Canine cuts and shivering Spoodles

Recently I had what was possibly the blondest moment of my entire brunette history.

With the temperatures rising (or so we thought) and Charlie resembling more Siberian Yak than perfectly groomed pooch, I booked him in for his S|S13 cut.

The day arrived, and with 20 minutes left to get him wash, cut and blow dry ready, I left the house and headed off into town. With time on my side, the sun shining and a friend on speakerphone, I merrily made my way into town in an unhurried, stress-free manner.

Sitting at the final set of traffic lights and preparing to pull in and park, I told the friend I best be going as I had to get the dog unloaded and ready to roll. It was then that the realisation of my total and utter stupidity hit home.

As I turned around to look in the back seat I remembered the single most important component of the outing: the dog. The same dog that was currently sitting on the other side of the gate at home, happily gnawing on a treat in the midday sun.

The words “drat, damn and bother” – or something meaningful to that effect – sprang from my mouth. The phone (with friend still laughing) was hung up and the car turned around. The dog groomer was called and warned of Charlie’s impending lateness; I could sense eyes rolling. My husband was called and warned off my impending lateness for lunch; I was greeted with further laughter and called a numpty.

Unsurprisingly the journey there and back again was neither unhurried or stress free. Every slow-driving, law-abiding road user in Norwich was now out and hogging all available lanes in front of me.

Charlie greeted me with a look of surprise and alarm as I screeched across the gravel, oiked him over the gate and threw him into the passenger seat faster than he could enquire whether he was going somewhere nice – which was just as well really as he wasn’t.

Unfortunately, since having his summer ‘back, sack and crack’, the weather has turned and summer is quite clearly not just around the corner. So while we certainly appreciate having a clean, sweet-smelling dog to stroke in front of the TV at night, in hindsight, Charlie could have probably done with those extra few inches of matted fur to keep his slender frame warm in this chilly May wind.

To make amends for this premature shearing, I’ve resorted to turning the heating back on, wrapping him up and allowing him to practically take up residence on my lap at every available opportunity.

It’s a dog’s life indeed.

Run Spoodle Run

Charlie (a Spoodle) is our ever so slightly dimwitted dog that simply refuses to do things by the canine rulebook. All in all he’s a complete nutter who acts like a shadow, snaps at the air, barks at the boiler and escapes from the front door if ever the opportunity presents itself.

If he wasn’t so fluffy and cute he’d probably have been banished to a dogs home long ago and he certainly wouldn’t have been flown back at Business Class prices to join us in the UK.

The worst of his habits is definitely the bolting. I’ve lost track of the number of times panic has descended as I spot his tail disappear out of an open door at roughly 50mph. Faster than a bloody whippet, there’s no stopping him in his tracks. There are times he’s been missing for hours as he races around the neighbourhood with absolutely no regard for road safety or the neighbours privacy. He went into one woman’s house on our street in Perth, ate all the tuna from her cat’s bowl and then stretched out on her bedroom floor for a sleep while she was in the shower. Luckily she had a strong heart and a fairly forgiving nature.

The same can’t be said of others who have experienced his flighty nature. In fact I think nearly all of my family have written him off as a lost cause and pain in the backside.

Whilst friends were staying with us last year Charlie once again did a runner. He shot down the road and into a nearby church with our panicking house guest chasing down the hill after him in not very suitable running shoes. Apparently he was eventually cornered by some gravestones by a few people who came to help. I say apparently as I was upstairs recovering from my eye op at the time and was oblivious to the drama unfolding below. Needless to say Charlie, having nearly induced a heart attack in said house guest, wasn’t exactly the flavour of the day.

On another occasion when we were out enjoying our first country walk back in the UK,  he also managed to wind up a herd of cows and cause the most almighty stampede. I suppose you can’t really blame him for investigating these strange new creatures but you have to wonder why he thought it a wise move to hang around when they all turned to face him with a rather menacing look in their eye.

Had he been a cleverer dog he might have hopped it then, but he wasn’t and he didn’t. He barked up at them loudly and then looked mighty surprised when they all started to chase him – in our direction no less. Now I never realised how fast a cow could run up until that point. Let’s just say that with all of us sprinting at full pelt we only just made it to the gate in time. I pushed my daughter through in front of me, my husband literally picked my son up by the seat of his trousers and chucked him over, before vaulting over himself.

Poor Charlie, with no time to make it through behind us he had to keep running. I’ll never forget the sight of a small fluffy dog streaking around the field with 6 angry cows in hot pursuit. Luckily for him he’s damn fast. All was going well until he reached a dead-end and was eventually cornered. For a while we lost sight of him, then there was a lot of mooing and what sounded like a yelp. At this point my daughter was in floods of tears and shrieking “They’re going to kill” him. I have to admit the same thought was also going through my mind although obviously I didn’t voice it out loud.

Finally we saw him tearing back along the path towards us. We opened the gate a fraction and for once he actually came when he was called. Needless to say we didn’t go back into that field again and every time we walked past it after that he gave it a sideways glance and picked up the pace.

So having narrowly escaped death by cattle, you’d have thought Charlie would have learned to control his wanderlust and keep his head down around bigger animals. Sadly not.

Shortly after moving into our new house, and at a highly stressful time for us all, he squeezed out of the front gate and disappeared around the corner. In the time it took for me to open the gate and follow him, he was nowhere to be seen.

