Monday 31 August 2009

Mishka & Us


We watched Marley & Me last night on Sky, Olga had seen it before, but on a flight somewhere, so wanted to watch it again. My barberette (what do you call a woman who cuts hair in a barber's shop?) had recommended the book, and I passed this onto to Olga. The parallels to our life made it a very interesting story (a professional couple with no kids get a dog, then the kids come along..). I'd recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a dog but is thinking of getting one - theirs is a "worst-case" scenario, and Mishka wasn't anywhere near that bad - but there were certainly moments that we recognised from our experience!

Yet more teeth on the way

Lara has been a little more grumpy than usual this weekend, certainly not impossible, but just a bit more whingy. The reason - we hope - is teeth. More are coming through, at the lower front. She would normally have two naps during the day at weekends, but it's been proving difficult to get her off to sleep. Saturday was a different case anyway, as we went to a friend's barbeque in the afternoon in Marlow (thanks, Jo & Oli!) and Lara wasn't really going to sleep through a party. She was exhausted by the time we got a taxi home at 9ish, and slept well through the night until 7.30.
Sunday was a lazyish day for Lara and me, while Olga continued the stirling work she's started on Saturday in the house and garden. We had an adventure on the bus to Marlow to go and collect the car, then watched a bit of TV and tried to doze (me) or fought the urge to doze (Lara) in the afternoon. This caused a case of classic "over-tiredness" in the evening, and it took some time to get Lara off to sleep, and a bit of a broken night before she decided that 6am was the right time to get up.

A sunny Bank Holiday Monday!

Today was a bit grey to start with, but the weathermen had promised it would brighten up in the afternoon, and it certainly did. We spent the morning doing boring housey-work things, but then set off after lunch towards Henley. Lara fell asleep in the car, so we drove a bit further to let her sleep some more, and found ourselves at Christmas Common, a lovely spot that we've been to a couple of times. It's on the Ridgeway, the chalk ridge that runs through Oxfordshire, amongst many other places.
Here's a lovely photo of Olga and "the kids", and some more have been uploaded in to the "New Uploads" album on the left of the blog.

Jackson was really well behaved, maybe some of it was because he's so young and worried about us leaving him somewhere, but he never went more than 10 metres away from us, and came back everytime when called. He was very popular with other people on the Common, so much so that poor Lara didn't get any attention at all from strangers, which is very unusual.

He was very tired when we got home, and was happy to doze in his pen while Lara had an al-fresco tea on the decking. The weather has stayed warm and clear, so much so that I'm writing this post on the decking by firelight (hence any spelling mishtakes) with a beer.