it's safe now

The puppy pen has been dismantled, it's safe for visitors with sensitive noses to come and visit again.

Edit:
Trying to mop with one puppy attached to the mop is difficult. Trying to mop with two puppies attached is next to impossible, but very funny!

new feature!

So, for those of you who know me, I am somewhat.... "specific" about some things.
I like lists for example, as demonstrated in my 101 things in 1001 days thingie. Listing things also shows up in my desire to catalog things. Like our DVD collection. For this task, we decided to purchase some spiffy software. This is fairly cheep and quite cool. I discovered this morning that it also lets you automatically create web pages of your collection. This I have duly done. I am personally not very impressed with the template, but it seems to be quite complicated to create your own template and I haven't attempted that (successfully) yet. Anyway, you can now look at our DVD collection online and marvel at our terrible interesting taste in DVD's. There is also a link above on the header bar.

The potato cake enigma

What is it with potato cakes. You go into the fish and chip shop and you order n potato cakes

   n = the number of potato cakes you want

and inevitable you end up getting n + 1 potato cakes

   number of potato cakes you actually get = n + 1

So next time you go to the same fish and chip shop you think, "Hay, I'll be smart, I only want n potato cake, so I'll order n - 1, knowing I'll get n + 1 potato cakes

   being smart, next visit you order = n - 1 potato cakes

Then the man gives you bloody n - 1 potato cakes and you are now one short!

Arrrrrrrrrr, you just can't win can you?!?!?

skip

We love a good skip here at our house! It usually means hours of back braking work, especially for Neil. Here is our his latest effort. He is currently out there now putting even more on it, even though I think it's full.

Message from Finn

I received a lovely email from Finn the other day. Here it is for you to read:

Hello Louise and Neil,

It's Finn here and Helen said I had to write you a quick note to let you know how the past 24 hours have been for me up in the Hills.

Well, after I left home I was plonked into a little doggy bed on the back seat of the car. I was quite pooped so I lay still for the whole trip. When we got to their house I spent a lot of time sniffing in every nook and cranny and familiarising myself with the layout. they have lots of steps in their garden and Helen had to help me get up and down some of them,
Later in the evening we went to the park and I had a good run around chasing a tennis ball and following Ellie wherever she ran. By the time we got home I was starving and I ate Ellie's food and she ate mine - Helen tried to intervene but didn't succeed. We went to bed at about 11pm and I was a bit unsettled and kept fidgeting around. JF picked me up and let me sleep on their bed for a while. That was great until I fell off and then I decided to sleep in my bed on the floor. I woke up at about 6.45 and made sure they knew I was awake. Helen took me into the garden so that I could do my pee. Ellie and I ran around a bit and then I did a bit more sniffing around the place hoping I could find some food. I overheard Helen saying to JF that I have a huge appetite. Helen gave me some of the food you left for me plus a yummy chicken wing.

After breakfast we went to the oval in Monbulk and Ellie chased the tennis ball again and was running around like a whippet - I had to chase her of course to show her that I am just as fast as her. After that Helen put me on a lead for a while and we walked to the post office. I was too tired to do any more walking so Helen picked me up and carried me back to the car.

I went to the office today and spent a bit of time sniffing around when i first arrived - lots of interesting smells, especially from their big kitchen. When Helen or JF weren't around there was always someone else to look after me and I got lots of tickles and scratches. One young couple came in to have a look around because they thought they might like to get married at Nathania Springs. When they saw me they made a big fuss of me and even wanted to take me home with them. I spent a bit of the afternoon asleep under a desk where it was a bit cooler. Later in the afternoon when Helen had finished her work she took me downstairs to her office where it's comfortably furnished and airconditioned I had a big sleep in my bed with Ellie close by and Helen sitting at her computer.

All these young people started arriving for their shift in the late afternoon and they all kept coming and disturbing me downstairs to say hello. I kept hearing the word, "cute, cute, cute" all the time.

We went back to the park again in the evening and I had another good run chasing Ellie. We met another little pooch called Nelson (Ellie knows him) and they played chasey together. I tried to join in but Nelson kept snapping at me and trying to put me in my place . I think he thinks he's top dog...

When we got home I ate an enormous dinner as I was starving again. Ellie's food is really yumm and I like to eat out of her bowl.. when I growl and bark she moves away so that I can eat from her bowl. I can tell Helen is a bit miffed as Ellie seems to like my special puppy food which Ellie isn't supposed to have.

It's bed time now and Ellie and I are on the bed and it's very comfortable. There's a nice ceiling fan which makes the room nice and cool and I think I will have a good night's sleep.

I will write again soon when Helen and JF tell me to as I know you must all be missing me!

Love and cuddles from Finn.

good/sad and good

Today Finlay went to his new people. I have been very sad because of that, but I do know that the people will be very good parents for him, so it is also good. They run a reception center in Monbulk, where they work from home. They dog Elli, sits in their office with them all day, on her own couch. We are wondering how long it will take Fin to become the boss and own the whole couch. Apparently their whole staff and looking forward to the new puppy coming. So even though I am now crying AGAIN, I know Fin will be very happy there.

In other news, today Clara caught her first mouse! (Don't even thing of asking why there was a mouse in the house for her to catch, it probable isn't worth it) I had seen the mouse earlier in the day, whilst on the phone, and pointed out to Clara where is was hiding, under the fridge, so she know it was in the general area. Later tonight, Neil was helping Clara sniff around by moving things. He moved one thing in the 'alcove' and the mouse came zooming out from under some stuff on a shelf in the alcove towards the middle of the kitchen. Clara whizzed around and snap, the mouse was dead. Clara took the mouse outside, then the puppies came and took it off her.......... and ate it. There is obviously no picture for this post, as that would be gross.

concreters

Today, after a seemingly interminable wait, the fencing man arrived to put in the posts for our two new gates (it hasn't actually been that long, it's just the puppies can;'t be outside during the day, when we are not home, until the new gates are in, as our front gate is a bit dodge). This was duly accomplished, all before 11am. So I let the puppies outside. Then I noticed one puppy had a dirty nose.....
I had a look and yes, it was concrete. What a helpful boy, he had decided to have a dig in the nice wet concrete. Thankfully, when I found the spot he'd had a go at, there was no real damage done, I smoothed it over and it will be fine. I nipped back inside to get the camera to take a photo of the naughty puppies face (God why do Scotties get into everything) and took a nice photo of Finn's face, only to realise, I had been looking at Conner's messy face not two seconds ago!
Oh Dear. Two dirty puppies.
I cleaned then up, with a face-washer, in the laundry trough (in face, I think it was actually the same I just about 4 years ago to clean tortured slug off Clara's face in the first week we had her home).
Anyway, I put their fence around the offending concrete and went to write this post, only to discover Guthrie also has a concrete-ie nose. AHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhh. I am yet to discover which of the 4 bits of concrete he has gotten into. God I should have gone to work, it would have been more restful!

Lump o cake

As I was pouring the cake mix I had just made into the cake pan, I realised that the pan was really too big. 'Oh Well' I thought, 'the cake will just spread out and be a bit thin'
Little did I realise this would not happen. Hence: was born.
Oh Well, I'll put some icing on it, it'll be fine.....