I eventually heard some distant barking and tracked him down (through someone’s garden) to a nearby field. And there he was, racing around in circles and barking at 4 horses, who were  in turn, racing around after him. To make matters even worse 2 farmers (who I later realised also happened to be our neighbours) were also chasing Charlie, screaming the most offensive of all profanities at him and throwing rocks at his head. Like that was going to help the situation.

Of course Charlie didn’t come when I called him, but by this stage he was being attacked on all sides and didn’t know which way was up. I was stressed out and intimidated by those missile-wielding men, so it’s no surprise that he just kept on  running in circles and barking at everything that came near him. One strangled howl later and the horse clocked him on the head with its hoof. Charlie went down like a ball of blood covered fur and lay shaking on the ground. “Well that will probably have killed him” the ever so friendly farmer said. I grabbed the dog, turned and ran in the direction of home.

My husband was searching for us and nowhere to be seen when I got there, so I grabbed the car keys and drove off to find him. His anger at the disappearing dog did diminish slightly when he spotted the quivering pooch laid across my lap,  sneezing blood all over the steering wheel.

A trip in an ambulance, an x-ray, 2 nights in hospital and a load of medication later and Charlie returned home with his large plastic collar on and a rather sheepish look in his one good eye. The other one, in which he very nearly lost the sight, was so black and blue he could hardly open it.

Charlie after 10 rounds with a horse

Once again I’d like to say that Charlie has finally learned his lesson about the perils of bolting, but I’d be lying. And kidding myself.

Alas I fear it’s in his nature to run,  so instead of focusing on how we can teach him to stay put, we’ve simply designed the house so he can’t leave. This may not be the right approach but what to do. Putting in new fences and a complicated system of gates sure beats having to scrape the family pet off the road at some point in the future. Or more worrying still, him causing an almighty pile up, or worse.

Of course if anyone out there can let me know a way to stop dogs bolting like this, then please do. And if Cesar Millan happens upon this tale of woe and fancies a bit of a challenge, he’s all yours.

And one more thing, if you’re getting a dog and can’t decide whether to splash out on pet insurance every month, then take it from me, it’s worth it and you’ll probably get back every penny you spend – and then some.

Building, burying and stupid dogs

It’s hard to believe it’s January since I last wrote much on here but I know it’s been too long as I’ve had quite a few people contact me to ask me where I’ve gone. Very flattering, I didn’t know anyone on the Internet even cared!

Of course it probably sounds silly to say that time’s just flown by, but for these last few months life has simply got in the way of life. Or rather, there’s been so much upheaval and mayhem that even sleeping has been something of a luxury recently. Of course everyone gets tired, but you know you’re beyond knackered when you try to take your eye makeup off with nail varnish remover and brush your teeth with Canestone. The first painful mistake was mine, the second disgusting one was that of my rather unfortunate husband.

So what on earth can cause such an extreme form of exhaustion that you’ll strip the skin from your eyelids for several minutes before you even realise what you’re doing?  To break it down: buying, building and burying. With a little near canine death in between.

Back in January we bought a house. We gutted it of pretty much everything that could be removed and then re-built it from the roof down and the floor up. With so much to do and something of a self-inflicted time restraint placed upon us (moving 2 kids, a dog and a house full of stuff into said house a mere 6 weeks after demolition begin) there wasn’t really a day, hour or minute where life didn’t revolve around lists of things to buy and jobs that all involved some type of hardcore machinery and cement.

Over the last few months we’ve pulled down walls and ripped out bathrooms, plastered up stinking rats nests and ripped out old ceilings, rebuilt kitchens, added rooms, changed windows and discovered fireplaces we didn’t even know we had. All, I might add, in sub-zero temperatures with snow falling outside and icicles forming on my nose. So cold was it that I do believe the only time I didn’t need to wear 3 layers, 2 pairs of gloves and a scarf to work on the house was the afternoon I spent stripping wallpaper in a room filled with steam. It was a welcome facial indeed.

The moment the Norfolk ice caps melted and the sun showed the slightest hint of appearing, we moved outside to tackle what was meant to be the garden. We cemented in what seemed like 100′s of fence posts, lugged 9 foot sleepers, dug out vast quantities of earth, shifted 4 tonnes of gravel and 2 tonnes of sand by hand, put down turf and laid some sort of patio.

Yes, all in all it’s been a rather manual time to say the least.

And then, right in the middle of all of this physical exertion, my emotions took an almighty battering. With one short phone call and those dreaded words of  ‘you’d better sit down’ I found out my grandmother was in hospital. A frantic dash across the country to Weymouth followed by possibly the worst night of my life and the worst case scenario happened.

Thankfully death isn’t something we come across much on a day-to-day basis, but the downside of this does mean we’re not really equipped (or prepared) to deal with the fall out. Because, much like love, grief is an extremely complex emotion that unfortunately has to be experienced to be understood. It’s a surreal time when nothing makes sense, the world seems unfair and life is basically nothing but a bitch.

Two weeks later and one rather emotional funeral behind us, I finally returned home to the world of small children, half-finished houses and living. The following morning, before I’d even had a chance to unpack or regroup, Charlie (the rather dim-witted Spoodle of the house) decided to make a bid for freedom. He flattened himself to the thickness of an envelope and somehow squeezed under the wire attached to the bottom of the gate.

