The Further Adventures of Spud the Dog, 12th May 2013

Poor Spud, he has sensitive skin

After the first day that resembled spring, one which Spud spent charging around the field  overnight he developed a sore looking patch on his neck, about the size of a 50p piece, it was troubling him, it was obviously very itchy. So Mr Uphilldowndale took him off to the vets. Where they shaved the fur off around the patch, Mr Uhdd said Spuds skin coloured up and started to swell in a flash. Poor Spud.

Spud came home with steroid cream, antibiotics, a fish oil supplement for his food and an £80 bill.

Dodger the kitten-cat decided after that upset, what everyone needed was a nice cup of tea, so he put the kettle on.

The kitten-cats have, by their measure a very productive week, amongst others, we’ve got up in the morning to find a dead jackdaw (I’d have liked to see how they got it through the cat flap!)

and a poor shrew that ended up with its head stuck in the mop bucket, not a nice way to go.

I can report Spud is looking much better and adores the fish oil on his food. We just hope that unlike me, Spud is not allergic t the antibiotics.

My What Big Teeth You’ve Got

Jammy the kitten-cat in the oak tree.

I returned to the dentists this week, to tidy up some of the emergency work done during my weeks of toothache angst. I was a little concerned by my dentists obvious excitement about the ‘unusually long’ root to my tooth, the very tooth he was about to start root canal treatment on. He’d had to order up a new longer file especially for me*. Gulp, I was starting to wonder if I was in for some alternative  trepaning. But I needn’t have stressed, the whole procedure was much better than my previous experience, helped by a ‘raincoat for my teeth’.

As Spring unfurls, Jammy and Dodger have been enthralled by the upsurge of bird activity in the garden. The bird table is groaning under the strain

Sadly I found the remains of a swallow in the porch this morning, the price we pay for employing these rodent killers…

*Yay for the NHS…

Hide and Seek

It’s been a strange sort of week.

The tooth drama rolls on sapping my energy as the weeks pass, today I’ve taken up the  offer of a second round of antibiotics prescribed by my dentist, ‘just in case’. Getting to the root cause of the pain has turned  into a  tedious game of hide and seek. I can tell you it hurts most when I drive up hill (don’t laugh it isn’t funny, remember? I live at the top of a hill. Maybe there is a reason for this?) Mr Uphilldowndale and the boys can vouch for the fact my sense of humour is AWOL too.

Something else disappeared this week, Police Inspector Gadget blog. This leaves a gapping hole in the blogosphere, as long as I’ve been  blogging Gadget has been popping by here, he was especially fond of Spud the dog.  One of his clear crisp text messages told me he’d written his last post and was pulling the blog. No fuss no drama. 24 hours later it was gone.

Gadget is always a man of his word, I know that. The news didn’t surprise me and yet it did, after all, seven years of blogging, 12 million hits and up to five hundred comments or more per post, not to mention the book,  has to be a huge part of someone’s life.

My camera has not seen the light of day this week, so I’ll leave you with a suitably occluded  image from my visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park a few weeks ago.

It’s taken from the inside of Basket #7 by Winter/Horbelt

Mum’s the Word

Happy Mothers Day.

I’ve been keeping a low profile this week,  it’s week two, of gnawing tooth ache. A couple of trips to the dentist, painkillers a plenty, plus a course of antibiotics  and oil of cloves and I’m not sure the end is yet in sight. I’m feeling rather weary of it.

Today we have been sat well and truly on the snow line,

 

we often are, live in a place long enough and eventually a pattern emerges. It has been bright and clear, but with a very sharp, bitingly cold wind. No way was I taking my ultra sensitive tooth out side for a dash of photography, oh no: I can wince at the mere thought of it, it is bad enough having cold air blasted on each tooth in the name of a diagnosis (it gave new meaning to the expression ‘upwardly mobile’!)

Photos taken from the bedroom window are as good as it gets today.

A few minutes later, a squall of snow flushed through the valley and finished the show for the day.

Winter Walk

Nothing finer than a  winter walk for  the restoration of equilibrium, Mr Uphilldowndale and I were both in need the other afternoon. We went down by the river, always a good move.

Up through the woods and across the fields.

Spud had a high old time, you can just see him here, heading off  towards a rather handsome wall, that’s topped with snow.

At the moment freezing rain is hammering against the windows and the rising wind has been piling snow back into the lanes this afternoon. The forecast is for the weather to get warmer over the weekend and for the snow to melt; we’ll be glad to see the back of it for a while I think. The weather conditions have led to tragedy.

We walked back past the church, not a bat or a bear in sight.

I saw some photos of ‘ zombie snowmen’ in the press this week, I had to admire the skill in their making, their location was described as a disused graveyard in Bristol,  it led me to wonder, how can  graveyard be disused? Its not like a factory is it? Isn’t always going to be ‘in use’ by its residents?

Nimble Fingers

Detail from a statue of  Enriqueta Rylands at the John Rylands Library in Manchester city centre.

Even given the graininess of this image I find the detail amazing, the knuckles, the sinews, the muscles all carved from stone. I wonder what the sculptor would make of the amazing hand transplant that has made the news here in the UK.

