Hop Along Hound

I warn you now; I am not having a good week. Within five minutes of arriving home on Tuesday, I had a client on the phone in a panic because she was about to go skiing and there was a drama at her house. Could I please sort it out??? Sure. Why not? This was going to be the first three days off I had had in a year but I'd love to work instead. Time off is overrated isn't it? I am feeling very Bah Humbugish about that particular client now. The drama is entirely one of her own making and yet she has that peculiar skill of making everything somebody else's fault; usually mine.

To top things off yesterday morning the hound became the Reliant Robin of the dog world and refused to use his front foot. It, he said, hurt a lot. This was slightly baffling. He had been fine the night before but we had done a very strenuous amount of work on Monday, sliding down gullies and crossing frozen rivers. There was obviously something horribly wrong. By the afternoon he was booked in to go to the vet. Being Christmas, the local one wasn't open and so it was a 40 minute drive to their main branch. Joy. Having mercilessly prodded and squeezed the offending paw, the vet decided that he had probably stubbed his claw so hard it had jammed back into the bad. We were sent home with medicine.

I have overly optimistic faith in medicine. I felt certain that with a cocktail of drugs he would be better by now. Instead his paw is even more swollen and is now a third bigger than the other one. He has a new appointment with the vet tomorrow morning and I am now in a dilemma as to what to do.

I am supposed to be going to Guildford for New Year's Eve, leaving tomorrow morning. Then on to Hastings, back to Guildford for Sunday, Southampton on Monday and London on Tuesday... However if the loyal hound has to be admitted then I am not going to want to go. This raises two questions.

Question One; Am I becoming a sad old spinster whose life revolves around her equivalent of a pack of cats?

Question Two: If I do cancel my trip south will my friends think me pathetic????

This may well be my worst ever Christmas / New Year week. Oh, and I didn't win the lottery, even though I actually went to the trouble to buy a lottery ticket this time. Grrrrr

Wolf at the door (well, panther apparently...)

Three friends took great pleasure in ringing me yesterday to tell me that the local paper has headlined the fact that PANTHER TRACKS were seen in the snow just 1/4 a mile away from my house.... Oh joy. Not only do I have snow to deal with and icicles taller than me that plunge off the house at intermittent points, but now there is supposedly a 'third generation big cat' roaming the woods around my house. Could life become trickier? Will the chewed bones of the loyal hound and I be discovered in the spring?

Luckily I got online and read the article where in very small print at the end of it Chester Zoo suggested that rather than a panther, the tracks could be that of an otter. Normally this would comfort me but having seen where the tracks where I'm not convinced that anything other than a cat could have walked there. The tracks were on the top of the fall side of the dam which is some 80 feet high and a gradient that makes me feel sick looking over it. I guess they must be otters who don't suffer from vertigo.... Please let them be otters.

So, now I am walking out and about in my strimmer glasses and wielding the carving knife in case of a surprise otter / panther attack. It makes going outside more interesting I suppose.

I made a break for freedom yesterday. The Loyal Hound and I walked the half mile or so through the snow and were picked up by a friend with a 4 x 4 and we went to the nearest town. The excitement. The bright lights, the people! It was almost too much for me. We went to the supermarket and I chose all my shopping on a weight basis as I would have to carry it back. So, I now have mushrooms, spinach and maltesers to see me through the next couple of days and to give some variety to the diet of porridge. Exciting n'est pas?

My neighbour fought his way back home yesterday as well. He had been out the day of the blizzard and hadn't managed to make it back until now. We walked through the woods together. Me laden with groceries and him towing a gas bottle and a sack of pony food for the horses. He then very kindly shovelled a path through the snow to my gate which I had not got round to yet (I was going with the wading through the stuff idea). There is so much snow I can't actually open the gate but now I do have a path to it so it is all progress. I have dug myself a path around the house and to the woodshed so it feels positively civilized here now as I can go out in just boots if I stick to the paths. It's all progress.

My next task is to come up with some kind of a plan for the weekend. I am supposed to be going away to stay with friends and feel it would be rather wimpish to cancel because of the snow. But, I am not keen on the idea of lugging a suitcase off the hill. I wonder if I should try a 'wear all my clothes at once' number and walk them off, then hope that I can get my car started once I get to it. If I leave in the daylight this shouldn't be too bad. I mean I'll look madder than usual wearing my party clothes with my rubber trousers but that can't be helped. It's either that or I spend the next few hours making a rucksack out of curtains and coal sacks. Suggestions on a postcard please...

The calm after the storm

I haven't had a moment to show you the landscape that I have moved into. Last night, during a brief break in the torrential, Malaysian style rainstorms, I took the Loyal Hound along the track from the house and took these photos for you of the nearby puddle.

This is what lies round the corner from the hovel, quite literally three minutes walk away.....





I know, it's pretty terrible isn't it? Wait till I take some pictures on a sunny day, then you'll really see how awful it can be.....

I'm Alive - Just!

I can't believe it has been nearly a month but I am finally back online and the relief of having internet connection is making me feel giddy with excitement! Now that I'm back though I scarecely know where to start. The last few weeks I have very much felt that I am single and scarcely surviving. It has been testing to put it mildly.

I have mixed feelings about the new house. I spent the first week in floods of panicked tears. The house felt spooky and the landscape is so totally different from the Hovel that I felt a million miles away from everything familiar. All I could think was that I had made a terrible, terrible mistake and that I had ruined my life. I feel slightly calmer now and though I don't love it yet, I have accepted that I live here which is a start.

I know this sounds mad. Why buy it if I didn't love it? The thing is that I have been looking for four years for a house. I have fallen madly for a couple but have missed them. This one had been on the market for ages and I never came to see it because a) it was out of my price range and b)I didn't want to live in the forest.

However they then dropped the price and I thought I would come and look at it. My first instinct was that it wasn't for me. It was too big and too much of a shrine to the seventies lack of architecture for me to wrap my head around. That night though I sat and drew a plan of how the house could be laid out, and I also wrote a pros and cons list. The plan on the back of a napkin solved all of the layout problems with the house and when I looked at the list I realised that this house had everything on my wish list. Four bedrooms (one more than I wanted actually), a big garden, a barn big enough to have an office and storage for junk that I can't be bothered to sort out, a field (which I have no use for but what the hell - perhaps I'll get some pigs!). In addition it has the potential to have a huge sitting room, a good kitchen, a utility room, downstairs loo, a front hall. Finally it is literally two minutes walk from a huge reservoir with miles of walks in all directions.

