Under the caravan

Around ten o'clock every evening is the time that Paddy gets 'invited' to go out into the garden and do what a dog needs to do before his night's sleep. Usually it happens without incident. When it's raining, it happens without incident and very quickly, as he is a dog who does not like to get wet. I have tried to train him to wipe his paws on the mat before marking the floor with muddy pawprints but, alas, without success. Maybe the secret is to train him to use the mop to clean the floor instead.
Last night, however, was different. It was different because, instead of doing what he was sent outside to do, he found his way down to the bottom left hand corner of the garden, under the caravan and there he stayed, snuffling, snorting and generally poking his nose at something by the fence. When I got tired of waiting for him, I called him. When he ignored that, I went down and poked him with a stick. Whatever I did or said, no matter what dire punishments I threatened him with, I might as well not have been there. The wretched mutt totally, completely, absolutely IGNORED me! I have never been so ignored in all my life!
Finally, I crawled under the caravan and managed to grab his collar and drag him, none too gently, back into the house.
Tonight, he'll be going out on the lead!

Wind

After the gales of the weekend, I hoped that today would be a bit calmer. Not so. If anything, it's worse than ever. On Friday night, the rubber doormat outside the front door disappeared and was found across the road in someone's front garden. On Saturday, Keith, busy doing technical things in his van, suddenly discovered that he was on the move. The handbrake had not been as firmly on as he thought and the wind decided to help the van on its way down the drive, which was a bit scary.

This morning I took Paddy out and we fought our way down the road to the local shop and back but it wasn't fun, definitely not fun.

Printers and hard drives

We seem to be having computer-related problems recently. Keith, who depends a great deal on his computers, internet etc in his work has had ongoing problems so he bought a new, compact computer, which he then discovered didn't have the old comm ports, which he needs for some of his hardware, so then he bought a new box and the wherewithall to put in it, only to discover that the motherboard didn't have something or other. (Bored? You will be!) Now his current hard drive is protesting, necessitating a quick visit to Maplin's for a new one and he is now patiently toiling away in the van transferring millions of megabytes from various hard drives to the new one.
This is the thing with Keith. He seems to collect hard drives. There is a small tower of them in the study and the computer in the living room needs a reinforced floor under it as it contains several, not all of which are still working, but the task of checking them all will wait for another day.
In the midst of all this, our printer seems to have curled up in the corner in a huff, which could mean more shopping.
Oh, and while trying to fix the printer, he has inflicted several large scratches on the coffee table. Maybe I'd better not mention that just yet...

Eyes and Registrars

Yesterday was my appointment at the local hospital for my annual eye check-up. The reason I have this is because, some years ago, the optician discovered that I have high intraocular pressure and might have glaucoma. Subsequent specialists have decided that there is an increase in cupping of the optic nerve but that this is a congenital problem rather than an indication of glaucoma and indeed, I always get a high score on my field tests. But like Daphne, I have to have drops in my eyes so that they can examine them properly and always end up weeping copiously as a result and feeling 'a right idiot' whilst doing it. I tend to make a mess of the 'puffy air' test too, as I always manage to close my eye just before the puff of air hits it and this has been known to cause ill-concealed irritation to the doctor concerned.
This time, however, it wasn't a 'puffy air' test but a 'beam of blue light' test and the doc managed to examine the back of my eyes without the usual pupil-dilating  drops but, to make up for this, he measured the thickness of the cornea, which seemed to involve prodding them with a stick, although, as I had been given the anaesthetic drops beforehand, I didn't feel too much  beyond an irrisistible urge to close my eyes when he was telling me to keep them open and look at one of his ears. Confused? You should be... I know, all these technical terms are hard going.
The doctor who saw me introduced himself as a trainee consultant, which I established meant that he was a registrar.
"Oh, I've got one of those!" I said.
Well, actually I didn't but I did do the 'proud parent' routine and told him about Elder Daughter. "She's specialising in Care of the Elderly," I said, "And I'm encouraging her in that so that she can look after me in my old age."
"Forward planning," he said, " A good idea."
Anyway, I got away with not having to start on eye drops this time but I have to go back again in six months.
Keith picked me up when I had finished.
"So," he enquired, "Can you still see a field?"

Squirrel attack

This is a photo of the peanut feeder in the garden, the sole function of which is to provide easy access to food for any birds who happen to be flitting by looking for food. You may notice that there are a couple of plastic fastenings at the bottom to replace the original ones, which our local squirrels managed to dismantle. They have tried their best to nibble away at these but, so far, to no avail.

Not to be deterred, however, they have managed to loosen one of the metal strands, which you can see sticking out, which enables them to extract peanuts ad infinitem.

Keith thinks this is very clever.

I think it probably is clever but also extremely annoying and what is not clever is their total inability to understand that the peanuts are for the birds, not for them!

Back to the drawing board...

My picture

This is the picture that Elder Daughter gave me for Christmas. It's a Pete McKee print, Pete McKee being an up and coming Sheffield artist.

I love the picture and today the frame that I had ordered arrived, so here it is in all its glory.
Thank you, Kathy!

Gloucestershire Old Spot and nuthatches

Paddy and I set off this morning on our walk, braving the cold as is our wont and found ourselves on a new route which led past a pig pen containing two pigs which looked to me like Gloucestershire Old Spots. Knowing Paddy's propensity for high levels of excitement when within sniffing radius of pigs, I proceded cautiously and was only able to get this photo of one of them. However, as it had noticed us by this time and was approaching for a closer investigation, Paddy seems to have decided to keep a low profile on this occasion.

We got home in time for me to do the Big Garden Birdwatch. New visitors this year were two nuthatches but, although we have plenty of great tits, blue tits, dunnocks and house sparrows, we still have no starlings around here.