Datchi akounto

I would show my desktop, but it's not even set to anything... How boring! I'll have to do something about that quick, before the bandwagon passes me by.

Me: Good Morning! (yes I did smile, and I sounded happy!)

colleague: Good morning

Me: How are you?

colleague: it's wednesday...

end of conversation... Useless!

Well, here she is... Our beautiful dog. Turns out IRP is not the only one crazy about her. I spend quite a bit of time looking after her, but today was IRP's turn and I realised I missed the dog.

Anyway, here's a picture of her.

I popped by this sunny sunday morning, thought I'd say hello. We don't have any snow here, and it's actually really nice outside, especially in the sun.

The first week with the dog didn't go badly at all. We started leaving her on her own on Wednesday, and she was good as gold. IRP has completely fallen in love with her, but is still not ready to admit it.
We only had our first incident today, where she tore up a lovely fluffy, fury cushion that was on a the sofa. IRP was not impressed. She knew she'd done wrong, so we pointed her in the direction of her toys and hopefully that will be that.

I'm turning into a dog-obsessed person with nothing else to talk about, it's horrible, must be fixed soon! It's funny as I've never really been one for pets and things...

In other news, things between IRP and me are a bit strained at the moment. That's not great. I'm not sure why but I suspect he's got some worries on his mind about his construction business in these difficult times, as I've noticed he's started to talk about money and the cost of little things. He never used to talk about this at all, other than to say money was no problem... hmmm... And there is always an element of big man talk to filter out of course (no offense men, but it's often true).

Anyway, it's been tricky and it's new ground to me. I would always leave at any hurdle, so I'm trying not to at the moment. But in my mind, I've packed my things and left about three times this weekend. I guess this is where the commitment thing kicks in for normal people. Well, I'm trying. I don't know yet if there is a need to draw any lines, and if so, where it should be drawn...

The dog needs looking after as well, that take the two of us for sure, so that's keeping me around for now as well. She's so cute! We washed her in the bath last night. She didn't like the shampoo much, but she loved the rinsing with warm water after. And then we lit the fire for her to sleep and dry out. Cute cute doggy!
Will post pictures soon!

Finally, for some odd reason, more people visit my blog when I'm not here writing regularly... And when I post something, people stop coming by.

Sabre's here! We had an early start on saturday, left home at 7 am to drive to a little place north of Chelmsford. It took three hours to get there with traffic.

It was a quick pick up so the dog wouldn't know what was going on. She wasn't feeling too well, she was nervous of course. It was then a very long drive home with the dog in the van. We stopped plenty of times for a walk.

When we finally got her back home, she was ok. We got her bed out, and her toys. We let her loose to run around the house and the garden to explore. She seems perfectly happy. We played football with her and took her for walks around her new area.

She's very well behaved and well trained. She didn't go after the other dogs and walked well on the lead.

On Sunday, we took her to the seafront for a walk. She didn't want to get in the car tho... in the end we managed. I then wanted to stop off at mine to change my shoes quickly, but that upset her. It seems she's scared to be left at the moment, and is clinging to us as we're all she's got now. She didn't like the sea, she was scared of it. But she loved walking and running on the common.

Today, she thought it was best if we woke up at 4 am... So we sent her back to bed, that was ok. Then IRP had to go to work around 6, and the fun started again. She was very unsettled then. I got up and took her for a walk, but she seemed scared of everything. It's sad to see. I hope she settles in soon. It's not even been 48 hours yet...
And she doesn't like the snow, so I guess that's not helping...

I'm working from home to stay with her. And probably tomorrow as well, as the snow means I won't drive to work anyway.

If anyone has any tips on how to help a dog settle in her new home, anything is much appreciated.

Pictures will follow soon!

So I know I've been away for a little while, but what is this new thing in my Stats page, called Top 30 Keywords?

Hello, hello! I'm popping by tonight, to say hi, how are you? And to tell you my latest news.

I think about this blog often, and I feel bad for not writing much. But the reason for this is mostly that I don't have much to say at the moment.

Still plenty of opinions on everything in the world of course, but not currently anything strong enought to write about perhaps...

Anyway, I couldn't possibly forget you all, and this little blog of mine, so here's my latest news that I wanted to share.

I think I may have told you before, that IRP and I were trying to rehome a dog out of rescue. We were struggling because we both work, but we've now been selected for a dog!
We went to see her last week, and we're going back on saturday to pick her up. The dog is a girl Dobermann, 4.5 or 5 years old, and really sweet and well behaved. She lives just north of Chelmsford at the moment, so it's a bit of a trek, but we're getting her this weekend and it's really exciting! Her name is Sabre, and I'm sure I'll be telling you more about her soon.

Can't believe how long it's been. Thought I'd pop by and say hello to you all!
Hope you're keeping well! And looking forward to the festive season! Only a month away now!

I've been really busy lately. Work has gone mad. I've started on a new programme, and setting it all up from scratch has been really good, but busy and at times stressfull. I've also been away on travel for a few weeks, in the Washington DC area for work, which was good. Did lots of work, and got to see the sights.
After Washington, it was straight to Holland with IRP to meet the family. Scary! But that was really good too! We spent a few days in Amsterdam before heading to my hometown. It was my niece's first birthday, and it was all really nice.

Just been back for almost a week now, and trying to get back to a normal routine. It's good to be back! I'll try to visit here more often and write more, and read more.

It's all you hear about... the credit crunch! Ouch! I guess recession seems unavoidable now.

And governments the world over are trying to make things better by throwing money at the problem. Well, actually, not at the real problem, just at the consequences of the real problem.

Money down the drain then... I think so. 700 Billion for the US financial markets? Short term solutions to long term problems? I'm worried that governments spending all this money will only make things worse in the long run. What will happen in a few years time, when the money is needed for some useful rebuilding? There won't be any money left as it was wasted in this big bail out.

Why do they not let some more of these banks go bust? Is this really only about save-guarding peoples savings? Would a cost-benefit analysis not show that this is a costly inefficient thing to do based on the level of debt out there?

And I love all the new terms like 'toxic debt' and some other little gems. The media is having a field day! And there's not a lot of objective reporting going on! Just a lot of panic stories!

I've streamlined my already rather streamlined budgets in anticipation. This could potentially be a catastrophe, created by a culture of living on credit, and it should be handled carefully with an eye to the future, rather than any rash cowboy plans created with elections in mind...

With IRP, it was always likely I'd be seeing a lot more of the sport, but as it turned out, suddenly I've been to twickenham twice in almost as many weeks!

We went to the Double header a little while back. 2 matches to kick off the season. That was a really good day out!
Then last saturday, some of IRP's friends had a spare ticket for the Help for Heroes match. So I got to go! That was really good too!
Had so much fun. IRP couldn't go, so I went with some of his friends. I didn't know them very well, so was a bit worried about a day out with people who are almost strangers. But it was a really good laugh!

Still haven't seen IRP play though... Think I'd be worried watching other people bashing into him and stuff on the pitch... Oh dear... (he is always a bit battered and bruised on saturday evening...)

Anyway, think the blog is all up to date now. I'll try not to leave it so long again.