I have received a reminder from the vet to say that the dog and cat need their booster vaccinations. Last year, Dana dog was pronounced overweight. (By around 8 kilos). This year, she is sleek and slim. It will be interesting to see how near she is to the ideal 29 kilo weight for breed. (Retriever in case you have forgotten.)
More interesting – will be catching the cat to fit in with the appointment time.
This is not the slimline Dana – but this is
the position she loves most. Well, any
position really as long as it is in water.
Watch this space for the sleek dog once
she has had her grand weigh-in. Watch
this space also to see if I get better at
manipulating images.
It might take a while.
And I need to find a way to save better
quality web images. It is a whole new
world out there.
The Sunday Herald has published an impressive Power Map of the links between people in politics and people in the media in Scotland. The newspaper's conclusions seem to be that: (a) political success requires strong networking skills with those influential in the media – (being “bedfellows” helps); (b) Scotland is very small – more a village than a world power; and (c) they admit they could be totally wrong because the Scottish Scocialsts and the Greens have hardly any links, yet are succesful.
Oh well – the colours are very pretty in the diagram.
The new driveway is giving much entertainment at the moment. Firstly, there is the novelty of being able to try out new parking arrangements – Which way round do we face today? Secondly, there are different methods of turning the cars within the garden – How do we avoid bumping into the steps or the new fence? Thirdly, there is the matter of the colour. The new aggregate is a dusty pink, and there was some talk of whether to get extra stones to rake in with the older grey ones. That way at least there would be a multicolour and graded effect, rather than the current striped position. However, all is not lost; after washing the cars, the husband discovered that the well-washed cars had dripped all over the pink stones, making them grey.
So why have they gone back to pink again?
Time is what it will take. Time and the inevitable Argyll rain.
Travelling in the car is useful space to work out talks, sermons and so forth. Earlier this week I was practicing my slot for the End of Term school services. It obviously gave a fright to one man stopped behind me at a set of traffic lights. I admit it must have looked very odd, because it was obvious I was talking to someone, only there was no-one there.
Can it really be the end of the spring term already? There are two school services today, so it must be true. I seem to have lost quite a lot of the year – that is what comes of being off work for four weeks. My stamina is still not back up to form yet either. Is that why one day seems to begin before the previous one has ended?
When I was at primary school – many years ago – there was a nasty custom whereby someone would shout out …. A pinch and a punch for the first of the month and no return whatsoever….. all the while administering the said pinch and punch to the hapless victim. I never seemed to be the one to know when it was the first of the month, so developed a nifty way of dodging the perpetrators. The…..no return whatsoever…. was supposed to protect the perpetrator from retaliation, so I suppose there must have been a code of conduct that had some kind of honour in it.
Why do I think of this when reading of the latest atrocities in Iraq? The mutilation of bodies and mob-hysteria is anathema to most of us, but then I like to think that it is horrific to most of the Iraqi people as well. As a minister, my job is to preach love, forgiveness, tolerance, compassion and truth, and that is hard in the climate of terrorism and a war that is not supposed to be a war. I suppose I am saying that there is the root of violence and self-preservation in all of us, and we simply have to plod on trying to become the best that we can.
By the way, the 1st of April always caught me unawares at school, and still continues to do so. I am one of the gullible, who finds it hard to distinguish fact from fiction, especially when it appears in national newspapers. Perhaps that is because the older I become, the stranger the world seems – and the more believable.
It was great fun seeing the new driveway finally take shape. The mini-digger, operated with skill, helped the two barrowing operatives to get the gravel spread in under two hours. There is ample space for car-parking and the dog is not getting so muddy either. The extended sitting area is also a great boon, and I spent a happy half-hour decorating it with trophy-buoys (rescued from many a beach), and bits of driftwood and stone.
Eat your heart out Ground Force – we have our own helpers here. And one from further afield who gave up part of his holiday to pitch in.
Thanks everyone!
My car has received a Recall Notice. A bit worrying really as I have been happily driving it without mishap (the odd ditch or two excluded) for the last two and a half years. It seems it could suddenly stall without reason and then refuse to start.
Sounds like me on a bad day.
My birthday present has opened up a whole new range of possibilities. It is a Janome 3500 – not that I want to advertise, but having a modern, computerised sewing machine has revived my interest in the domestic arts. Now I shall have to search out websites dealing with sewing makings, or favours – as they used to be called.
Watch out for fancy vestments in church.
Happy days.
I think I have got the clocks turned the right way this year. Spring Forward, Fall Back…. is the memory aid that comes to mind. But I also remember one Sunday many years ago, when I turned up at church to find no-one around. It was just as well that husband was in tow; even so, it took quite a while for the panic and sense of the end of the world to go away. Then we realised that the clocks had changed. Fortunately it was in autumn, so no real harm was done. Springtime has the hidden hazard of missing the ferry and arriving at church as everyone else is leaving.
