Street Petition against legislating against dogs because of the breed they are. Because in this house, we believe it is the way a dog is raised and treated that affects the way it behaves, and although breed influences part of this, the breed of a dog absolutely does not make it bad. The Kennel Club, The Association of Pet Dog Trainers, The Blue Cross and Victoria Stillwell off the tele all think this too. So Linda, click here to sign the petition. You might also was to look at this website: Deed not Breed. We advise you don't watch the video unless you have plenty of tissues handy.

And now I will get off my soapbox and go out and get in a fight so that when TJam comes home tomorrow she will find blood on the duvet and I will be hiding under the bed. Then, she can worry all night before she can ring the vet on Monday morning.

Our SNOW (part 2)

WE GOT IT!

We had to walk up a big hill to get it, but it was worth it. Deep lovely white snow! The drifts came over TJam's wellies (very fine wellies they are turning out to be). I kept eating it and charging around in it (while eating it). I was soaked and so very very happy.

Now we are down, the snow has changed to rain but nothing can take away our lovely snow of the morning.

Our snow

WHERE IS IT?

The dogs and I are very disappointed at only a sprinking of icing sugar over the ground. Hardly enough to even leave footprints in. Meanwhile, the rest of the country has ground to a halt.

We didn't move to the north west for sunshine and tropical conditions you know. and now we have the best weather in the country. What's going on?

I will have to save my, "Sorry I can't come in to work, I'm snowed in" excuse for another day. There had better be another day. I am having snowman withdrawal symptoms.

All nighter

Since we have an apt photo below of the bathroom in the floor, you don't need to use your imagination to know where I spent most of last night after a run-in with a nasty little stomach virus, generously shared by the kids from school I should think. My stint was broken by Beanz deciding she needed to go out in the garden. With careful timing and judgement I managed to time the garden run and still make it back to sit on the bathroom floor once again.

Having been raised on the motto, "if you can stand you can go to school" I sometimes find it hard to judge if I am ill enough to stay home. But not today. This one was a no-brainer.

You may wonder how comes I am well enough to blog. Well, I wouldn't have, but that I needed to get a phone number off the computer and then I thought I would share my tale of woe before I go back to bed.

"To Do" List - by Chips

Sit in window when TJam goes to work. Check.
Surf kitchen counters. Check.
Visit stairgate to see if it might have become undone. Check.
Nose stairgate to double check the latch is secure. Check
Dance with glee when stairgate opens. Check.
Eat cat's dry food. Check
Lick cat's wet food bowl. Check
Go to bathroom bin, empty and chew up all old empty sachets of catfood. Check.
Strew rubbish over bathroom, landing, stairs and bedroom. Check.

Run all over the lovely double bed. Have little look out of window to make sure no one is heading home. Say hello to Carlsberg. Check.

Find all the treats father Christmas gave us and that TJam had stored upstairs so they would last. Check.
Eat 2 packets of Turkey and Cranberry bones, one raw hide boot, 3 lolly shaped chews and a packet of cat treats. Share with Beanz (but not too much). Check.
Come downstairs, go to sleep and look hungry when TJam comes home for lunch. Check.
Have lunch. check.
Wag tail innocently when TJam goes upstairs.
Look fat for the rest of the day. Check.