Sunday afternoon in the fields.... (Part 2)

Back again...

This is Clare doing a spot of onion lifting. My and the missus do this every year. When the onions get harvested mechanically they leave quite a few onions laying about. That is where we come in. We come along with plastic bags and collect the left onions. You have to time it right though... They plow them under a week after harvest, so if you miss the harvest, they are gone. We managed to get two carrier bags full.


Dunno what this flower is but it is beautiful. This plant has these amazing seed pods. You can see one in the back ground. When you touch them the explode and scatter all the seeds all over the place. The smell pretty strong as well. At this place there were two varieties, pink and white...


This is Jay on the way back, he is getting a bit knackered here, tongue dragging the floor hahaha....


This was a bunch of poppy flowers by the side of a field of sugar beet. The colour of the picture doesn't do the actual flowers any favours, the real thing was very red and beautifully back-lit by the setting sun...


All in all, a nice walk and I think we are going the right way with Jay. We can't let him off yet but he getting used to us and is getting used to living indoors.

Some thing else, if you read about the kitchen disaster last wednesday, that is all sorted now, the 'old' kitchen has had its first few coats of paint and it is starting to look good. I'm getting the floor tiles this week so when the painting is done I'm gonna try my hand at floor tiling...

Cheerio,

Alex.

Sunday afternoon in the fields...

Morning all,

These are a few pictures from the dogwalk yesterday afternoon at Wormingford. It was a nice warm afternoon with loadsa sunshine and Jackie's sister Clare and her dogs came along as well. All the blackberry bushes were still loaded with fruit, they did taste rather good, very sweet and sugary...


This is Jay with his new best friends Sheeba and Kahlua. They are off the lead as they don't tend to run off. We are still training Jay but that will take some time...


Can it get any more English than this? A flock of sheep laying in the shade of a massive oak tree...


This is where Sheeba and Kahlua went for a dip in the river Stour. Jay did have a good look at the river just to see if swimming was for him. At least that is a bit more adventurous than Mickey who used to leg it just at the sight of water...


I'll stick a few more piccies on, Picasa won't let me put more than four on in one go...

Cheerio,

Alex. 

Who's a pretty boy then?

Morning,

Here are a few piccies of the new recruit. This was this morning after a good run in the Cornard Country park. I just stuck the camera in his face and he responded by posing and then licking the lens... bugger.


As you can see he has a little dark line from the corner of his eye towards his ear. It looks like he is wearing mascara...


And this is where he got fed up with the camera in his face so he stuck his hooter in the lens and smeared the whole thing with slobber, nice one!


Sofar it is going very well with him. We haven't noticed any kind of behaviour that we can't cope with. He seems a little shell shocked but that is to be expected, he has never lived in a house. Stairs are still beyond him but hey, who says that is a bad thing... Mickey used to storm up the stairs and jump in our bed on saturday and sunday mornings... and when a greyhound gets in, he will command the whole bed, or at least as much as he can spread himself out over...

The new recruit is eating well, he seems to like most of what we put in front of him. Last night he had a treat, we had a Chinese Takeaway as our kitchen was out of commission (See previous posting...) and he got the remains. My god did he wolf that down. Another greyhound that loves Chinese...

We are enjoying the walks a lot, its good for us to get some exersize again. The summer is over here and we are slowly slipping into autumn so all the trees are starting to turn and the weather is getting colder in the morning. Sometimes it is a bit strange walking in a field where I used to walk with Mickey and now I'm there with this brown thing... I guess it is going to take some time for us to get used to the new recruit.

We have him strictly on the lead at the moment. We have no idea what will happen when he gets let off for the first time. That will have to wait until we have build some more trust with him. Especially when there are small dogs around we stick the muzzle on him just to make sure he doesn't snap at anything.

So all is well for the moment, we owe a lot to the people from the Ipswich branch of the Retired Greyhound Trust, they have been great.

Cheerio,

Alex. 

I don't belieeeeeeeeeeve it!!!!

Morning,

You will not believe this. People who have been reading the Blog know what a load of problems we have been through to get our new kitchen sorted. Leaky ceilings, gas mains condemned and all sorts of other stuff happening. But, finally a few weeks ago it got to the stage that you see below. We were getting there. All that was left was the old kitchen to be plastered and painted and the whole floor to be levelled and tiled.

Imagine my rage, disappointment, frustration and sheer disbelief when yesterday I heard a little dripping noise coming from under one of the cabinets. When I moved the cooker and looked under the cabinets I spotted a minor tributary of the river Nile pissing along the wall behind the cabinet.


So I had a quick look and noticed that the whole wall behind the corner cabinets was wet. Great. So I called out the installer that had fitted the kitchen. Luckily he was available on short notice. He had a quick look and within half an hour my kitchen looked like the picture below. All the corner cabinets have been ripped out, the whole row of upper cabinets have been taken off, my dishwasher has been taken out, the trunking on the ceiling has been chisseled open and the tiles are starting to come of on the trunking along the pipes. Great.


It has turned out that one of the quick fit pipe t-pieces has sprung a leak. This has probably been going on for quite a while as the wall is sodden and the cabinets in front have started to swell up.


I have got the plumbers coming in to replace the whole lot of plastic quick fit shite with proper copper. They should be doing that right now as I type.... The kitchen installer guy is coming back this evening to refit the kitchen cabinets if possible...

Remind me, next time when I say I am going to do something to my kitchen, tie me down in a chair, stick a funnel in my gob, feed me a bottle or three of whiskey and only untie me when I have completely and utterly forgotten about that stupid idea.... The person that invented DIY should be shot at dawn...

Alex. 

Breaking in the new arrival...

