News Archives: June 2009

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Champion

Tara went lure coursing again today, winning the deerhound final by half a length.

This wasn't the closest of Tara's races - she won her first by a nose, according to the judge. I wasn't in a position to see, so had no idea who won'd until we asked. By the way, the natty red collar Tara's wearing is so that people can tell the dogs apart. One grey hairy running at 40 looks much like another, so they wear wide wool snoods in red or white. In a three dog race, the third dog goes naked, as in the final.

There was a certain amount of joshing about a crossbred beating all the pedigree deerhounds present, but all in fun. They seem to really like our monster, and I kept being told how great it was that she'd taken to coursing so well. I'm so proud of her, and Tara loved every minute of it, of course.

Zak stayed at home - his leg isn't up to walking up the hill, never mind racing. He didn't seem too upset at being left behind. Alfie was with us, but slept through all the excitement.

Posted by graham @ 08:54 pm

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Mr Clumsy Strikes Again

Zak was running around in the woods at Beecraigs this morning. At some point he collided with something. We've no idea what, and he didn't even yelp. When he came back to us, I noticed a bit of blood on his wrist, which Claire checked and declared it to be "not too bad". We popped Zak on the lead and took him home, by which point the skin had started to split. One trip to the vet, a general, and several stitches later, and Zak is sporting a natty camoflage bandage, a sore head, and wobbly legs. He's currently sleeping on our bed.

Tara's been very cute about the whole thing. I took Zak to the vet, and when I returned without him, she was quite distressed. I gave her some pork strips to distract her, while Claire and I went shopping. We came back via the vet, collecting Zak. When we got home, Tara didn't want to see us, rushing straight over to Zak, and licking his muzzle affectionately. People are always asking if the dogs get on okay. Oh, yes.

Posted by graham @ 04:44 pm

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Do As I Say...

You can tell how seriously they're taking the European elections around here by the near complete lack of bits of card tied to lamp posts. I noticed one for the first time today, brightly printed on plastic-coated, completely-unrecyclable, non-degradable board. It was for the Green party...

To be fair, maybe they could reuse it for the General election.

Posted by graham @ 07:34 pm

Monday, June 1, 2009

A Great Lesson

When I was a child - maybe eight or nine - one of our tasks at school was to keep a record of news. Each weekday we had to write about what we'd done the previous evening, illustrated by a crude drawing. After a few weeks of this, the teacher had one of the girls read out her entry for the previous day, a colourful description of three or four activities. This, we were told, was what we should all be aiming for, because the teacher was fed up with reading "Last night I had dinner, watched telly, and went to bed." Watching TV was dull, we learnt, and admitting to it got you shouted at.

I suppose the teacher's hope was that this would encourage us to spend our evenings doing something more interesting, just so we would have exciting tales for our news the next day. But I was an English kid in a Scottish school, and did well in exams too, so I didn't have too many friends, and on a rainy Tuesday evening telly sounds a good passtime. So I did what any other sensible child would do, and made everything up. My news reports were better received, and I wasn't the only child doing this. Indeed, sometimes we collaborated. I remember Jonathan (a kid I otherwise recall nothing about) and I spending about three weeks describing the progress we were making on the remote controlled airplane we were designing and building. He was in charge of steering, I did the propulsion. We didn't trust the other kids, so they too were assured of the project's reality. Eventually the risk became too great, and we reported our improbable creation's maiden flight, which ended in the craft crashing into the Knapps Loch, where it sank without a trace.

Such unbelievable stories passed without comment. I'm not sure what I learnt from all this, nor why I mention it now.

***

These days, my life is far too busy without inventing new bits for it. The past weekend was spent in the pub, at the beach, at the dog show (Alfie got 3rd in "Golden Oldie", largely 'cos Claire ended up carrying him round the ring when walking proved too much for him), and picnicing in Holyrood Park. I'm now a fine shade of red, and looking forward to cooler weather.

Tonight would normally be roleplaying night, except at the moment I'm burned out as a GM. I've been finding it harder each week to psych myself up to run the game, and should the game not happen (always a risk when players have lives) the loss has upset me more than it should. So I'm taking a break till I can get my head together. We've still got friends coming round, but for social rather than gaming reasons. I should probably post this before they arrive.

Posted by graham @ 06:02 pm

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