Who knows why he felt it necessary to play chicken with the traffic. Perhaps he felt he needed a little more adrenaline in his life that morning, or he’d been watching The Shawshank Redemption and had been digging out the drive with a stick for the previous few months. Either way, bloody stupid dog.

An hour later and I’m speeding down the road in the car with a near-dead dog in my arms, frantically looking for my husband who’s out looking for us. I eventually find him, somewhere between the pavement and the warpath, all ready to kill the escapee dog.

And so we headed off to find a vet in a town that we didn’t even know, with Charlie sneezing blood all over the place and looking like he’d been kicked in the head by a horse. Mainly because he had been, the dim-witted dog. Needless to say he’s still alive, one ambulance, 2 nights in hospital and a rather large bill later. All I can say is thank god for pet insurance, anyone who says it’s not worth having obviously has better trained animals than us.

So there you go, a whole list of reasons why I haven’t had much time to write this blog lately. I’m hoping the second half of the year is slightly easier than the first. I really fail to see how it can’t be, although saying that 6 months ago I had no inkling that any buying, building or buying was on the cards for 2011.

I can’t say I was exactly surprised about the near-dead dog bit though, it’s not the first time he’s thought with his paws instead of his brain and I can guarantee it won’t be the last.

When a spoodle meets snow

Charlie has had quite a few life adjustments to make this year, what with having to pack up with bed and his bone and move house, country and hemisphere.

Poor little Aussie pooch. Over the course of the last 6 months he has been poked, prodded and vaccinated to within an inch of his life. He has flown around the world in a tiny box and spent time behind bars.

He’s been chased by  cows and discovered sheep, got into a bit of a tussle with a swan and had a something of a run in with a donkey. He’s met relatives he never knew he had and encountered dogs he probably wished he hadn’t. He’s taken his first walk on a pebble beach, dipped his toes in the freezing sea and enjoyed the delights of Fleet service station.

And on top of all that, he’s had to get to grips with the rather strange Norfolk accent. Because, let’s be honest, some of the humans speak a little bit odd around here, so I can only imagine how the canines bark.

So this morning we woke up to snow and Charlie, who could cross his legs no longer, went on out into the garden on rather tentative tippy claws.

I have to say that for a dog born, raised and walked in a far sunnier climate, he did, for the most part, seem to enjoy the whole wintry experience. Though it must have been something of a shock for him to have to do his first wee of the day against something so cold it ran the risk of sticking to his doghood.

We’ve got l

We’ve got l

And for those of you who may be wondering ‘What is a Spoodle?’ here’s the answer!

 

We’ve got l

Happy Birthday indeed

Today I feel older than I did yesterday. A whole year older to be exact.

This sudden aging could be put down to the last few stressful months. First there were the 5 weeks without my vision, followed by a rather painful broken toe, followed by a rather yucky dose of the Winter Vomiting Virus. They’ve all come in quick succession and have left me longing for the day when every part of my body does what it should and no part of me hurts like it shouldn’t.

Of course the overnight aging could also be put down to my turning another year older. Yes, it’s my birthday and I’m now officially on the wrong side of 35.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t usually have an issue with getting older, but right this second I’m looking every inch my age, and to top it off, I’m also feeling like I’ve been flattened by a hay bale. One of those large, round ones that you see scattered precariously around the countryside, just waiting to roll down the hill and squash you. It can happen you know.

So why do I feel like Flat Stanley on my birthday you might wonder? That would be the revolting flu symptoms that have hijacked my body today. Oh did I forget to mention that 2 days after one lot of family came and went – with vomiting virus in tow – my mother then arrived by Ryan Air with a rather nasty Italian strain of flu. And that would be the full on, shaking, sweating, incredibly painful variety, not the ‘Oh, I’m sniffing and sneezing, I must have flu’ type of flu. Or the ‘man’ type either for that matter.

I knew things were amiss before I even woke up this morning. Every time I laid on my back it hurt so much I had to roll over. Whilst I was still asleep and dreaming the pain didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but when the alarm went off it all fell into place. I came to with every joint aching, my skin feeling like it was covered with exposed nerve endings and my bones feeling like they’d been treated to several rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson. On the upside at least both my ears lobes were still attached.

Now I get that the above may sound a tad dramatic in description, but would you believe that for once I’m actually not exaggerating. Honest.

Getting both kids up, dressed and ready for school was definitely something of a painful mission. Trying to be excited about my birthday for their benefit required acting skills I never even knew I had. Having to melt the ice off the car windows,  negotiate the school run and make it home in one piece used up my very last ounce of energy.

By the time I limped into the nearest Boots pharmacy, draped myself across the counter and pointed with a rather pathetic finger at the excessively large selection of cold and flu tablets on offer, I was definitely on my last leg.

I say ‘leg’ not ‘legs’, as by this stage one of them had already started to buckle under me slightly as I walked. God knows why, but something somewhere in my lower limb was twinging and there was bugger all I could do to stop it. Had I not already reached the ‘feeling like hell’ stage, and therefore been completely oblivious to everyone around me, I might have been more than a little embarrassed about how ridiculous (and incredibly rough) I looked.