I let my head rule my heart and I made an offer and you know what happened next.

The difficulty that I hadn't forseen was that I don't love it. I have bought twice before and both times I fell in love with the property before I had even seen all of it. Neither of them had everthing that I wanted and yet I wanted them passionately anyway. This one had everything and I didn't want it but I bought it anyway.

Not having your heart involved is a strange way to go though. I have spent the last few weeks talking the house up to myself and persuading myself that once I have spent every last groat in my bank balance on ripping it apart I will then love it. Sometimes I truly believe that. Other times I don't.

It would definitely be easier if I weren't single. It is a house that needs two of you to drive each other on and to pick each other up when it all feels overwhelming. The Loyal Hound does his best but he gets bored talking about what colour to paint a room and has a nasty tendency to go to sleep on the pile of curtains that are heaped on the floor.

The plumbers are here today moving the bath from the downstairs to the upstairs. I am looking forward to being able to have a proper bath upstairs. I think it will make it feel more like home. In addition I have friends coming to stay this weekend and if the weather plays nice then perhaps we can see the house at it's best, and go for long walks, tackle the garden and sip pimms in the sunshine.

I have taken some photographs but have now misplaced the camera (the joys of an excessively large house!) but I will find it and show you what I have committed to and you can be the judge. Am I 'single and have lost the plot' or 'Single, surviving and possibly thriving?'

I missed you all.

Do Not Leave Unsupervised with Children

Had an idyllic day at the hovel yesterday. Two sets of friends with their respective children agreed to risk their health and come for Sunday lunch. I was a paragon of efficiency and had everything organised with military precision. Well, until I decided to quickly try and do the general knowledge crossword and got distracted, forgot about the lamb and overcooked the potatoes.

The day was mild and sunny and the wind chill factor was only on the -3 mark, so T shirt weather really. The house was as tidy as I was going to make it, and I had warmed the plates and everything. Fine, the lamb wasn't as pink as I would have liked, and the leeks could have been cooked for a little longer, but the chocolate and chilli pudding was a work of art and I had all the ingredients for Bloody Mary's so everyone was happy.

The small boys had a bag full of dinosaurs to play with after lunch. Much roaring and shrieking accompanied this but they seemed pretty happy (or perhaps that was the sound of dismemberment, it can be hard to tell). The Loyal Hound did eat three of the dinosaurs, but they only found out about one and never noticed the other two were missing.

Small girl kept herself happily occupied playing shut the box, reading a book and helping to clear up the lunch by eroding the edges of the remaining hunk of pudding with her finger. It was all very M & S advertish.

After coffee, chocolates and more wine, we rose to the lure of the sunshine and went up to the pond. Mack and Mabel, the geese, have returned to their usual nest and we hauled the boat out for a tour of the island that their nest is on. Having loaded the three children into it we then kindly pushed in one of the fathers and let him row them round and round for half an hour. There were shrieks of 'ALLIGATOR' and 'CROCODILE' from the small boys who were torturing themselves by trailing their fingers in the water and then snatching them out at the prospect of primeval monsters surging up from the deep. Mack and Mabel took the gawping with good grace, though Mack did have to have strong words with one of the dogs who had also come visiting and misunderstood the territorial rights of a father goose. One chastened puppy retreated rapidly to the other side of the pond.

High entertainment was provided when small boys returned to the bank, and small girl insisted on learning to row. She sat in the middle, oars in hand and her father sat in the stern of the boat. The weight disparity between a small, sylph like child and a large man became instantly apparent. The bow of the boat was so far out of the water that the rest of us could see the keel. It looked like some sort of a Miami power boat. Small girl could scarcely reach the water with the oars she was so high up. Whilst we rolled about laughing they rowed, stately as a galleon, studiously ignoring our snorts and gasps.

Finally they returned to shore and the children's attention turned to the wildlife. It is toad shagging season and for anyone who lives near freshwater they will know that there is a week of Toad Porn going on. Everywhere you look there are clusters of toads busy ensuring the future of the species. It is not unusual to see some 40 or so toads at it in the sunshine in one small patch of water.

It didn't take the children long to spot the toads but due to their camouflage it is easy to see the small male but not the larger, drabber female beneath him. After prodding several of the beleagured things with reeds I finally agreed to sweep up a toad in a bucket so that they could study him at close quarters.

So busy were they that the toads scarcely seemed to notice their change of habitat, but the children noticed all too quickly that I had presented them with not one, but two toads, apparently giving each other piggy backs. That is of course a nice, straightforwards story that I could have used but did I? Did I heck. When asked what they were doing I absent mindedly said 'Oh, they are having sex'.

What the hell was I thinking? The boys are 3 and 4, small girl is 7. I think there are rules, inviolable rules about this sort of thing. Rules along the lines of 'don't mention sex to other people's children, even in the context of toads'. It was too late though. I had brought the topic up and was rewarded with an instant question from one of the small boys; 'what's sex?'. I will say that I recovered fast. I had realised the quicksand that I had leapt into and took steps to edge myself out. 'Sex' I replied 'is how frogspawn is made'. This was taken on board with disinterest and attention reverted to whether it would be possible to hold the copulating toads, keep them in a matchbox, or poke them with a reed. It seemed disaster was averted, but only by the skin of my teeth.

It is one thing to educate your own children, but involunatry education of other people's children is a whole other kettle of fish that I wish I had come nowhere near. I must remember to say nothing in front of children, ever again, before I accidentally mention STD's, alternatives to the Missionary position and the truth about Father Christmas to more of the little wretches.

Insuring I'm ripped off....

So, life is a little hectic right now. In addition to trying to buy a house I have been working in France, London and Dorset (small commute then!) and at the moment it is a miracle if I am in one place for more than three hours at a time. This is a little tiring but it's the life I chose, and still choose, so I shall not complain too much (today!).

The thing I do want to whinge bitterly about is insurance and house surveys. I met with the bank today to finalise the mortgage arrangements (aaargh - fear - debt - penury - fear...). As part of the mortgage I have to get a valuation for which they charge a small yet painful fee of £256.00 This is for somebody to drive by the house on their way home and say 'looks rubbish to me - I'd only pay X'. They then inform the bank of this on their headed paper knocked up on Powerpoint. It's a disgrace and the world's biggest con. I mean I could do that. You could do that. For god's sake, the Loyal Hound could do that.

