I have been rather quiet of late because I have had to deal with some things that have given me a shake-up.

My brother, Bruce, was diagnosed with neck and head cancer 6 years ago which required a 10 hours operation to remove abscessed soft tissue from his neck and installation of a new voice box and removal of his bottom teeth. He had intensive radiography and also had to learn to speak again. Over the years he has had lumps removed from his head and neck. Last year in March he was told he would not be having any more operations done to remove any more lumps and no more radiography and was given a couple of months to live but they could give him palliative chemotheraphy to give him maybe an extra 12 months and now would be assigned to a palliative doctor.He finished his course of chemo last September, and was able to play golf again.

On 29 June my rescue cat, Darcy, went outside and hasn't been seen since. I had had him for 4 years. 

On 27 July Bruce had a stroke was hospitalized and entered rehab. Last week he returned home and is taking things slowly.  (My dad had a stroke when he was 54 which paralysed him down his left side and he died at 67 years.) For some reason the news my brother having a stroke knocked the stuffing out of me, up until then my travelling down to Sydney to take him to chemo and a palliative doctor appts I was able to cope. Grieving.

On 14 August I came home from work to find my 12yo dog, Bailey, laying down in the backyard, I knew as soon as I saw him he was gone.  I rang the Vet and he said to bring him down and they will look after him. More grieving.

I live on my own, (divorced empty nester), my pets are my little family. Now there is just my 12yo Maltese Terrier, Carly,  and I.  I had bought the two of them from a little old lady who had 7 dogs, council had told her she could only have 3 and to get rid of the others. My children were still living at home and my eldest son Nicholas and I fronted up to the house only expecting to take one home but the lady was worried if we took one it would be too lonely. So we ended up taking home Carly, and Bailey, a West Highland dog. She had brought them from two different dog breeders, they were 6 months old when they joined our family.

 Everyone keeps telling me to buy a new cat/dog but I think Carly is too old to have a young puppy/kitten running around her. We went on a 2km walk the other day which she loved but paid for it with being all achey the next day.

......................

More and more I have been trying to direct this blog into what it originally was supposed to be ... a life journal.

Two weeks ago I lent my neighbour from over the back fence my little Ryobi chainsaw to help prune some of his trees. We discussed thinning out the tree in my yard as he wanted to put in a vegetable garden on his side of the fence and my tree gave too much shade.

Last evening just before dark, my neighbour decided to prune the tree. Well, the first I heard was my dog Bailey having hysterics and barking his head off. Now, who in their right mind starts hacking at a tree in the dim light, I was absolutely flabbergasted, he couldn't wait till the weekend. There was no way I was going to let him anywhere near my Ryobi , so I had to pretend not to hear Bailey's yapping but after 15 minutes I had had enough and bellowed - "Shut up, Bailey". I don't know who got the bigger shock the neighbour(s), my dog or myself at the volume I was able to achieve. LOL.

I was thinking about this (out of character) reaction today, and realised it may have been the result of what had happen earlier in the day.

I had gone into a clients house and the first thing she showed me was the fencing guy repairing her back fence which her neighbour had back into and damaged, so she had a whinge about that and then mentioned her washing machine had been playing up and she would have to get her son to look at it.

Okay, so I head off to do some work in the house when I hear the machine running a little rough so I wander out to the laundry and find the client pulling some wet clothes out of the machine because it had stopped running.

Water is dripping on the floor and running under the machine and just as I arrive at the doorway the machine starts to spark, I try to get the client to come away from it but she is getting cranky with me because her machine is broken, wft. How I am to blame I have no idea.

Water is seeping towards the client so I check the floor and then reached over and grabbed the electricity cord and yanked it out of the wall socket. Honestly, you would think she would be thankful I stopped her from getting electrocuted but no, all I got was abuse. Later, after settling the client down I rang my supervisor and she is going to contact the client's sons and have the client tested for dementia. Personally, I think she is just stressed and grieving as her husband passed away earlier this year.

I am glad this work week is finish as on top of my own hours, I picked up an extra 10 hours work.

Out in the garden on a lovely sunny winter's day

Darcy was joined by Kahlua and Bailey his roomies.

Darcy wasn't too sure about venturing outside
as the local birds take exception to his tree climbing


Kahlua and Bailey love nothing more than hanging out
in the garden enjoying the mild winter's day
as the day before was bitterly cold.

I have had a couple of requests for a photo of Darcy
aka Big Fella

and

These are my dogs, Bailey and Kahli.

Darcy is bigger than either of them

Friday Drinkies

Before...

...After

Enough said.

I was playing around with Photobucket's editing tool to get the bottom photo it came out better than I expected. As you can see Bailey loves to be the centre of attention.