No doubt as I wobbled through the doors I resembled an alcoholic Mr Jelly with a mild dose of epilepsy – never a good look to be sporting out in public, especially when entering the hallowed aisles of Waitrose. Of course if I’d been in Tesco I might just have got away with it. If I’d been in ASDA I’d probably have fitted right in. If I’d been In Lidl I might even have been offered a job.

So here I am at the end of a very strange day, waiting for the ‘Night’ Benylin pills to kick in. My normally comfortable memory foam mattress feels like concrete, my bones feel bruised and my chest feels like it’s wrapped up in a boa constrictor. I’m restless, over-tired and achy. My nose won’t stop dripping and I sound like I’ve got a nasty dose of Kennel Cough. Even the dog is eyeing me up in alarm, covering his nose and keeping his distance. Not that I really blame him of course, he’s seen all the humans in the house drop like skittles in the last few weeks and he’s probably worried he’s next.

I admit I’m probably feeling slightly sorry for myself right now, but it’s not because I’m particually bothered about having slept through my birthday. I’ve already reached the age when you realise that your birthday – like Christmas – is more about watching your kids get excited about handing over their homemade gifts and cards, not worrying about doing anything exciting yourself.

In fact the highlight of the day for my daughter was bringing in The Cake. A cake that had naturally involved a three act drama all of it’s own yesterday when being made.

As I stood behind both children as they broke the eggs, sifted the flour across the kitchen surfaces and beat the butter to within an inch of it’s life I’d congratulated myself on how well it was all going. Then the cake emerged from the oven and I noted that the sponge had risen to the impressive thickness of a rich tea biscuit and was still raw in the centre.

How that was even possible I’m not sure, but there you go. We had somehow managed to bake a Victoria Sponge cake in exactly the same shape as a frisbee. That takes skill you know. Needless to say it ended up in the bin and we ended up trotting down the hill in the rain to buy a replacement from Waitrose.

All in all, not the best birthday I think I’ve ever had but at least my kids thought it went well.  I’m also the proud owner of a hand woven something from my daughter and a highly creative ‘monster’ card from my son.

Any mother knows you really can’t ask for more than that.

Raining Cats, Dogs and Maltesers

Mother Nature wasn’t very happy yesterday. In fact, I’d go as far as to say she was pretty pissed off. If I was a guy I’d probably say it was a case of PMT, but I’m not, so I’ll just hazard a guess and say she was having one hell of a bad hair day.

Whatever the reason, Ms Nature certainly gave 2 fingers up to anyone in Perth who’s been moaning about the weather. Or more specifically, the 40 degrees of constant heat with not a drop of rain since November.

Now I do appreciate that to people in wetter isles, England lets say, the idea of nearly 5 months without rain might seem like something of a dream. But let me tell you, it’s not. When a total lack of precipitation is teamed up with temperatures more suited to melting iron ore, it can make for some pretty uncomfortable living. Not to mention a rather dry, dusty, brown and monotonous landscape.

So that said, I think it would be quite safe to assume that rather a lot of people in Perth (and some extremely dehydrated plants) were rather looking forward to the dry spell breaking. And break it did. With bells on.

With barely enough time to drag the dog through the fly screen, the blue sunny sky disappeared and the hailstones arrived. Hailstones the size of Maltesers, pouring out of the sky so fast you’d think God had accidently left his freezer door open, and a passing angel had carelessly tipped it over. We were lucky only to get Maltesers, in the city they were apparently the size of golf balls.

Then came the rain. Or should I say the downpour, pelting in at us from at every angle but up. Within minutes our garden was several inches under water, and there was, what could only be described, as a flash flood going past the end of our drive.

Being me, of course I tried to take some photos of the hailstones stacking up 9 inches deep at our back door. But the moment I opened the door to take the picture, the bloody dog shot off into the garden. How stupid is he? He see’s, what to him must have looked like a Noah’s Ark moment, and he still decides to go out for a quick dig in the sand.

Needless to say once he went out I refused to let him, or his soggy wet fur, back in again. He may be of the non-smelling variety of pooches, but even a soaking wet Spoodle has something of a whiff about it. So I hardened my heart and held my resolve – right up until the point where my daughter stood sobbing at the window, looking down at a pathetic excuse for a fur ball, trying to pin himself flat against the wall with his damp ears plastered around his snout. Two clean towels and a vigorous blow dry later and he was back inside and on the rug. I hope he’s learned his lesson, that nothing is worth the pain of a dig in the hail.

Dumb dogs aside, in the sort of weather that heralds the start of Armageddon the average person normally chooses to stay indoors, steer clear of windows and turn up the TV. Sadly I’m not average, so I grabbed the car keys, swam to the car and set off with oars at the ready.

Of course as the sky turned pitch black overhead and the odd branch blew past like tumbleweed, it did cross my mind that this might not be the most sensible decision in the world. But really I had no choice. My son, who isn’t partial to loud noises and the car wash at the best of times, was stranded at his nursery 8 minutes down the road. Even if he’d had the foresight to take his water wings with him that day, I very much doubted he’d have managed the journey alone.

“The clouds are very angry” he told me, over and over all the way home.

My poor husband arrived back quite a bit later than usual that night.  Something to do with me having his car, the train tracks being flooded, every cab being taken and the buses being fit to burst. I’m not sure it necessarily helped, when I pointed out that if he had had his car that day, he’d no doubt still be stuck in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, as the world and their wet dog struggled to leave work.