The next option is to do a Homebuyers Report. This is when they do exactly the same thing but write a longer report explaining that though they didn't see anything because the door was closed / they didn't go upstairs / they never actually went there the house could have damp, a roof that will blow off if somebody sneezes, windows that don't fit, a boiler that will explode every other Tuesday. This is an even bigger rip off at £550. I could still do that, as could you. It's just a bigger con.

The last and only viable option is a Buildings Survey. This is where they visit the house and actually go inside. They are usually a qualified surveyor of some kind and they prove it by bringing damp meters, test tubes and pipettes and possibly a lab coat and they test everything they can find. Then they inform you that the house is a death trap, everything that could go wrong, just might and that you would be nuts to buy it. This small novella will cost £856.00. OUCH. There are so many other things that I could buy with that money. Things I'd actually like to buy. I mean, when else do you pay to receive bad news?

I would so love to be the person who says 'bollocks to that' and just doesn't get a survey but at the back of my mind is the fact that if I don't get the survey then Sod's Law says that I will end up with a house that does have death watch beetle encamped on the sofa watching daytime television and drinking Horlicks. If I get the survey at least I would know this, but if I don't then I will have bought a house with a sitting tenant that could make it worthless. So, I have had to agree to spend nearly a thousand pounds on a survey 'just to be sure'. It's downright depressing.

I mean, we seem to insure against EVERYTHING. Car Insurance, health insurance, contents insurance, building insurance, travel insurance, life insurance, mortgage insurance, public liability insurance (Ok I have that one for work but I do have it). The bank also wanted me to take Sickness Insurance and Trauma Insurance (I might need that one if I survive the process of buying a house which is vilely traumatic). If I saved up all the money that I spent on insurance I'd be a millionaire and could retire in a fortnight.

When it comes down to it I don't actually know anybody whose life has been ruined because they didn't have insurance. I do know plenty of people though who had insurance which didn't pay out at the vital moment because of some incomprehensible and devious bit of small print that said the insurance was invalid if you had a vowel in your name, or you tried to claim in the afternoon, or you preferred Cindy to Barbie.... you get the general gist. It's the world's biggest scam and I fall for it everytime. Why? well, just in case of course.

I'm never going to be the person who doesn't insure, but I am it seems always going to be the person who bitches and moans about the fact that I wish I didn't have to. The only thing insurance seems to do, whether it be a survey or travel insurance, is insure that I get robbed once a month like clockwork.

Day Six - silver lining on snow clouds.

After the excitment of seeing actual people yesterday, and shops and everything I was on a high! I mean the town I went to had not one, but two greengrocers, and a Barnardos and a mad knitting shop. I went into all of them just because I could! Coming home later that night, pulling my groceries along on my toboggan with the loyal hound diving into the snow around me, I decided that I would make the most of this situation. That plan lasted all of ten minutes.

You can tell how bad it is by the fact that I am in the office on a Saturday when I don't have to be. This is entirely due to the fact that I am bored of being in the house, and I have been for three walks today just to pass the time and needed a newish horizon to make my return to the hovel more exciting.

I keep thinking the snow will go, but each morning I wake to find that yesterday's tracks and footprints have been eradicated in another snowfall and I am back to square one. I rescheduled last weeks meetings to next week and honestly, I'm not sure that I will be out by then.

By the time the snow does finally go I will have the tidiest house in Britain, the best organised office and the crazed look of Tom Hanks in Castaway. If I had a football I would instantly name it and start talking to it.

Watching the news / forecasts it is fascinating to see the presenters skate over (scuse the pun) the fact that every day they forecast more snow for North Wales. Because it is just 'small showers' then it doesn't count as anything much, but small showers (for which read several hours of snow) add up to multiple inches of snow on the ground and massive annoyance for me. But watching the news it is as if it is uninhabited up here and so snow falling in the mountains isn't relevant. Nothing like as relevant as a couple of days of inconvenience elsewhere in the country anyway. Currently we are getting the edge of the weather front that is in the South West, and the one travelling down the Irish Sea. This means I have had snow coming in from both ends of the valley. Sorry, enough of a whinge about national forecasting.

However there is an upside to the snow. The light. This time of year is normally so grey and drained of colour but the snow casts such wonderful light everywhere. Yesterday the hound and I went for a walk at 10 at night because the snow made it so light that you could see for miles. I guess that is my silver lining. Every snow cloud has one.

Cabin Fever - HELP!

I'm getting cabin fever. Seriously.

It is now the fourth day of being stuck in the snow and at the rate the snow is still coming down there are at least another two days to go. I'm not totally snowbound. I can walk off the mountain (or, like yesterday toboggan down 400 feet (in altitude terms) of mountain at ridiculous speed, shrieking like a loon) and hitch a lift to pick up supplies. This means that I'm not reduced to eating my shoes or anything in a Stalingrad style. However the inability to be independent and choose when and where I go, and for how long, is astonishingly frustrating.

I have caught up on all my chores. I've finished my work, thought about doing the filing. I've painted the second coat of paint on the bathroom, and painted all the beams in the house so that they aren't all black and glowery but elegant and taupey instead. I've fed the birds and plucked the brace of pheasant I had. I've cleaned the kitchen floor and watched nearly everything on my sky + box. I've read a book of John Updike short stories and finished A Thousand Splendid Suns. The Loyal Hound and I have been tobogganing just for the hell of it, rather than for transport purposes. This afternoon I think I will throw everything out of my wardrobe that I keep pretending I will fit again and hide it all in the car which has currently turned into a snowy storage depot. I am soon going to be forced into writing my own great novella just to pass the time.

More importantly my secret stash of kit kats is running low and I may have to resort to making fudge to keep me going. In addition the Loyal Hound is addicted to the snow and spends the entire time nagging me to let him go outside and play in it, again.

I watch the news and see reporters across the country discussing in all seriousness the fact that 'it has stopped snowing here in outer Cambridgeshire' or 'there are at least 4 inches here in the local town and people are having to walk to the shops' and I wonder if they even know that there are those of us who are quietly going crackers with genuinely limited access to the rest of the world.

So, entertain me, amuse me, make me feel connected to the rest of the world. Please!

