Revolutionary Rants

A last post for 2008, just to wish you all a very happy new year. We’re off to Brizzle to do some “Sales Shopping” with the family tomorrow, so we’re just having a quiet one; me, Chicken, Ferris and the bottle of fizz Charles got us for Christmas. Oh, and Jools Holland.

That was one of our favourite things in ’08, going to see Mr Holland in concert, avec Marc Almond. Getting our little pup, who is now a full grown, if still small JRT. Going to Brittany, eating good food, seeing Obama elected and Bush nearing the end of his time. A quiet year in some ways, busy in others.

So, happy 2009 and hope you get everything you wish for…

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Happy Capitalistmas my dears! Hope you have all had a glorious day and that 2009 will prove to be the revolutionary year we all dream of… All meaning loosely ‘me’, of course…

I got a rather magnificent espresso machine from my loved-one, Wii Fit from Mum and Dad, perfume from little bro, champagne, allotment things, and lots and lots of other smashing stuff. How lucky I am.

Now it is time for ‘Wallace and Gromit’ before sleeping for a long time… Merry Christmas, James Dean Bradfield bless us every one…

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Nothing much to report from here. The Hooda star is back up on the hill. Hopefully this will not result in another lightening strike and £300+ in damage to us… Still, it does feel like Christmas now it is up and shining down once again.

Less Christmassy and more annoying were the accompanying fireworks. We had one unhappy dog. For hours.

I have finally done almost all the shopping and sincerely hope to avoid going in to Barnstaple again before Chrimbo. Charles, Chicken’s eldest sibling, shall be joining us over the weekend and we’ll all be going over to my eldest sibling’s house for a bit of a party on Saturday. Then we have Mum’s birthday meal, at the Jack Russell Inn (new chef and new Christmas menu – ‘citing!) and then of course it will be… Christmas!

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Another sad passing for those of my generation. 83 is not a bad innings, perhaps, and anyone who created so much joy can surely shuffle off the mortal coil without too much to regret, one hopes.

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Well, I’ve been on the quiet side again, haven’t I? It has been busy round here in the pre-Christmas rush. As well as working, gymming and swimming and dog-walking there is present sorting to be done and all the usually capitalistic crap that keeps the revolutionary classes suppressed.

We were supposed to be in Yorkshire this weekend, but with the weather as it has been we had to cancel. Which was really rubbish, as we’ve missed Sandra’s birthday party and meeting our friends Dan and Becca’s new baby boy. It is all go on the friends’ baby front, too, as congratulations go out to Andy and Sarah who are expecting their first next year. It is all too scary for us yet, and we are rather happy with just the three of us for now!

Still, we only had a couple of days to get up and back, so we judged the weather a tad scary for the trip.

Well, it is time for Little Dorrit which was cancelled earlier in the week, so I’ll head off back in to the silence for now.

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A couple of Wednesdays ago a sad incident occurred.

Ferris would not settle; he whined, he barked, he growled, he paced. Bedtime came, still he would not settle. We were up and down for the best part of an hour trying to quiet him and get him off to sleep. Finally a bang came on our front door at midnight. I feared neighbours who were enraged by the fearful puppy, but no, it was a neighbour, but one who was concerned. ‘There’s a dog out the back and my two dogs won’t settle’ she said, ‘I haven’t got a torch, so could you and your husband have a look?’

Once Chicken and I had got wrapped up we went behind the houses – all of which are nestled on the side of a very steep bank – and Mr C shined the torch up behind the house of some people who only use it occasionally as a second home. A pair of shining eyes with a barking mouth beneath them peered back in the beam of light. Chicken made his way along the roof of the middle house and then to the corner, he called back reporting that there were two very frightened Labradors behind the third house. I struggled along in the dark, whilst Chris calmed the first black labby; the second was a chocolate bitch who appeared to be hurt in some way.

Once I made it along behind the weekend home we caught the black dog and got her on a lead, I lead her and Chicken carried the non-too-slim choccie one all the way back on slimy leafs and along the flat roof. At one point he tried to rest for a moment, laying the choc bitch down for a mere second and she bite him viciously – she was obviously in some pain…

Eventually, he/we got the two to our neighbour’s house and left them with her. At 1:30am a vet collected the two lost dogs and Ferris and I finally got some fitful sleep thereafter.

The next day we heard that the two had escaped when some children left the gate to their home open, the chocolate lab had broken her back and had to be put down. You spend some time thinking ‘if only’; if only I’d heard earlier and saved her from falling, if only the gate had been closed, if only we could have done something… But if you carry on in that vein you’ll drive yourself insane. If only I’d been able to predict this or that. You have to accept that we did what we could and it ended very sadly; but Ferris still got a few extra cuddles that night, all the same.

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