Needless to say the news teams and anchormen (I would be P.C. and say anchorwoman, but all the women sound like men anyway) were practically salivating with joy on the TV last night. Finally, something worth reporting in Perth that didn’t involve a drunken AFL player, a misplaced kangaroo and a runaway shopping trolley on the freeway.

As I know I’m rather prone to the odd bit of exaggeration (creative license and all), I’ve added the pictures below to show that for once, Perth really did have something happen to get excited about.

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Demon children and saintly spoodles

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Taking your child away on holiday can sometimes be a very dangerous thing to do. In only a few short weeks they can morph into a human being barely recognisable from the one you once knew. As routine, balanced diet and consistency goes out the window, everything you ever taught them seems to follow, including good manners, eating habits and general all round intelligence.

In the case of my 3 year-old, this certainly seemed to be the case. He left Perth a mild-mannered, book loving, happy eater, and arrived in England a screeching, uncontrollable terror. Who wouldn’t eat a single vegetable. Including beans. Coated in tomato sauce. Made by Heinz. Heavens above, what child refuses those?

What the hell happened up there at 33,000 feet you might ask? I’m still pondering the very same question myself – but looking back it’s easy to see where it all went so wrong.

A stranger to sugar and capable of sleeping for up to 4 hours in his afternoon nap, my son found his world being tipped upside down as he was dragged from his bed and shoe horned into the car on the way to the airport. There we were, in the middle of the night, singing to try to keep him awake. Dragging him behind us at speed, force feeding him cookies (albeit low-fat ones) to coax him on a plane he didn’t want to go on, and then telling him he must then lie down and go back to sleep, with bright lights and dinner trays clattering all around him.

It was a recipe for disaster from the start, and the rest of the holiday carried on in much the same vein. Erratic bed times, long stretches in the car, sporadic mealtimes containing all the wrong foods and a difference set of people every time he woke up. To say he was a fish out of water was an understatement. More like a little boy in a parallel universe.

As a direct result of this holiday madness, and so not really his fault at all, his behaviour often veered on the side of manic. Energy levels went through the roof, ears sealed off to reasoning and his mouth went into screeching overdrive. And all in a country where you are no longer allowed to ‘discipline’ your child in public … tricky.

He now saw eating – unless the food in question came under the food group ‘treat’ – as an unncessary inconvenience, and as mentioned before, anything that had once grown up from, across or dropped to the ground was now met with a pursed mouth and muffled cries of “Don’t like it”. A tad frustrating, especially as the week before he’d happily opened up for aubergine and olives.

The ‘highlight’ of this out-of-control behaviour came however, at perhaps the very worst time possible of our entire holiday. I’d go as far as to say, that in the collective 12 years my offspring have been alive, never have I wanted to hang my head so low in shame.

While visiting a potential school for my daughter, my son reached deep into his inner demon and pulled out quite possibly the worst behaviour that the inside of the headmasters office has ever seen. He spread crumbs far and wide (from a biscuit off the tea-tray he’d launched himself at), squeezed his juice box across the polished table and pulled himself back and forwards across the floor like the member of a crack commando team. He climbed on the window seats, threw cushions on the floor and very nearly pulled down the curtains – 4 times. He struggled when I picked him up, pulled at me when I put him down and slithered to the ground when I put him back in his seat. The entire time he screeched and shrieked and laughed like a nutter possessed.

It was pretty toe-curling stuff, as any parent could well imagine.

There we were, talking about school reports and untapped potential and trying to give a good impression. And there was  my little monster – who would also be eligible to go there in a years time – bouncing off the walls like Tiger on a mixture of crack cocaine and speed.

The only saving grace in this whole embarrassing ordeal was that the headmaster knew better than to judge the entire family based off of the actions of its smallest member. As well as being a parent,  he was also my old English teacher – the teacher who had in fact inspired me to start writing in the first place, many light years ago.

Should this worrying tale of holiday woe begin to put off any parent thinking of taking a break, then fear not, it does have a happy ending.

After the episode at the school, sugar was abruptly cut out of his diet (which was unfortunate for him as this happened before Christmas). Within days he started to ease off his high and calm down again – apparently it takes at least 2 weeks for somebody to go cold turkey where the sweet stuff is involved. Now back in Perth, my son is already back to his old self, and get this, better than before. His manners are perfect, he’s calm and controllable and best of all, he’s eating vegetables faster than I can get them on his plate.

Not that I’d ever recommend killing your child’s routine and dragging them round the world to help knock them into shape, but on this occasion, it seems to have done the job.

Incidentally, the same also seems to be true of Charlie. He went into the kennels as a naughty, barking, escape artist, and come out a changed dog. He is now well-behaved, quiet and far more obedient than the 2 year-old Spoodle that went in. He didn’t even make a run for it the other day, when I accidently opened the garage door without shutting him inside first.

Now, if my daughter had gone in the same direction as my son and the dog, I could have said I had a hat trick on my hands. Unfortunately the excellent behaviour she showed when away (which was enough to get her offered a place at the school) has worn off some, and been replaced with the somewhat emotional and pouting little girl of before.