Pesky Snow has trapped me again!

So, more snow then. I have to say, in a curmudgeonly way, that I have possibly lost the thrill of being snowed in. This makes the fifth time this winter and as I was supposed to be on my way to London right now and in Dorset on Wednesday it has rather buggered up my plans. Despite the fact that all the forecasts said that we would scarcely notice the snow I have several inches covering my world and I can't find the track at all in the white wilderness. I had vaguely considered getting my trusty wheelbarrow and gritting all half mile of it but if I can't find it, I can't grit it!

It never seems to do this when I don't have to be somewhere. Instead there is always something horribly urgent that means I have to walk off the mountain and hitch a lift with somebody with a four wheel drive to achieve whatever it is that needs doing. Today that was a trip to the solicitors and post office that took FOREVER. The document I had to sign was wrong and had to be re-done. The only cafe was closed and we ended up sitting in a car park watching the snow bury us alive. Once I had finally got the wretched thing and dashed through the snow to the post office the girl at the counter took the greatest pleasure in telling me that she could no more guarantee me delivery than she could look like Kate Moss. I suspect that she might eat my vital letter just to prove her point.

The Loyal Hound on the other hand could not be happier. That dog just adores snow. His favourite activity is to travel at a hundred miles an hour scooping snow up into his mouth as he runs. One day he'll crack his jaw on a rock and I'll laugh - a lot! He loved the walk through icy blizzards over the shoulder of the mountain and I suspect he laughed when I went flying as we went down the hill. All the same, it is almost better to have a dog with you in the snow than a small child. They get just as much enjoyment but don't care about being cold and wet!

So, now I have an enforced stay at home for at least another two days. This after the luxury of an entire weekend at home. I'm not sure that I remember how to spend that much time in my own house....

Death threat by Sausage Casserole.

I've been feeling bad all week. As I drove through the dawn on Monday to Dorset, froze my little socks off at various meetings and then drove through the Dorset lanes and back to Wales I have been suffering from pangs of inadequacy, guilt and just a soupcon more inadequacy. Why? You clamour. Read on and all will be revealed.

So, to celebrate surviving the puppy experience I spontaneously asked friends over for Sunday lunch. I mean to have friends over all the time, I have a vision of a Nigella like life where my house is filled with an ethnically appropriate mix of people who work in 'meejya' and write novels and who rave about the fabulous time they have at my hovel. In truth, as a result of the minimal amount of time I am actually home, the time I spend cooking elsewhere and my hermit like tendencies invites are issued all too rarely. When they are issued it is to perfectly lovely and thankfully normal friends. Not a 'meejya' babe in sight.

So, invites were issued and at lunchtime on Saturday I suddenly realised that I had six people for lunch and no food to speak of with which to feed them. Now in most places this would not be a problem. You would dash out to the nearest deli / supermarket and stock up on delicious things. This is Wales. They don't do delis, or supermarkets for that matter. Plus, I was puppy sitting so the amount of time I could leave the house was going to be limited. I decided to cook a stalwart favourite; Cider and Sausage casserole with pancetta. This is normally DELICIOUS and one of my favourite things, particularly as I usually have all the ingredients floating around the house.

Reviewing my larder, I discovered that I had not a sausage to my name. A dash to the village Londis was my only option. The sausages looked..... well, cheap. Not particularly appetising and that naked shade of pink that is rather worrying in a foodstuff. At this point I should have changed my menu plan but I thought 'No, the sauce is delicious so the sausages needn't be.' How wrong could I be?

On Sunday I discovered that cheap sausages, rather like Blue Nun wines, are never, ever a good buy. With the best cooking in the world, I was in trouble and there were no other options. I had nothing else I could cook instead, and nowhere to go to buy alternatives. It was too late. I had to serve the casserole even though I KNEW that the rubbish sausages were going to ruin it by being disgusting.

I tried to hide the horror by merrily offering bloody marys to one and all, only to discover I had no tabasco, no ice and no celery, so they had warm tomato juice with worcester sauce in it. And all the while, like a stormcloud on the horizon, lunch amd the repellent sausages were looming. Finally, it was too late to delay anymore and I served up the food.

It was torture watching my poor friends chew away and say in a manful way 'mmmm, delicous' as they reluctantly forced another mouthful down. The sausages were so tasteless and of such a revolting texture I was wondering if it would be cruelty to give the leftovers to the Loyal Hound later on that day.

God, I hate it when my cooking goes wrong. I'm not looking for flowers to be thrown at my feet and guests to pass out at the joy of the gastronomic experience I provide, but I do firmly believe that guests should get good food that makes them feel loved and wanted. Sunday lunch was more like an assasination attempt, or at the very least a hostile death threat. And all because I couldn't be bothered to drive the extra sixteen miles to get decent sausages.

I did make a tart au citron for pudding which turned out beautifully but it wasn't enough to make up for the disastrous casserole. Let this be a lesson to me. Never, ever think I can buy food from the local shop and actually eat it. The food there is for a nucleur holocaust, or hated enemies.

Now I can't decide whether to ask people back so I can try and redeem myself, or never have people over ever again in case they are frightened to actually eat......

Puffin 'eck!

I am a fool. Special Boy was given a puppy by his wife for Christmas. She is the great granddaughter of his much loved childhood Spaniel who went to the great kennel in the sky two summers ago. There was a lot of dithering about whether he should be given the puppy this year. Dithering with good reason.

Special Boy and his wife live in a tiny flat in London. It's known as The Mouse House and with good reason as it is small enough for mice to sniff at it in a sneering way and refuse to live there. If you want to sleep on their sofabed you have to open the oven door in the kitchen to fit your feet into the room as well as the rest of your body.

Anyway, my parents, who already have five dogs, had agreed to look after said puppy, thinking one more dog would make little difference, and the decision was made. Christmas day came and the puppy bounced out of a box with a ribbon round her neck and gave Special Boy the fright of his life. She was christened Puffin and subsequently she has been spoilt rotten by everybody who comes near her, as is only natural with a small, fluffy puppy.

Now, special boy and his wife have returned to London and my aged parents have sodded off to stay with friends having persuaded me that with my first free weekend in months I would surely love to do nothing more than puppy sit. Fool, fool, fool. I said fine.

