a big girl's blouse

dear readers, yet again i must apologise for my delay in letting you know how things are in our neck of the woods. this is not for want of trying. i am at the mercy of my peeps when it comes to typing.

in the picture you can see hattie. hattie is a camper van owned by her maamship. hattie has a little problem with rust round her rear so her maamship has brought her down to get welded by the people who sold her, who are near where we live. her maamship is not someone to pass off a dodgy welding job on. not only is she a lorry driver's daughter, and hence knows her rust, but she is also a member of the judiciary.

on the first night her maamship and the prof slept on the sofa. young dave would have liked to join them but could not figure out how to jump over some rather small obstacles placed in his way. they do not make lurchers like they used to in terms of jumping. so instead, young dave resorted to clicking around the floor wailing all night. i was so fed up i nearly lifted him over myself. so the day dawned with a tired pair of guests.

my boy, as regular readers will be aware, has been less than adventurous lately. his fear was very much quashed by the prospect of playing in hattie. my boy loves the doors, and cupboards and general tidyness of a campervan (herself offered to kit his bedroom out in a copy of a campervan interior but this was not quite the same). so a picnic was planned, to a location some way from our house. the picnic was a success, with lovely nosh and fun and games for young dave and i. we were not allowed inside hattie but that may have been due to the food. or the smell of young dave.

by bedtime, her maamship and the prof were shattered, partly due to their sleepless night but also due to their advancing age. because of young dave's attentions, her maamship decided to sleep in hattie in the street. therefore what you can see in the photo is a judge sleeping in a campervan in a very humble street. the peeps are such poor hosts their guests resort to sleeping in their vehicles...

today young dave had to go to the vets. he has a new evil vet who is only a couple of doors down from our house. young dave has a funny lump on his elbow. it might be nothing or it might be something a bit icky. so a sample had to be taken with a syringe. but first he had to have his claws clipped. young dave has not learned to bite his nails so this was something of a fiddle. anyway, after the claws were done herself pinned young dave down and gripped his head between her legs so the evil vet could get at his elbow. young dave did not like this one little bit. his screams could be heard from our house. herself came back lacerated all over from the injuries caused by the newly sharpened claws. only to rush off 10 minutes later to see the lovely claudia, who is vacuuming out the fear from her head so it doesn't rush into my boy's head. herself tried to hide the injuries by wearing a cardie but it was too hot.

which brings me to her other injuries this week. no sooner had the seagull bite healed when herself had cut her hand on a book. the book in question was called "cbt for dummies". cbt is how you deal with fear. herself said to himself about having just healed up from the seagull bite when she got cut by the book.

"do they do one called ' self-harm for dummies' ? he asked...