Still, can’t win them all, and 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

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Planes, trains and watery accidents

My 2 1/2 year old son has been undergoing toilet training for about 6 weeks now, and I have to say he’s doing a lot better than I ever expected him to. Boys are, after all, meant to be a lot slower on the uptake when it comes to the learning about when to poop and pee, and when to clench and hold.

Of course there have been accidents. One next to the sofa, one in the bedroom where he shut the door on himself and couldn’t get out, and a handful around the bathroom – normally as a result of him misjudging the volume of wee in his bladder and shooting off the potty before he’s completed the job.

Trying to shoo the dog away as I re-dress, empty, bleach and wipe is the hardest part of all.

Unfortunately my sons days at nursery do set him back sometimes. Whether it’s the excitement of finger painting or the 15 or so other kids queuing up for the potty, some days I go to collect him and am met with a bag of wet clothes and a rather nasty smelling teddy. The washing machine never had such a good work out for so few clothes. One day, when he had gotten through all 3 sets of spare clothes in his Bob the Builder backpack, I arrived to find him wafting around the room wearing nothing more than a kimono from the dressing up box. That was one of those occasions when you wish you had a camera to hand.

As with many things in life, thinking about doing something is often worse than actually doing the deed. The very idea of replacing nappies with pants on a leaking child is one such time. I found the only way to really stay one step of the game in the beginning was to spend every 4th minute asking him if he needed to go, and then ferrying him backwards and forwards to the potty, armed with 16 books and a thermos of tea (for me). It was monotonous and repetitive, but it did the trick. After a while, and probably because he got so damn sick of being asked, he started to tell  me when he needed to go. Or rather he’d screech “Poo Mummy” as he scurried towards me, with one hand behind his back clutching his bottom.

Seeing that I would drop everything and leap to attention when he needed to go, he quickly realised that the whole process could be manipulated into something of a game. I’d run to get him to the bathroom, peel off the layers, sit him down and then he’d laugh. “No Poo Mummy”. Hmmmmm. That one soon wears very thin, particularly when you’re in the shower, eating your breakfast or halfway up a mountain..

A Blue Mountain to be exact. Let me explain.

We’ve just got back from spending a week in Sydney. A week in Sydney in the rain. Who knew it would be so cold, or so wet at this time of year. Everyone but us apparently. Typically, the weather forecast for the week changed upon our arrival. It went from sun and a spot of cloud every day, to rain with a touch of rain every day.

Damp weather aside, holidaying with children is always a test – a test of a parent’s patience, stamina and will to live. Air travel in particular can be stressful at the best of times (something I wrote about before),  but throw in a couple of kids and several tonnes of ‘can’t get by without you’ luggage and you can find yourself half way to a nervous breakdown at 30,000 feet.

It’s always hard to know how your children will react to leaving the ground in a vacuum packed can. My son wasn’t amused. At all. Watching the aeroplanes through the terminal window – great fun. Walking down the air-slip onto the plane – not so fun. Sitting in his seat for take off – simply not going to happen.

So what does he call out in a desperate bid for freedom? “Poo Mummy”.

Yes, just what all the passengers around us wanted to hear. I’m sure some actually recoiled and held their nose in fear. So, with the fasten seat belt sign lit up and the plane doors already closed, he was whisked up the aisle to the toilet with potty in hand. Did he need to go? Of course he didn’t, but it would have been a pretty brave parent to take the risk.

And so followed a week of untimely potty stops. In the bushes in front of the Opera House. In the undergrowth next to the museum. Sat inside the land train going around Darling Harbour. Behind the seal enclosure at Taronga zoo. On a grassy knoll overlooking Botany Bay. On the train into the shops, and around the back of the Police Station in the CBD. There was no where he didn’t go. And there was no where we could go without a potty, wet wipes and spare clothes at the ready. It really is amazing how the bowels of a small child can shape and dictate your day.

The mountains, as previously discussed, were probably the worst. When he decided he needed to go, the rain was coming in at us diagonally from both sides – with the force of Niagara Falls. We happened to be out on a nature trail at that moment, trying to take at least one photo of the view to prove we had enjoyed the grey and misty scenery. We ended up in the car pack, huddled over him with umbrellas, as he sat on the ground to give it a go. Did anything materialise?  Nope, not even with the encouraging sound of gushing water hitting his parent’s heads.

Same story in the Jenolan caves, and then twice on the way back up the mountain at night, in thick and surprisingly spooky fog. At times like this it is definitely tempting to ignore the little voice from the back seat, but the car seat was hired and the excess for damage to the car was $3000. No pee is worth that much. This time he sat perched on his potty in the boot of the car, smiling up at us, as if it were all perfectly normal.

All pit stops aside, the biggest and most costly accident that occurred during the week, was not by my toddler, but by my husband instead. We were on the ferry traveling from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour, and had decided to sit outside in the spitting rain, to take some pictures of the Opera House as we went past.

Somehow, and don’t ask me how, the camera leaped out of his pocket, dropped onto the ferry floor and slid 2 foot across to the edge of the boat. As it happened (does it ever happen any other way?), there was a gap in the side of the boat. About, oh lets say, camera sized in width. The only bloody hole, I might add, that there was down our side of the boat.

