Thursday 1 August 2013

Z feels a bit scatty

Gus is much better, thank you.  Weeza is taking him back to the doctor tomorrow as arranged, but we're all hopeful that the medicine will do the trick.  We'll go over and see them at the weekend, taking Rupert as we're sure the children will love him.

I knew I was due to pay the balance of my October holiday within the next few days, but couldn't remember the due date, the amount I owed nor the name of the travel company.  I'd received confirmation and an invoice of course, and carefully put it in a sensible place.  Lord knows where.  I couldn't find it anywhere.  Luckily, I had sent details of my renewed passport by email so was able to find the name of the company, so I phoned and came clean and the nice woman on the telephone looked me up.

Soon afterwards, the internet connection went down.  I went through all the correct procedures to try and restart the hub, but no joy.  I phoned to check there wasn't a local issue and this exchange wasn't mentioned, then phoned the helpline number and was put in a queue.  10 - 20 minutes, I was told, so got on with things while I was waiting.  After a while, I thought I'd better just check - and the internet was on again.  I dunno.  Some sort of glitch at the exchange, I suppose.  Still, at least I didn't have the embarrassment of finding out when on the phone to the broadband guy.

We're into our second and last week of Rupert's stay.  It's going very well, he settled down pretty quickly.  Hannah left a shirt of hers that she'd been wearing, on my suggestion, to console him when he missed her and he took it to bed with him the first night.  He does carry it around with him, but not every day.  I'd hoped to let the two dogs out in the garden together, but bantams fly over the wall into the garden sometimes and I don't want to risk them being chased.  So they're getting walked on the lead, for the most part.  They get plenty of exercise chasing each other over the house, it's doing them no harm.  I had been letting them have a run on the marshes, but Jonny has let the cows onto the first marsh now and I don't take the risk.  I've no idea how sensible Rupert would be and fear of him running up to them and being swiped off his feet by half a ton of cow is making me cautious.

Time for our late-night trot round the village.  I like going out in the dark, though I take my phone in case I need some light.  The other night, they found a hedgehog and were very interested.  Luckily, I realised and pulled them away before they picked it up - well, Rupert isn't big enough, but Ben is.  And I'd have had to spend the next hour removing fleas, I daresay.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

You're lucky to have hedgehogs in your area. It's been a while since we've had one in our garden. I think they're getting quite rare.

Z said...

I haven't seen one in the garden recently, but then I always have a dog with me when I'm out at night. As you can imagine, this place is wildlife paradise.

Anonymous said...

I once saw how a cow kicked a dog, a pretty big one, very precisely. I think she had the intent to kill.

Unknown said...

My old Black Lab(another Ben) used to bark like hell at Hedgehogs, then come back covered in fleas!

Unknown said...

A long while ago I watched as a wire haired fox terrier of ours tackled the first hedge hog she had encountered. She thought it a very cowardly and unsocial attitude to take when it curled up into a ball, so she poked her nose into the ball to try and make it take a more friendly interest in her. She backed out, sneezing and trying to get the prickles out of her muzzle with her paws. After that she always maintained a very distant attitude to any further hedgehogs she encountered (and she didn't like being deflea'd much, either) .

Z said...

Cows can be dangerous around dogs. A couple of years ago, a woman walking two dogs in a field of cows was killed, they thought because she was trying to rescue the dogs when they upset the cows.

I've de-flead many a dog after it's been in contact with a hedgehog!