She has been with me since about 4pm yesterday and in that time she has peed in the office 5 times (despite going out every half hour). She has pierced the Loyal Hound's ear with her needle sharp teeth (truly, she has), and stolen and shredded his favourite toy - The Phuck (so called because it looks like a pheasant but squawks like a duck).

She barks if you shut her in a different room, even if she can see you, and thinks that furniture is her plaything to be chewed, leapt upon and generally mauled so she has to be watched like a hawk. Once she was put to bed in the laundry room she barked until 1.30 am and then started again at 6.30am. When I finally staggered out of bed to let her out it turned out that she had poohed everywhere and then gaily jumped about in said pooh, spreading it all over the room before hurling herself at the door with poohey paws and decorating the door in crap. Quite literally. She is totally unrepentant and joyfully threw herself at my leg when I let her out, covering me in aforesaid crap as well.

I am now exhausted, have cricked my bag from bending over to clear up endless mess, scarcely slept due to puppy barking (and had odd dreams about giving David Tennant a puppy when i did sleep) and I have another 24 hours to go. So much for my luxurious weekend. In addition the Loyal Hound is in a terrible grump about having his toys stolen, his ear pierced, and his peace cut up by the Puffin terrorist.

p.s. I know, I know, all you mother's out there will be chortling to yourselves at the easiness of my task compared to small children but there are supposed to be upsides to being single and childless and this weekend was going to be one of them.

Snow, snow, snow

I'm having a rubbish 24 hours. Made it back from London yesterday and got my car stuck on my drive in the snow. I can officially tell you that there is nothing worse than feeling your car slide back down a hill with you in it, no ability to steer and no brakes! I finally ground to a halt and wedged the car into place with large rocks, having fallen spectacularly on my rear carrying said rocks into place. I then walked home the last quarter mile with my luggage and the loyal hound frisking around as if it was his birthday.

With some help from neighbours I got my car out of the ditch this morning and up the hill but I can't get it back off the hill so am stuck with walking on and off the mountain and borrowing other people's cars if I want to get anything done. Grrrr. I have spent the last hour walking to the nearest grit bin and filling my trusty wheelbarrow with grit to try and salt the road to the house in the hope that by tomorrow it will have melted a path for me to extract me and my car on. Unfortunately I just looked at tonight's forecast and it said more snow and temperatures of -6 so I may have to do the whole thing again tomorrow.

What is so ridiculous is that the snow in the valley has all melted. There is nothing more frustrating than having a view of green fields and being snowed in. It makes you feel like a completely inept GIRL!!!!!

Today, I really am Single and Surviving - Just.

Awards and Luxuries, and it's only Monday!

It's a frosty morning and I am mid way through my packing, but as I have the concentration level of a gnat on drugs, I thought I would run over to the office and check out what was happening in blogging land. What do I find? An award! For me!!! Thanks Bevchen - I think you've made my week!!! Here it is.....



Katyboo has also pointed out that I forgot my luxury item on my Desert Island Meme. Shame on me! I wondered about the Loyal Hound, but then I worried that he might not like the heat, so my luxury would be.............. (drum roll please), a saucepan please Bob.

I mean how am I going to do cordon bleu cooking on a desert island without one? It's unthinkable, and since Ray Mears is already going to be living with Katyboo on her island and he wasn't an option, I think a pan may be the next best thing.

Now, must go and finish packing, defrost the car and go and earn a living. Happy Mondays everyone!

Remember to breathe - Tick.

I have worked like a whirling dervish today. 'In' piles bearing the dust of centuries, have become crisp 'out' piles of post. I love productive days like this. To kick start my whirling dervish activities, I put on a tall hat and a long coat and spun my way over to the barn where I composed a long list of things that I have to get done this week. The list has ruled my day and no deviation from it is allowed. I'm strict with myself on things like that. However, I do have some sneaky tactics that I use when making lists.

The thing with lists is to put EVERYTHING onto them in order to get a really good sense of achievement by being able to cross them off. Start with 'go to office'. Excellent - I have arrived in the office and already can tick something off. Hurrah. Carry on with list by adding on the the various tiresome work related things for clients, remembering to breathe, eating lunch, talking to the loyal hound, checking the blog, writing lists etc etc. All too soon, I have an overwhelmingly long list but a list that I can instantly put checks against.

Reviewing it now, I can confirm that I have eaten lunch, remembered to breathe, and what's more done enormous amounts of work. There is a huge pile of post next to me ready to go to the post office tomorrow. My books are balanced (Georgette Heyer on top of Peter Ho Davies since you asked) and my e mails and phone calls are replied to. I have placed orders and paid bills and given my parents coffee when they did a drive by with some bags of coal and an apple tree for me (what can I say, they go shopping in odd places).

All this gives me a glowing feel of satisfaction and the perfect justification to go and meet a friend at a nearby reservoir and take the loyal hound for a walk while I pick blackberries. I am going to make blackberry whisky tonight.

I think I'll put going for a walk and make blackberry whisky on my list, then I can tick them off tomorrow morning.......

Thief in the Night.

Because I dislike cooking for one, as a general rule when I am home at the weekend, then I will cook something to last me through the week. So, a chicken might be sacrificed or, this weekend, a succulent ham. I had bought this on Saturday and cooked it that night with a view to a week of ham sandwiches for lunch (mmmm, delicious).

I wasn't actually particularly hungry on Saturday night so rather than cooking said ham for my supper, it simmered away whilst I was watching a film and I left it out on the side to cool overnight when I went to bed.

The next morning I stumbled downstairs, bleary eyed and in need of caffeine. My eyes travelled across the kitchen counter in search of the coffee. Something registered as being 'off'. The brain cells were moving slowly (lack of caffeine remember?) so it took a couple of seconds to realise that my succulent ham, left in all its burnished glory on the side, was a shadow of it's former self. Where there had been ham for a week, there was now a small nugget of ham about the size of a scotch egg.

I blinked, blinked again. Did I sleep eat? I looked at the Loyal Hound. He gazed innocently back. He had an alibi - it was me. Plus, he couldn't reach it and in all fairness he wouldn't have left a scotch egg sized hunk of evidence on the side to condemn him. Bewildered, I looked closer. The ham was no longer on its plate so I ruled out mice, unless I have some uber strong 'Dangermouse' style rodents at home. The whole thing had been gnawed on all four sides, eroding it away to the small piece left before me. This took some evil genius with a big stomach and sharp teeth. Eeergh. Could I have rats? God, please no.

