Long Entry is Long in Diary

So apparently Prosebox was hacked last night and went down for several hours. Are you going the way of Open Diary, In The Wire and Bloop already??

Anyway, it’s been a while since I last wrote so I thought I should update you all on a few things.

Dogs

The two huskies are now one husky. The owner finally decided that it wasn’t fair on the cat to have an aggressive dog hell bent on murder living there, so he is now living with her friend. One husky is a hell of a lot easier to handle. To start with, I can let him have the full length of the 5m retractable lead as he’s not getting tangled up with the other one, so he’s bounding around and not pulling nearly half as much. Also, he’s much calmer on his own as the two dogs used to wind each other up which made it even harder. So my life is a lot easier on that front for now.

I have two new customers since I last wrote; one lady who lives around the corner and wants to board her two ENORMOUS neopolitan mastiffs with me when she goes on holiday.

This isn’t the actual dog, but this is what they look like and how big they are…

Apparently they’re really lazy and easy to handle though, I’m taking them out for a trial walk tomorrow.

The other new customer is a Staffy cross who I’m going to be walking twice a week while his owners are out at work.

And I also have another consultation on Thursday, for a man who wants his cat feeding when he goes on holiday.

So yeah, business is really taking off now. And, although it’s less stressful now I’ve lost one of the huskies, I still can’t see myself doing it forever. I do feel guilty taking on new customers while I’m also looking for jobs, but it could be several months until I get a new job so I need to keep doing this to pay the bills in the meantime.

Jobs

And speaking of jobs, I have applied for loads. I’ve had a few rejections, but most of them have ignored me. I’ve been applying for a selection of jobs; admin type stuff the same as I was doing before, plus others a little more ambitious that pay a bit more than my last one such as Office Manager.

I applied for one this morning and three hours later I had a phone call, which I was very excited about. I thought they were going to invite me for an interview, but it turned into a mini phone interview, which I wasn’t prepared for as I’d just pulled up at a customer’s house in the car, so I didn’t have my CV to hand, the job description, anything about the company or anything like that! I guess that’s why they do it, to see how good you are on the fly. So she asked me what experience I had, why I was looking for a job, what did I know about the company (nothing! I’ve applied for lots of jobs so I can’t remember which was which…!) But anyway, at the end of the call she said “Well you seem to tick all the boxes so I’ll pass your CV onto the manager and you’ll hear from us at the end of the week if she wants to interview you.” I’m not sure how to think! On the one hand, it’s good that they decided to call me just three hours after I submitted my application, and that she thinks I tick all the boxes. But on the other hand, I now have to wait for a completely different person to decide whether or not to interview me. Eeeek. Feeling positive anyway.

Mam and Dad

Mam and Dad came to visit for the weekend just gone. They were only here for about 36 hours as they couldn’t wait to get home and pick up their new dog! As you probably remember, their old dog Meg passed away in August, aged 16, and they said they weren’t going to get another one. Well they lasted longer than I thought they would, four whole months! So now they have Blue, a blue merle border collie. Mam is extremely excited, she’s always wanted a border collie with blue eyes that she can call Blue. When they were getting Meg, they were actually going to have her brother, as he had blue eyes, but it turned out that someone else also wanted him but no one wanted Meg, so they ended up with her!

I haven’t met him yet but I’m going up just before Christmas so I’ll meet him then :o)

This is my sister’s photo which I stole from Facebook. Personally I think his eyes are a little creepy…

Anyway they arrived on Friday, we had a quiet night in on Friday night and then we went to the German Christmas Market in Birmingham on Saturday. I was expecting it to be busy, but it was too busy even to look at any of the stalls. So we spent about an hour shuffling up the street, finally stopping at the beer and sausage stalls for the important stuff. Me and mam had a cup of hot toffee cider while dad complained about the price because the drink was so small. As an annual Christmas treat, I think we can forget about the price of one drink!