Enriqueta presides over the reading room of the library, that she founded in memory of her husband,

 

many things in society may have changed with the passing of time but the fabric of the library is as it was in 1900 when the library opened to readers.

I can’t help but muse on the fact that the current exhibition housed in the glass cabinets at her feet  is entitled Fifty Years of Clockwork Orange would surely be enough to to bring a blush to those blanched  Victorian cheeks. Goodness from her vantage point she can even see The Rocking Machine 

The John Rylands Library allows and encourages photography (no tripods, no flash) and invites its visitors to share their images on Flickr. They also make a very decent brew of tea in the cafe, at £2.50 for a pot for two we thought it a city centre bargain. Mr Uphilldowndale and I didn’t have long to linger, I’d like to pop back one day to take some photos that are a little more considered, I’ll add it to the list.

The Further Adventures of Spud the Dog 9th Dec 2012

Snip, snip, snip. Spud the dog has had a trim this week, the hope is we’ve reduced his mud carrying capacity, but left him enough to keep warm. He’s been quite explicit about how close a shave he’s had

Jammy and Dodger the kitten-cats have had a more radical snip, they too have been quite explicit about their treatment.

 

The veterinary  nurse was quite specific about their post operative treatment. Jammy and Dodger should remain indoors for48hours, they should only have a little too eat for the next few hours, they should be kept warm.  We’d not a cat in hells chance of delivering any of that.  I locked the cat flap, to keep them in the utility room, when I went to check on them an hour later, I couldn’t find Dodger anywhere. That is until I looked out side, he was sat on the doorstep, wet and bedraggled, the temperature was .09c and sleeting: I’d set the flap to let him out not in. Nor were they happy about restricted rations, they took to launching themselves at the kitchen door in protest.

Spud was sympathetic to their plight, he’d been there before*.

*both at the vets and being locked out in bad weather.

Sorry about the phone photo quality

All Mixed Up

I’m still here, there, and everywhere; wearing, as a colleague is fond of telling me ‘more hats than  they’ve got at John Lewis’.

This afternoon I drove to the village of Waterhouses  in Staffordshire, to collect Joe, he’d spent the weekend helping a Cub  Scout pack have a high old time at Orchard Farm. Mr Uphilldowndale took Joe there on Friday evening, through thick fog, not a pleasant journey. This was whilst I was at a rather  feisty public meeting, wearing one of my many hats, that wasn’t particularly pleasant either.

Waterhouses is set in the midst of beautiful countryside, but it was the nearby Cauldon Cement works that I wanted to photograph.

But there was no time to stay and play,  as Joe needed to get home and get his homework done before his ‘weekend high’ slumped into Sunday night angst.

I’m looking forward to reclaiming some ‘me time’ to loiter around with the camera, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion its not going to be before New Year. So for the time being, ‘happy snaps’ it will have to be.

Joe was particular taken with the silos at the cement works,

he said when they were out in a nearby field, they could hear the echo’s of their shouts (of which I’m sure there were many) echoing around the inside of the silos.

We’ve discussed cement works before…

Tell It To The Trees

We’re still here, the boys and I have been on holiday this week, Mr Uphilldowndale has been dipping in and out of the day job.

It’s been not so much a week of rest and relaxation, more a case of downtime, which was much needed.  Sadly news keeps reaching us of family, friends and colleagues who are, for a host of reasons, not having the best of times at the moment. I’m tempted to think that if I’d been on holiday on a desert island, with nought but a couple of palm trees a hammock and cold drink, a message in a bottle would have washed up on the shore.

It was suggested earlier in the week I should go out and hug a tree, and its true to say some of the most restorative time this week has been spent in the garden.

A good place to count our blessings and breathe…

Head and Heart

The shock and sadness at Daz’s death remains, of course it does. The dark skies this brings to us all are chased with the light of remembering brighter days with Daz.

This is Wasdale, the sort of landscape where Daz was in his element,

the original post is here.

We now know that Daz died from a rare heart condition, Left Ventricular Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy, the same condition that struck  footballer Fabrice Muamba earlier this year. It is  a rare condition, there is more information here, on a website for a foundation set up in memory of  John Taylor, a fell runner and international athlete who also died of cardiomyopathy in 2002. There is something very difficult about understanding this condition, we can read and  understand the science, yes, but not the emotions it raises, it just flies in the face of all we are told about exercise  ‘keeping a healthy heart’. I think fell runners in particular will have difficulty with that. 

I notice on the John Taylor  foundation page, that one of the external links is to CRY, Cardiac Risk in the Young. Some years ago I heard Paddy Jelen, talking about the death of her daughter, she did so very movingly and passionately in her quest to raise awareness of her daughters rare and often misdiagnosed heart condition, Long QT3. At first I hesitated to post the links here, thinking we’d really all read enough ‘sad stuff’ on the Internet in the last few days, but thought better of it. If Paddy can talk about it, I’d be a wuss not to post it.

Go read, please.

(Spud the dog will be back to his regular Sunday postings, some Sunday soon.)