The camera then proceeded to slide through the hole and sit on the outside rim. I’m sure the camera lenses winked at me. We both looked at it in disbelief – I know I was certainly wondering what the hell is it doing down there. Having a child on my lap I couldn’t move. My husband, who swears it all happened in seconds, apparently has the reaction times of a snail on speed.

PLOP, over it went. All of our photos sank right to the bottom of the harbour. I’m not embarrassed to say I burst into tears. My husband did what any intelligent man in the same situation should do. He kept very quiet and looked at the floor. After several minutes of watching my tears mixing with the rain, my daughter helpfully piped up.

“Now you’ve lost all of my photos.” Followed by. “This wouldn’t have happened if we’d sat inside you know.” I believe she received quite a glare.

We all left the ferry in silence. Even my son knew better than to say he needed a poo. Half an hour later, when we were standing underneath the sharks inside the aquarium, my husband ventured to speak to me. “Well obviously we’ll buy a new camera tomorrow.”

And so we did.

He did feel marginally better when told in the camera shop that he was the 3rd person that week to drop their camera into the water. Had our home contents insurance actually covered us for the camera outside of the house, then he might have redeemed himself a little more. But of course, despite trotting along to the Police Station to report it’s loss (hence the potty stop), it didn’t. Now had he dropped it into a mug of tea at home, we’d be quids in – go figure.

The new camera is shatterproof, waterproof, snow-proof and husband-proof. That of course means it comes with a manual thick enough to sit on at the breakfast bar. By the next holiday I might just have worked out which setting goes with which, and how to use the ‘Beauty Mode’. Till then, it’s safe to say my dearest husband will be remaining on the other side of the lens, and paying for his act of clumsiness through the public humiliation on this blog.

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A spot of colonic – doggy style

Now no one ever said being a dog owner was a glamorous affair, but even I didn’t envisage the day I would find myself out in the garden at night, giving Charlie a colonic.

It started with my daughter detecting a faint whiff of poo, which was quickly, and without too much investigation, traced back to Charlie. He was promptly directed through the dog flap and into the garage, to await some cleaning and de-clumping by my husband.

Said husband soon returned home, and was pointed in the direction of the dog. Wet wipes were brought out and the tail was lifted, but nothing was going to budge. After about 60 seconds of struggling to remove what obviously didn’t want to be removed, my husband declared that Charlie would have to stay outside that night. Now granted he irritates me on an hourly basis when he trips me up and empties my bin across the floor, but given how cold it’s become, I just didn’t have the heart to banish him from the fire and the fluffy rug – the dog that is, not my husband.

So back outside I went out, cornered Charlie, took him to the grass and proceeded to wipe him along behind me. A bit like you’d wipe your shoes to get the mud off.  He looked at me as if to ask ‘What the hell are you doing to me’, and my husband, who was of course watching me through the window, was shaking his head.

Of course, as any woman worth her weight in manipulation knows, the best way to get someone to help you with something they have already said they wont, is to attempt it yourself, make a complete pigs ear of it, then stand back as they can’t help themselves but to step in and show you how it’s done. Works every time.

As expected, my husband reluctantly reappeared outside to tell me that dragging Charlie backwards and forwards over the grass wasn’t going to shift anything, not even that large lump of poo that was still stuck half way up his backside, and clinging onto his tail fur for grim life.

So out came the hose. Poor Charlie, he didn’t look best pleased. Can’t say I really blame him, it was dark after all and far too nippy for an al fresco shower. I was told to hold him down while my booted and business suited husband squirted him. Every time the high pressure jet came in contact with his bottom he, understandably enough, tried to make a bolt for freedom. After 3 failed attempts and a couple of “you’ll have to hold him tighter than that”, my hubby resigned himself to my uselessness in the dog grappling department and realised he’d have to get down and dirty with the dog on the grass.

I took the hose, gave it a long hard squirt with the jet and then realised it was pointing in the wrong direction. Now that Charlie and I were both soaking wet, I had even more sympathy for him.

Poor thing, he lay there on the grass, with his back legs lifted a good foot off the ground and his tail held up high. By the 5th or 6th squirt he didn’t even flinch. I don’t know if by this stage he was enjoying the experience, or he was just numb to the cold water.

The whole event was very undignified for him, made even worse by me then whipping out a large pair of kitchen scissors to give him a Brazilian around his bottom. I’m sure it’s a memory he will want to block for a long time to come.

dfs

Other Spoodle related posts:

What is a Spoodle – Exactly that..
Bad Fur Day - What happens when a Spoodle isn’t happy with his fur cut
Charlie turns 2 – Why Spoodles make excellent baby training pets

I’m sniffing, I must have Swine Flu

The whole house is sick at the moment. Or should I say the inhabitants of the house are sick at the moment. The bricks, mortar and roof tiles are doing just fine.

An assortment of coughs, colds, sniffs, sore throats, blocked and dribbling noses are running a riot through the family right now, resulting in a never-ending stream of half used tissues that the dog keeps fishing out of the bin and shredding all over the floor. Horrible sticky spots have also been springing up all over the kitchen counter, where the medicine hasn’t quite made it fast enough from the plastic spoon to it’s unwilling final destination.

Of course all of this sniveling misery can only mean one thing. Winter has come. Aside from the calender telling me so, the arrival of this rather unwelcome season is evident for a number of different reasons.