When the market got too cold and busy, we escaped into a pub. Dad complained that he’d had too much to drink as he’d had six pints of beer that day. I did point out to him that it was over the course of about seven hours, but he still thought he’d had too much while sitting there drinking it.

And, when we got home, the first thing he did was go to the fridge and get more beer! I thought he said he’d had enough! We played a music game that Jay invented with his friends. One person starts off playing a song of their choice and you go around the circle with each person choosing a song that somehow links to the last one. So it can have a same word in the title, a word that links, a band member that’s in both bands, anything at all. Mam started off with The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, seeing as it was a chain based game. So you could pick any song that links with Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Formula One as it’s the theme tune, anyone with Mac in their name. I think Jay might have chosen something by Alice in Chains, to link with the song title. It’s great fun, you get to listen to some good music, maybe discover something new, talk about your choices and you can lose hours to it. We use YouTube and play all the songs from there so you can literally choose anything in the world.

They had just been to Liverpool for Dad to have his six monthly check up on his eye tumour. He had proton beam therapy a year ago, and apparently it takes about 12-18 months just to START working. I have no idea how that works. But there was good news, the tumour is shrinking so the proton beams are working. His eye is watering constantly though; apparently when the tumour shrinks, it releases a lot of liquid so that’s what that is. They have said, though, that the tumour does have a lot of veins feeding it so he might have to have surgery on his eye to remove them. He opted for the proton beams to try and avoid surgery but he might have to have it after all, which could damage his eyesight even further. But I guess a slight reduction in eyesight is a small price to pay for something that’s going to save your life.

What’s amazing about it all is that the machine they used for the treatment was one of only two in the whole world! He was talking to one lady who was having the same treatment as him and she had come all the way from Australia and was paying about £25,000 for the treatment! Whereas Dad just has to travel about 100 miles down the road and gets it all paid for on the NHS. Ahhh our National Health Service, I always say it’s one of the best things this country has ever done for its people. I can’t believe how lucky he was to be so close to the treatment he needs and has it all paid for.

Other Stuff

So it’s December, and that means the advent calendars are out, and Jay got our Christmas tree out last night for me to put up. I still don’t feel Christmassy though and I’m still struggling with frugal Christmas presents! I bought Jay a Star Wars advent calendar for £1 in Asda. I had no idea he was going to buy me one but he did, and it’s a Lindt one! He got it off Amazon and I looked it up to be nosy and it cost £20!! I know it’s his money and he can do what he wants with it, but it made me feel a bit guilty that I only spent £1.00 on his…he hasn’t even opened it yet; one day in and he had already failed.

I’ve finally got a new zebra finch to keep Mr. Jack company. Ever since his mate died, he’s just been sitting there yelling, obviously trying to get the attention of any other zebra finch in the area. It’s amazing how hard it is to find somewhere that sells them. I eventually found a pet shop about eight miles away. So I now have this pretty lady, second from the right with a white stripe on her wing.

It was dark when I got home and I’m keeping them in separate cages while I introduce them, so I don’t know what he thinks of her yet, but I hope they like each other :o) Oh, and she needs a name, so help me out oh Prosebox friends.

Lots going on at roller derby in the run up to Christmas. Apart from actual skating, I’ve got booked in two lots of photo sessions (one for the kit, one for headshots of the team; I’m trying to wheedle my way in as official team photographer!), secret Santa (five pound spending limit, anonymous lucky dip), birthday party at someone’s house and the Christmas party! I’m trying to involve myself with as much extra-curricular roller derby stuff as possible to try and make friends. Jay keeps telling me off for not making friends, but it’s easier said than done when you’re introverted and shy like me. During a mini argument the other week, he told me I’m shy and quiet which comes across as rude and aloof, but I’m also spiky and argumentative at the same time. Which basically makes me the worst person ever for making friends with. So that explains why I have no friends…

Last updated December 02, 2014