Fearing the worst, I took the loyal hound for his morning walk through the mist. My stomach was revolting at the thought of rats in the house. Surely they wouldn't venture into the territory of the fearsome loyal hound, and wouldn't there be other evidence? I had left the top window open in the kitchen, as I usually do so they could have got in through that but I have never ever seen a single rat here. Ferrets, stoats, owls, crows - endless other predators. But not rats.

On the way back to the house I saw a leisurely movement on one of the tumbledown walls next to the house. There, licking its lips and stretching luxuriously in the sun, was a vast and very full cat. I had been robbed by a genuine, bona fide cat burglar. It showed no shame. In fact it smirked. It would have run away faster when the loyal hound spotted it but it was too full to manage more than squeezing through the fence and mocking him from the other side before sauntering off the mile down to the village, no doubt to rob some other poor sucker.

I wonder what else it got up to while it was in my kitchen? Had a snooze on my sofa? curled up by the embers of the fire, flicked through my magazines? copied down my pin number and card details? Cats. They aren't to be trusted. And now I have no ham for my lunch today. I wonder what cat tastes like?

It's all MeMe Me.....

So, Bevchen (http://confuzzledom.wordpress.com) has tagged me with a meme which has given me another sleepless night as I plot my answers. The idea is simple in theory - take the alphabet and make it all about me! So here goes:

A is for: Apples - the loyal hound has started picking the apples off the trees and then running round at high speed with them. Highly amusing for me but less so for my parents whose apple crop he is decimating!

A is also for Alaska and the Aurora Borealis: I really want to go there and see the Northern Lights. Apparently, if you go to the middle of nowhere and have a radio microphone you can actually listen to the Northern Lights singing. How fantastic is that.

B is for: Books. It has to be. I love them and can't have enough. I go into a panic if I am in a house without any. I re-read them, heap them round me and wake up in the middle of the night with a sudden urge to dive into a remembered plot and remind myself of how it went. Every room in the house is littered with books to cater for sudden panic attacks where I need a book instantly. Even my car has books in it in case I have ten minutes spare before a meeting and could read something.....

B has to also be for Bedlinen; I really love a beautifully made up bed with an excess of down pillows, crisply ironed Egyptian cotton (or irish linen) sheets with a thread count so high it needs a route number. The best duvet ever and a blanket to pull up if you want to. I'm not sure there are many things better.

C is for: Chocolate and cake, or chocolate cake, or cake with chocolate on it. There seems to be a theme here. I will break most moral and ethical codes for the Lindt red truffles and have never worked out how to manage ladylike restraint when there is cake in the room.....

C is also for cloud. I quite literally spend some of my time living with my head in the clouds, today being a good example when I can't see my house from the office because the cloud has dropped so low.

C also is for Courtesy and Charm; I don't understand when they became something to be ashamed of? Whenever somebody is courteous or charming to me I blush like a schoolgirl and feel like a million pounds. Why therefore is it considered better to scowl / swear / spit at somebody rather than be charming, or courteous. Both are free.

D is for: Diets. I don't believe in them, unless they involve eating only cake. Diets make you miserable and I'd rather be fat and happy. So yah boo sucks to everyone torturing themselves with only a photo of a lettuce leaf for lunch; I'm having omelette with mushrooms and grated cheese and I don't care about my cholestrol!

D is also for Desert Island Discs: If I ever become famous I shall start panicking about what to put on my desert island discs list. There's so much music to choose from and I don't know that I can whittle it down enough. Then again, I'd quite like a year on a desert island to read all of shakespeares plays.

E is for: Women called Emma. I seem to have an awful lot of 'Emma's' in my life. I attract them like honey attracts bees. It's a thing.....

E is also for Eye Surgery which I had to correct my terrible eyesight. I love not wearing glasses but the whole thing was pretty traumatic and i wouldn't want to go through it again.

F is for: French. I'd really like to speak French but I can't. I get it mixed up with the token amount of Spanish and Italian that I know and end up speaking gibberish with an 'allo 'allo accent. Very disappointing.

G is for Good Films. I love a really good film. There's nothing better than getting swallowed up in a celluloid adventure and emerging slightly dazed at the other side. Then again there is nothing worse than a really bad film that you were looking forward to and then have to switch off after thirty minutes because it is so awful.

H is for: House. I really want one of my own and I can't find one. I've been looking for 3 1/2 years and haven't found one that I could afford and want to live in. I love the house I rent but can't escape the fact that I want one of my own. The only good thing about the credit crunch is that maybe houses will become more affordable.

I is for: I pod. I love it - it's one of the nicest technological advances in our lifetimes. How great to have every bit of music you have ever loved at your fingertips all the time.

J is for: Jam. Some of you may know I am obsessed with jam. I make it because I have a surplus of fruit and enter it in the local show every year where it is mocked, put in a corner and shunned by other jams. It's not fair - it's nice jam, it tastes good, it looks pretty and it's delicious on hot toast. Damn those jam judges who can't tell a good jam when it is right in front of them.

K is for Kissing: It's been an alarmingly long time since I kissed anyone. This is because every man I know is either married, a hundred year old hill farmer or a cyber man who lurks on the internet but never comes out to play. I'm not sure my lips would know what to do if they got some kissing action it's been so long.....

L is for Lollipops: I don't get them. Ice cream I can see the point of but Lollipops always have a weird flavour, are immeasurably sticky and unsatisfying. They are the food of the devil.

L is also for the Loyal Hound: There's nothing better than another being that firmy believes you are the beginning and end of all things and is also prepared to sleep on your feet to keep them warm. He'll also pick fruit! Now I just have to teach him to do the washing up and I'll be happy.

M is for Mothers: all my friends now seem to be mothers. It's intriguing seeing what kind of mothers they become; the wildest of them is the most paranoid and protective parent whilst the most anal one is by far the most relaxed of all the mothers I know. I also find motherhood a frustration. What I don't like is that all the mothers seem to stick together - they have this bond of lunacy / exhaustion / miracle of life thing that means you don't get a look in. It changes your friendships for ever.

M is also for Mountains: I don't like living somewhere with no mountains in view. I like to look up at them and wonder what is on the other side. My bedroom window as a child looked onto mountains and every night I would make up entire worlds that existed on just the other side of the peaks that watched over me.