Firstly the most obvious, it’s cold. Secondly the most expected, I’m cold. And thirdly, all the confirmation I needed, the dog is cold. Well I gauge this from the fact that despite his now thick rug like fur, he is spending more time hunting out a heat source to sleep in front of, and less time skulking around outside, waiting to ambush next doors cat.

So given the indisputable evidence above, I decided that this year I absolutely refuse to suffer the cold for as long as I did last year. I would say suffer in silence, but as my husband would be quick to point out, I never like to keep my suffering to myself. Far to damaging to the Yin and Yang of my well being I think – better out than in, and all that jazz.

So how does one prepare for the long months of shivering that lay ahead? That would be adding to, increasing and stock piling the various heat supplies in our home.  First stop, the log basket. Running dangerously low, with only 2 logs, a few scraps of bark and 4 firelighters left over from last year.  Panic over, another trailer load has now been delivered, and the new logs are stacked all the way up the side of the house. Asking for an invasion of termites of course. These logs, in the eyes of a hungry white ant, equate to a 5 star hotel, with complimentary breakfast, lunch and dinner laid on for a year. Never mind, a risk worth taking.

Next it was time to buy a new heater to go by my desk. Save me getting all scrunched up in my seat as I sit and type away for hours a day, with hunched shoulders and bright blue nail beds. The open grill on the front does mean Charlie is likely to go up like a furry fire ball if he gets to close, but if it’s a choice between my cold bones or his singed fur, sadly he loses.

Now for the bed. Last year, as I mentioned in my previous post, I ended up climbing in with half my wardrobe on, and my hoodie firmly zipped up and over my head. While this is undeniably a brilliant form of contraception, it was far from ideal. So this year, despite my husbands initial protests, I AM going to get an electric blanket. We may well wake up to find the feathers inside the duvet caked together with sweat, but at least my toes won’t need to curl up in shock as they hit the cold sheet.

Yes, I admit I am incredibly soft when it comes to the cold. I don’t deal with it well, and I definitely comment on it far more than is necessary – especially given that it is a yearly event and has been since time began. Well except for the Ice Age. Brrrrr… now that wasn’t a good time to be alive.

What can I say, I am English. It’s programmed into our DNA to hate the cold, talk about the cold and complain about the cold. Particularly, dare I say, those ‘less hardy’ people, like myself, who are born anywhere south of Birmingham.

I admit that I am that person who opens their front door in the middle of a freezing UK winter, wearing nothing but T-shirt and shorts, then proceeds to blast the person clear off the front door step with the scorching gust of central heating that escapes from my beautifully over-heated house.

So this said,  I am obviously not that person who would consider an Ice Hotel as a suitable holiday destination. I don’t care how warm the reindeer skin sheets and elk fur blankets are supposed to be. I am also not the sort of person who has, up until now at least, ventured anywhere near a ski slope. Though to be truthful, this is probably more to do with my incredible inability to balance on anything other than a flat, solid, stable surface. I would be that person who breaks their leg before even making it out of the ski hire shop.

Anyway, I digress somewhat. As I was saying, we’re all sick and sniffy right now. And I thought nothing of it until my daughter brought home a letter from school yesterday. I say a letter, what I mean is a ‘lets induce panic and clear our classrooms so the teachers don’t have to work’ announcement.

According to the WA Health Authorities, children showing any signs or symptoms linked with Swine Flu should not only stay off school, they should also remain tucked up at home until they are completely better.

So lets run through a few of those possible symptoms.

Fever, yes, we’re all slightly warm – Tick. Cough, yes, both kids sound like asthmatic dogs – Tick. Runny nose, well like I said we’re running and blocked – Tick, Tick.

Righty then. Given how long we were all sick for last winter, I’m calculating that according to the Health Authorities, we should all remain in quarantine until around about October time. Seriously, is this for real? We haven’t been, or even know anyone who’s been near Mexico, the US, Canada, Japan or Panama in the last 7 days. We don’t live near the one confirmed case in Western Australia. And neither I, nor any of my family suddenly feel the urge to eat from a pail or start rolling around in mud.

Maybe I’m just numb from the media always trying to fan the flames of panic, just to sell papers and fill headlines. Perhaps, after living through the SARS in Singapore, I am now somewhat unfazed by such a potential ‘threat’ to mankind. Either way, I refuse to get my tissues in a knot, hide away and hyperventilate over the very worst case scenario.

I don’t believe you can live in fear of every runny nose and cough. Swine Flu is just that – a type of flu. Just one of the many types of viruses that spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands annually. It’s been a while since the big 3 influenza pandemics of the 20th century killed tens of millions of people. Medical science has progressed, vaccinations are now available, and according to the doctors I have spoken to, it is no longer the death sentence the media likes to portray. The emergency services here are apparently already under siege with people calling for ambulance with suspected Pig Flu. That’ll really help with those long, long waiting times at the A&E.

Call me completely irresponsible, but my daughter needs to learn and I need to work, so she’s not camping out in front of the TV all winter with a red nose and a box of tissues.  She’s had a flu jab and can wear a face mask if need be. So unless she suddenly grows a curly tail and starts to squeal, she is going to keep going to school.

And finally, before you tell me I’m being flippant, I’m not making light of the situation, merely questioning how the situation is being dealt with in the press. And to prove my point, here are some Swine Flu facts for those who are panicking, coughing or just curious.

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