Hi there,

Right, this was the weekend that we received our new dog Blonde Boy Jay. We went to pick him up 09:00 on saturday morning. Jay seemed happy to see us and bounced all over the yard when we got to see him. After we completed the paperwork we loaded him in the car and took him home. We let him get used to the house and garden and he had a good fight with a new dog toy. He seems to be feeling quite at home here. Sofar, its monday morning, he has slept well, eaten well and really enjoyed his new walks. We can notice that he has been kennelled for quite a while, he tires easily. We will work on his stamina, we had the same problem with our previous greyhound. They aren't really long distance dogs... On sunday we took him out on the Sudbury meadows. That is a place where a lot of people walk their dogs so that is a good opportunity for him to meet other dogs. We have been keeping him muzzled as we don't know what the behaviour towards other dogs will be. Sofar so good... Jackie's sister brought her two dogs and besides being exited about meeting them Jay was very laidback and there was no growling or snarling at all. We do think that it will be quite a while before can think about letting him of the lead. He is very interested in whatever happens around him so I guess we need to build some trust and bonding between us before we an even try to let him off for the first time. So all in all it is going pretty well.

The pictures below show Jay knackered asleep after his sunday afternoon walk, him being brushed on the saturday morning and it shows him having a good tussle with one of his new toys.










So watch this space for more developments on the dog stories.

Cheerio,


Alex.

Preparing for the dog....

Hi there,

We are now busy preparing the house for the imminent arrival of Blonde Boy Jay. We are picking him up at 09:00 AM on saturday. We still have to get quite a few things. When we lost Mickey we got rid of most of the stuff that reminded us of him. So now we need:

• A new dog pillow (large, as he is a greyhound and they spread)
• New food bowls (On a stand, greyhounds can't eat of the floor because of their long necks...)
• New extendable leads
• New name tags with phone number and address
• Dog food (Mixture of what he is eating now and some new stuff)
• Dog blanket for the car (They are messy buggers...)
• Dog chews
• Dog toys (Balls, squeeky toys etc...)
• Dog collars (Greyhounds wear special ones, otherwise they slip out of em...)

(If there is anybody that is getting rid of stuff and lives in or around Suffolk drop me a comment and we'll come to pick up whatever you need to get rid of.)

So as you can tell we are getting quite exited about our new addition. The Retired Greyhound Trust has decided not to do a home visit as we are already registered with them. So all is clear for the fun to start on saturday.

And it could be fun as this is a greyhound that has not lived in a house before. He will not have been exposed to normal house noises and probably is not used to getting 2 good walks a day. When we first got our first greyhound we didn't realise that they are short distance sprinters but not the greatest distance walkers. The first few nice walks in the countryside that we did with him always ended up with him laying down after half an hour walk and refusing to move until he had gathered his breath. That did get better after a few months and after a year he could walk as long as you wanted him to.

Another thing he will not be used to is living indoors and having to indicate that he needs a piss. But as most racing greyhounds are housed in kennels this normally means that they don't mess their kennels as they have to sleep in it. So that should be straightforward.... we will see...

As you can read we are getting exited now and can't wait for saturday!

More later,

Cheerio,

Alex.

Greyhound racing at Mildenhall Stadium...

Last friday evening, the wife and I, plus a mate went to the races. This was the greyhound races at Mildenhall Stadium. As readers of this Blog will know we are looking at getting another greyhound this was the place to go as the Retired Greyhound Trust had a fundraising evening.


This was the walkout for the third race. We all were betting on the dogs but the winner for the evening was my mate Mick O'C who managed to scoop a 14 pound win on a 1 pound bet, nice! The rest of the races were sortof shared between us, we all had a few winners but the mayor winner of course was the beer tent which was frequented a lot by Mick and myself.


For anyone who has never been to a dog track give it a go, it is good fun. First of all it is a cheap night out with entrance fees from as low as 3 pound for concessions. The betting can be done from bets as low as 20 pence so you can make it as cheap or expensive as you want.

And all the people that are always on about the cruelty in the dog racing should first come and have a look before complaining. The dogs get vetted by an official veterinarian before AND after a race, any problems will get fixed there and then. But the most telling thing that the dogs enjoy it is this fact. When the next race is about to start the 1 minute bell rings. All the dogs that are not racing in this race and which are still in the kennels start to bark. Then when the race is set off they all go mental in the kennels, they just want to be there on the track, hilarious....


It had been a while since me and the missus had been to the track but last friday was a good night, thanks to the RGT and the people of Mildenhall Stadium.

Cheerio,

Alex.

New Dog...

New arrival...

OK, we have started the process of getting a new dog. We started to realise over the last couple of months that besides missing the company of a dog we also miss the exersize. So after a lot of thinking about it, humming and ha-ing we are now in the process of becoming a dog family one again. We talked a lot about what kind of dog we wanted and it was fairly simple. We are having a greyhound again. Several reasons for that. They make great pets, they are quiet, they don't require too much exersize (They do like it when you do give 'em a lot of course...). Also they have done their bit for society by making money for their owners and providing lots of people with entertainment at the races. So I like to do my bit and give one of them a nice retirement.

This handsome beast on the left here is Blonde Boy Jay. This is the one we chose from the Ipswich branch of the retired greyhound rehoming trust. We went there on sunday and looked at quite a few dogs but this was the one that sort-of chose us. It was very hard though having to choose between a bunch of dogs that all want to come home with you...

This dog has never lived indoors so we will have to wait and see how it gets along with the normal house noises like hoovers and things like climbing stairs. He is 6 years old and has raced at Walthamstow and Romford. Here is his pedegree.







http://www.greyhound-data.com/d?d=Blonde+Boy+Jay&sex=&color=&birthyear=&birthland=
We will get him depending on paperwork either tuesday or friday. We can't wait. Finally after months of no dog we will be complete again.

I will keep you posted on the progress of the new mutt...

Cheerio,

Alex.