N is for Nothing Days: you know, those days where you achieve nothing at all despite your best intentions and then you are cross and frustrated at the wasted time. Because you were supposed to be doing stuff all day you don't even get the satisfaction of refusing to get out of your pyjamas and reading books all day. You just move from one thing to another, somehow achieving absolutely NOTHING. I hate days like that. They make me miserable.

O is for the Olympics: I am torn about them. I like the idea of nations coming together without politics to compete but I don't like the idea of countries bankrupting themselves to hold the games. I am also worried that we will embarrass ourselves in London by not having anything finished. I spoke to a builder the other day who delivered some stuff to the olympic site. He said the foundations aren't even in yet.

P is for Physics: I am a secret physics nerd and love the way physics effects everything every day. It's amazing.

P is also for Pain au Chocolat from Gail's on Portobello Road. These are the best pain au chocolat in the world - seriously. They are crumbly and crisp, they are the kind of thing that make the world grind to a halt when you eat them because you have to savour every moment. If you ever are in london and near them go and buy one and you will see what I mean.

P is also for Poetry: I have a great weakness for poetry, particularly WH Auden and Dylan Thomas. They would be on my desert Island discs book list.

Q is for Quality Street: the most disappointing chocolates - too many weird flavours and not enough fudge and toffee and that's my final answer.

R is for Roses. I love full blown scented English Roses. A big bowl of them spilling petals has to be one of the great luxuries of life. When I finally have a house I shall have enough roses growing that I can pick them every day.

S is for Shakespeare: I love shakespeare. I read Antony and Cleopatra for A level and was mesmerised by the sheer genius of it. You could set the whole relationship today and it would ring true. Forget Freud and Neitsche - Shakespeare had the best understanding of people and how they tick. The man was a bona fide genius.

S is also for smoking: I know, I shouldn't but I do. I want to give up for all the reasons that you should give up smoking, but I still enjoy it. I wish I had never smoked that first cigarette then I wouldn't know what I was missing. I think the smoking ban is a good thing.

T is for Tea: I used to be a coffee drinker and then I moved to Scotland for a while. I don't know whether it is the water up there but the coffee was disgusting and I became and avid tea drinker. I'm a builders tea girl with the odd foray into Earl Grey or Peppermint but I think fruit teas are the drink of the devil. They taste of nothing and smell of too much.

U is for Urugauy. It is one of those countries that I can never quite place on the map - I mean I know it is South America but not quite where in South America. I should like to go to all those countries that I can't quite place.

V is for Stolen Vegetables. I have tried to get over the great carrot theft of 2008, but I may have to ring Victim Support to get closure!

V is also for Vegans: I don't understand vegans - I get vegetarians but veganism is a step too far for my pea like brain.

W is for Wales: Wales for me is home, it always has been. Wherever I go in the world, there is something in me that unwinds like a cat in front of the fire when I cross the border and am home again. I know it is wet, and hilly and has no shops but somehow it is still the place to which I belong.

X is for X factor: I'm not a big reality television person but when I do catch the end of this program I'm constantly amazed by two things. 1) how many people desperately long to be famous and to escape their own lives 2) how many people seem completely oblivious to their own astonishing lack of talent.

Y is for Youth: I don't know when it happened but I don't think I can say I am young anymore. I'm not old, and I don't feel middle aged but there is definitely more than one generation out there who are younger than me. Not feeling young anymore is depressing. I think the definition of youth is the belief that you can do anything you want to when you want to. The definition of losing your youth is knowing that you have already missed the opportunity for some of those things and that others you will never achieve. I have had to give up my dream of becoming a trapeze artist.....

Z is for Zen Gardens: I don't see the great calming beauty in a zen garden. Why are a bunch of pebbles, some clipped hedges and some raked sand the ultimate in mental calm? I'm getting quite stressed just thinking about them.

So, there you go - my meme. It's not earthshattering and it was harder than I thought in some bits. However it successfully enabled me to avoid work for a good hour so I count it as time well spent!

And the prize goes to........

So, the showday is here. I was up before the dawn (ok, about 8.30 but you get the general idea) and carefully pacing the kitchen garden to look for entries. This didn't take long as it is only 3 metres by 1.5 metres, so I did it several times to make it look good. Finally, my choices were made. Having pulled up ALL my carrots, several of which would have underwhelmed a dolls house tea party, I selected the only four that were straight and carrot coloured.

Next came the potatoes. Having stabbed through the best one with the garden fork, and accidentally picked up a giant toad (eeurgh), I found four that looked like they could hold their own.

Next row - beetroot. These were a bit of a joke as none of them look particularly like beetroots. They are more like purplish truffles with an excessive facial hair problem but I was in the spirit of things and lobbed these into the basket.

On my way back to the kitchen, the loyal hound distracted me by trying to dig up a particularly shouty shrew under the rhubarb. Since he was in the process of destroying the entire crop, I rescued four of the least mangled stems and took those in as well.

Back in the kitchen, the vegetable beauty salon began. I scrubbed, I plucked, I polished. By the end of at least four minutes hard labour I had 4 sort of evenly sized potatoes, 4 completely different sized carrots and three very lumpy beetroot. The rhubarb was glossy and pink and I was just going to have to hope that the judges didn't notice the teeth marks on one of them.

In the middle of this, glowing like a nucleur warning, sat the Lemon Curd. Fired with enthusiasm I cut up an old napkin up as a top for it and searched out one of the post rubber bands to seal the deal. I was ready for the go.

When I arrived, the hall was quiet. A few early birds had left their entries but the main bulk was still to arrive. I carefully arranged my entries on the remaining, uncut up napkins and a glow of pride came over me. The Lemon Curd looked like a Best in Show entry, and as none of the other categories had any other entries at that stage I have to admit, I had high hopes. These didn't last long....

Half an hour later I returned to help the aged parent unload her entries. She had gone for the Baghdad blanket bombing technique and had even lugged down the kitchen sink in the hope of entering it. She had also shown strategy and had cunningly entered categories unlikely to be entered by anyone else. (I have to tell you this technique worked - the woman cleaned up and had TEN PRIZES (8 of which were uncontested but still....)

On arriving back at the hall, laden with produce, sinks, flowers and everything else she owns my heart sank. The place was awash with entries. My lemon curd with it's napkin top was being jostled by crowds of shinier jars with prettier tops. My carrots were dwarfed by mutated giant specimens and it took ten minutes to locate my truffle shaped beetroots amongst the threatening shadows cast by the other entrants. What hope was there for me?

