I still cant love a pug

Yesterday was the first day of my week off and I'd planned to go to this and drool over yarn and things.

But as is normal in my life thats not what happened.

On my way home from work on Friday i heard an advert for an event being held at Earls Court that I knew my littlest daughter would kill to go to.
[ Actually I ought to stop calling her that. Its technically true, but since she's nearly as tall as me and her feet are already 2 sizes bigger than mine, it gives totally the wrong impression ]

So, since I hadn't actaully bought my ticket for the Stitch'n'Bitch, and since i don't get to do all that much mum and daughter stuff with that particular daughter, I hoiked out my trusty card and booked us a couple of tickets for Discover Dogs

Now I do quite like dogs, and my family have almost always had one so i grew up with them, but its never been my passion to own one myself.
Jo however is completely the opposite.
And yesterday she was in completel doggy heaven.
Holding, stroking, photographing,stroking, talking about, drooling over and more stroking every different breed there.
And there were a LOT of different breeds.

They gave some good advice during some of the demonstrations that they had going on too, about handling and especially about safety issues, and she's going to tell all her friends at school about the ' tree and stone ' positions for dealing with unknown and aggressive dogs.

She's also joined Junior Cruffts which will give her free entry into next years discover dogs show as well as for Cruffts itself.

And I can see that we've got one step closer to owning a dog ourselves.

On one final point , i was saddened to see notices about rehoming rescued pure breed dogs on almost every stand.
I knew there were a lot of dogs being abandonned, but somehow it suprized me to see notices on stands like the Shar Pei.

And yeah...I did fall in love with one particular breed.
Segugio Italiano a Pelo Raso.



But even though the ones at the show were lovely in temperament, I just couldn't love a Pug.

choices

You know, as each year passes and each new problem occurs, I look back at the past ones and think 'If only I knew what was coming'.
Right now I'm trying to find a way to advise my daughters so that they make the right choices for them and accept that those choices may not be the right choice for me.
A way to balance their view of the world with mine.
A way to explain why I see things differently without making them feel guilty for not seeing it the same way.

And a way not to worry that I'm making it too easy to opt out just because I don't want them to just do what _I_ want.

Pieke Bergman

I fell in love with these vases when i was flicking from site to site a couple of days ago, then went back today to look more closely at her site http://www.piekebergmans.com/ and found so much more lovely stuff.
Each section I looked at had me more excited.
I love ALL of her designs.
So take this as a poke with a sharp stick to make you go and look too.
And if by any chance you can afford to buy any of the lovely lovely things...*flutters eyelashes*...
;D

Rainy day headaches

It doesn't matter how great a nights sleep I've had, if its raining when I wake up I feel tired, listless and thick-headed.
It doesn't happen if at starts raining AFTER I wake up, but surfacing to that tick tick tick of drops splating onto my neighbours flat roof is guaranteed to make me want to dive back under the covers and cocoon myself in the middle of my bed.

What it DOESN'T make me want to do is jump out of bed, throw my clothes on , drive Em to work, plug the BIG lantern in to charge and get up in the loft to investigate the rather noiser TAP, TAP , TAP that can be heard against the ceiling in Ems room.

So I'm procrastinating.
Well, not really.
I AM waiting for the lantern to charge up, because no matter how often i say we need to make sure its charged regularly it doesn't get done.

I'm also wondering if the thought of leaving it till Dave gets home so he can get up there is totally wimping out.
No...I KNOW its wimping out.
I just hate that bloody ladder in to the loft.
I really need to get a proper loft ladder installed, but its pretty low on my list of 'things that need doing to the house so it won't fall down'
And if there is a leak then it will have just slid down the scale of udgent jobs even further.

*girds loins*
*picks up crampons*
*wonders how big the spiders are up there*
*adds a BIG hammer*

Erm....if i don't check in for a while ..........

Go Apple

Well I'm a happy bunny, and quite unexpectedly so.
I've been having problems with my macbookpro's power cord.
It's been gradually seperating at the joint where the magnetic connection meets the cord.
There is a little collar that covers the area, but it didn't seem long enough to hold it securely, and when I looked on the Apple website sure enough there were a fair number of complaints about it, along with the info that it wasn't covered under warranty.

So when i walked into the Apple store in Bluewater , brandishing my burnt out cord [ yes it got that bad ] ...
See :(


... I didn't expect to get away without a dent of £59 in my bank balance.

But joy !
They've re-designed it

If you look carefully you can see that the collar is longer on the new one.

So they changed it under warranty.

*does a happy dance*