bits and pieces

A weekend filled with a miscellany of activities and observations...

• I'm cross at the blackbirds. They have rooted out all but 2 sprouting sugar snap peas, and played havoc with the broad beans in the vegie patch
• Dearest ran in the Great Puffing Billy Train Race. It's a 13.6km run from Belgrave to Emerald, mostly alongside the track that Puffing Billy, our local steam train runs on. He managed to beat the second train of the morning, called the 'girls train' (grrr...?) because it's the one the women have to try to beat to win the race. As he didn't beat that one last year, very pleased with himself he was too. And now is sore, tired and on the couch with a Scotch.
• Re-learning that spending a day lying on the couch with a good book is actually a feasible thing to do on a weekend.
• Delighting in playing games with my kids. You know, the simple ones: catching/rolling/throwing a ball. Puzzles. Bikes. Reading a little story.
• Excitement at plans to turn half of our driveway into a vegie garden!

and

• Beginning birthday planning for Poppy. Five feels so BIG!

Q: When is your dog not your dog?

A: When you've bought a microchip instead.

Hello.

I'm afraid that our modern life has led me to begin sounding like a bad first-year philosophy tutorial, but: we recently had to fill out a change of ownership form for our dog. Our dog that we have owned since he was legally saleable. He came fully microchipped, you see, and we were given all the papers, food, certificates etc etc etc ad nauseum that one could want to collect with a 9 week old puppy.

Fast forward a year, and...we decided to register him with the National Pet Register, just to ensure that if he did wander, he would have every chance of getting delivered back to us. That was when we made The Discovery: our doggie's microchip number is different to the one on his paperwork. The vet confirmed which chip number was right, by scanning the pooch. Then came the rigmarole of calling the National Pet Register to correct the problem.

Which can only be corrected by filling out a change of ownership form.


Am I the only one who thinks this is seriously out of kilter? I bought a dog, not a microchip. I was against the chip anyway - unnatural, controlling, etc etc - but went along with it because of various regulations and flat out 'no, you may not buy this puppy without a microchip' -type statements. And now I find that I really did buy a microchip, and that the outer casing of furry dogginess and slobbery, enthusiastic goodness doesn't actually rate a mention in this whole debate.

*Sigh*

What a strange world.

Lucky it's got things like dogs in it.

Uh...hi!

Hello. It seems that I've been on a rather extended blog break.

Not wanting to bore anyone with details, May and June were a morass of birthdays and winter setting in, a visit from my mother-in-law, debate about where best to site the vegie patch in Spring, fending off winter lurgies, and acquiring a puppy.

yes, a puppy. Stay tuned for photos. Technology is not my friend tonight.

And just to keep you amused while you wait for pictures of the unbearable cuteness, some books that have been read around here lately:

*The Ubiquitious: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. All in the household have now read it, all are now officially in mourning for the series' end. Very satisfying, and far pacier and tighter than the last few in the series, imo. Daughter #1, 4yrs old, is totally confused about what a Snape is. She had a nightmare about it last night.
*The PoMo yet readable (oh ack, can't believe I said that!) : The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. I know, I know. I'm so behind the times. This is the Eastern Regional library we're talking about. We take our time out here. Interesting, got me in, lots to recommend it, but still a book about a book club. Lovely characterisations.
*The Unmentionable addiction: like hot chocolate with marshmallows, sticky sweet and ultimately drinkable, The Wizard of London by Mercedes Lackey. Love me an author called Mercedes. It's gotta be a pen name. Me? Trying to replace books about a boy wizard? Is denial a river in Egypt? Forgettable fluff, great when you've got a cold and a baby who has a cold and a 4 year old with a cold. Did I mention we had colds?

And that's it for August so far.