Skip to 4.00 o'clock this afternoon. Having given myself a strict talking to about 'taking part being everything, not winning' I wend my way down the side of the mountain to the village hall. First stop - the lemon curd. NOTHING - AGAIN! How could this be? What did I do wrong? It smelt lemony, it tasted lemony, it had a napkin lid. There was nothing else I could do. I suspect bribes, chicanery and backhanders. I pick up the losing pot and hurl it into the basket where it lies at the bottom like the LOSER that it is.

Desolate, I head towards the beetroot. NOTHING. Surely a beetroot with facial hair and no roundness to it all deserves a prize for originality at least? Apparently not. Next, the rhubarb. Apparently the judges did care about the teeth marks in the rhubarb 'cos they didn't give them a second glance. Most unjust.

I have little hope for the potatoes or the carrots - they are hotly contended categories and bitterfly fought over. I turn to look, with my brave face firmly in place. But what is this? A yellow card? by my potato entry?

Third Prize is mine! Oh the glory, the adulation, the overwhelming sense of victory! I will be worshipped wherever I go. People will whisper and point and it won't be because I forgot to brush my hair - again. Then, miracle of miracles, the carrots catch my eye. Glowing orange in the afternoon sunlight they are the proud receivers of ANOTHER PRIZE! Third prize in the carrots. My cup runneth over, my joy knows no bounds. Who cares about the lemon curd (well, I do actually - feel a bit bitter actually). My carrots have come third, and not because there were only three entries - they came third out of a massive six entries. Just call me Alan Titchmarsh - I am invincible.

I take a deep breath and walk outside. I must look cool, calm, collected. As though I expected such a bounty and can take it in my stride. I can't take away my prize winning entries (or the losing ones for that matter) for another half hour so wander down to the sheep dog trials to pass the time. But when I return - DISASTER.

SOMEBODY STOLE MY PRIZE WINNING CARROTS!

Who could do such a thing? I knew that being succesful would cause envy in those around me, but how was I to swallow such a bitter pill? They even stole the prize winning card. Now my beautiful carrots will go into somebody else's stew. The prize winning card will be propped on their mantlepiece and the glory will be theirs. My first real victory and it is taken from me. Who cares about the potatoes now? I have lost all my faith in the rural community - they are all thieves and vagabonds and somebody is gloating over third prize carrots that aren't theirs............

I am composing a letter to the Home Secretary to complain about rural crime. When will it end and why oh why couldn't they have stolen the lemon curd instead??????

Game, Set and Match with slobber on.......

The blessed peace, the quiet, the sheer heaven of being home alone. The world is my oyster. I can hear nothing other than the occasional sigh from the Loyal Hound as he enjoys life without being in trouble and the bliss of solitude once more.

He has suffered greatly over the weekend. In an eager effort to please he has carefully gone around gathering up the various articles of clothing, toys, beakers, snotty tissues that have been abandoned in a trail behind the swooning nephews, and has carried them all back to me. What can I say. He has a tidy nature. Unfortunately my sister has an excessive awareness of hygiene. No ten second rule for her. Despite having grown up surrounded by dogs, cats and various other bits of wildlife dragged into the house (usually by me and my brother), she has decided that wildlife is 'unsanitary' and the loyal hound definitely counts as wildlife.

I tried explaining that a dog's mouth was more sanitary than a persons mouth, but she rather unkindly pointed out that she didn't see any people carrying her children's abandoned belongings round in their mouths. Picky or what.

She then heaves a long suffering sigh as he appears with another abandoned T shirt carefully scrunched up in his mouth, tail wagging with pleasure at being able to help. As I hand it to her she ostentatiously puts it in the 'wash pile'.

What happened to her? She used to be a normal, fun, amusing person who laughed and didn't secretly wipe down counters with antiseptic wipes when she thought nobody was looking. Then she got married and had children. Now I'm not saying that it is the fate of all women to become dull, paranoid and disapproving when they procreate but there are days when I think it was hers. What really confuses me is how she can now so thoroughly disapprove of her own childhood? Everything that we loved about growing up - being allowed to run outside on our own, refusing to wear our shoes for months on end, lying fast asleep in a heap of dogs, waging war on each other with pillows, sticks, hand grenades (depended on the level of war as to the weapons used), refusing to change our clothes when they were covered in grass stains, cake and river weed. These are all things that frighten her to death for her own children.

Consequently, they scream with fear if they trip over, they sob if they get water on themselves, they think flies are the work of the devil (this may be true but as there is little you can do about the pesky blighters I don't think it is worth pointing out their true evil nature to children), they don't like being barefoot on the grass. I could go on but it just depresses me.

What depresses me more is that there is an inviolable law that says you can't tell your sister that she has turned into a lunatic and that her children are following her down the yellow brick road to lunacy. Even worse, all this paranoia makes her life exhausting, and her exhausted and consequently even more paranoid, dull and freaked out by anything that can't be controlled.

Having got that little rant out of the way I must return briefly to the loyal hound. In between irritating my sister he managed to excel himself in a sport that all dogs should be famed for - Croquet.

There is a standing rule in our house that if the dog retrieves the croquet ball mid game then you have to play from where he drops it. Little did everyone realise that I have got his training to a peak of fabulousness and he carefully fetched my croquet ball and dropped it neatly in front of the relevant hoop each time. Game Set and Match to me and the Loyal Hound!!!!

Who says its good to be back?

So I'm back from my annual foray to the world where the sun shines for more than 5 minutes. Turns out it can shine all day, every day. Who knew??? Not me for much longer as it has done nothing but rain since I got back.

Upsides of returning:

The loyal hound was overjoyed. Fetched me an entire duvet, three books and my sunglasses which I had forgotten to take with me
I now can't worry about the fact that my holiday is nearly over
There were two cheques in the post.

Downsides of returning:

I had to come home
I have to go into the office
I don't have any more holidays in sunny places until October when I am going to Qatar, which I don't actually want to go to....
It's raining all the time
Siestas four times a day are frowned on here.

So there you go. Brief foray to the world of swimming, sleeping, reading and eating is tragically over and the grey tinged world of tiredness, being awake, being too tired to read and feeling guilty for eating has reasserted itself.