I am the most fascinating person

Having dogs can be a very ego-stroking experience - everything I do is, to them, utterly fascinating. Every move I make around the house is accompanied by the tick-tick-tick of two sets of paws following me, every action watched by two pairs of eager, inquisitive eyes. "You're hanging the washing out - incredible!" "You're going to the toilet - amazing!" "You're scraping poo off the deck - astounding! (Also, could you put that back, I was planning on rolling in it later.)" If it weren't for my children's uncanny ability to bring me back down to earth with a crash I could start to get rather full of myself.

Eagle-eyed readers (all two of you) will have gleaned that we have added another fluffy bod to the menagerie. Meet Fred (aka Top Hat and Tails of TennTyne).



Fred is a Sealyham Terrier - a once popular breed that is now top of the list of endangered dog breeds in England. EEB's family in England has always had Sealyhams and several months ago he contacted New Zealand's only Sealyham breeder. She had no puppies available at the time, but when the family who originally took Fred sadly had to return him due to unforseen circumstances EEB immediately came to mind. We met her and Fred at the NZ Kennel Club show on Saturday, fell in love and brought him home with us, where he has now settled in so well that you'd think he'd always lived here. Jessie loves having a playmate, and Fred is besotted with Jessie.

In other news, Jessie bit the corner off the outdoor beanbag, the kids discovered that jumping on the beanbag produces a shower of polystyrene beads, the deck now looks like a snow storm hit it and Fred is walking around with polystyrene beads stuck in his fur. I tell ya - it's comedy gold in this house!

(And in case you're wondering: yes that is EEB in the picture hiding behind Fred.)

Kleptomaniac dogs, rubber doormats and Michael Jackson

An inspection of the garden yesterday morning revealed the following things: a pair of 13 year old girl's socks, game pieces from Snakes & Ladders, a pair of EEB's boxers, six rubber doormats, three empty tins from the recycling bin, a pair of 9 year old boy's trousers, a ripped bag of kitty litter of the recycled newspaper variety - you should see what happens to that stuff when it's been out in the rain, a cushion, the blankets from the dog's kennel, 13 year old girl's jacket, and the wrapper from the huge bar of Caramello chocolate. We'd only eaten a few pieces out of the block - bet that was one happy dog!

Several things are clear from this. First - I need to get out in the garden more often. Second - my dog is a kleptomaniac. Third - I should stop buying rubber doormats and invest in some wrought iron ones - let's see her face when she tries to chew on that!

The house was (as usual) full of children yesterday, and they entertained themselves for some time playing "Jacksonified" - a variation on the classic game of Tag that they made up themselves. The basic idea is the same as in Tag, but the person who is in is Michael Jackson, and they chase the other kids until they catch someone, who then becomes "Jacksonified". A pretty succinct comment on the state of Michael Jackson's career no? He has joined the likes of the Bubonic Plague and become a children's game (a'la Ring a Ring a Rosie)!

No smoking please - I'm giving up. No, seriously.

I don't have a particularly good history with quitting smoking (obviously, otherwise I would have, you know - quit), but given that I am now a Woman of No Income (otherwise known as staying home to oversee the renovations, which haven't actually started yet), I think it's only fair that the EEB shouldn't have to pay for my nicotine addiction. He would quite rightly point out that he already pays for my shoe addiction. And my chocolate addiction. And my lingerie addiction. And my 'ooooh that's so pretty, I can has?' addiction. Also, my children hate it that I smoke. Oh and my father died at a relatively young age of a heart attack after a lifetime of smoking. And I keep getting bronchitis. And I'd quite like to grow old disgracefully, not die young of some smoking related condition. Enough reasons already? I sure hope so.

So I smoked the last smoke in the packet at 6.30 this morning. EEB and the kids are ducking for cover - watch this space and wish me luck.

In unrelated news, the dog was outside for five minutes and is now covered in Something Disgusting With Tomatoes In It. Not sure how I'm going to remove it, given that we don't use the bathtub since the 'water leaking down the side of the bathtub and shorting out the washing machine and dryer on the day before we flew to Australia when I still had five loads of washing to do' incident of July 08.

Puppy training

So, Eccentric English Boyfriend, 12 Year Old girl, 8 Year Old Boy, The Menagerie and myself have finally set up house together. Three weeks ago we moved into our new house, and it still looks like an explosion in a box factory. It's a big house, but we have a lot of stuff.

To add to the chaos that comes with shifting and combining two households we have added to The Menagerie - we've adopted a border collie cross puppy from the SPCA who we've named Jessie, and she's gorgeous. And excitable. And chews stuff. And poos. And wees. And did I mention chews stuff?



She is a lovely girl though, and is responding really well to training. The whiteboard on the wall of our kitchen has written on it a list of the commands we use for Jessie, so that we are all using the same command (ie 'sit', 'don't chew that', 'stay', 'come back here with my bra' and so forth). The other day as I was getting the kids prepared for school in the morning EEB was in the hall attempting to put his boots on so he could go to work. His attempt was obviously not going very well, and judging by the yelling coming from the hall it was probably a lot to do with the fact that he had a small puppy hanging off his shoe laces. He may not have been finding it very amusing but we all did, and after giggling at the commotion for a while 12 Year Old Girl emerged from the kitchen with a wicked grin. "Mum, I've written a new command on the whiteboard" she giggled, and sure enough at the bottom of the list she had written:

"FOR GOD'S SAKE!"