Manic Monday...........

Our massive clearout continues apace to the extent that we have re-discovered two bedrooms we hardly knew we had.  It feels strange to be able to fully open the doors, and even stranger to be able to walk inside.  For what seems like forever they've been stacked floor to ceiling, wall to wall with assorted offspring's stuff, not to mention a modicum of ours, tucked away at the back.

Yesterday we loaded the car to the gunnels and had a trip to our local tip, which has been completely redesigned and  revamped so that it barely resembles a household waste and recycling centre at all.  In fact it was so swish that next time we go we might take a picnic and make a proper day out of it.

Up exceeding early this morning to escort Small Dog to her least favourite place..... the vet.  Since our return from holiday, her claws have been catching on the carpets as if she's velcroed to the floor.  To disengage her back feet she's had to develop a complicated reverse kick manoeuvre, which although entertaining to watch, does not bode well for her luxating patellae, or the assorted metal pins holding her kneecaps in place.  So there was nothing else for it but to take her to have all her claws clipped, a procedure which requires her to be sedated.

Stoic she is not.

While she's under sedation we take the opportunity to have some additional work done...... ears plucked, anal glands expressed (ewwww) teeth scaled etc.  So we left her trembling in the arms of the veterinary nurse who promised to take good care of her and call us as soon as Small Dog was compos mentis.

So around lunchtime we returned to collect her, still a bit woozy and quivery but in remarkably good spirits considering.

In the interim, piles of recycling, freecycling, charity shop donations etc have been slowly building, colonising the hallway and I hesitate to think that there might actually be light at the end of the tunnel.  Just so long as it's not the headlights of an oncoming train..... 

So focused have we become on the job in hand that we have even begun to ignore normal, commonsense health and safety precautions.  This morning I managed to get my feet tangled  in the vacuum cleaner lead and fell over backwards, narrowly missing cracking my skull on the edge of the bedroom door, then later PP split her chin open trying to dislodge a stick from a metal tube (don't ask) by jumping on it, catapulting the whole thing up into her face. I was upstairs at the time and when alerted to the incident by her cries of distress, flew downstairs dreading the worst.  After the blood was cleaned up, and ice applied, it fortunately transpired that the injury wasn't as bad as we'd feared, although I expect tomorrow her chin will look like Desperate Dan's.

I do feel sorry for her...... today's her birthday and instead of breakfast in bed and a relaxing, pampering day she's been up to her armpits in garden detritus clearing the patio and the junk areas beside the shed. She got that job primarily because she's not afraid of the ENORMOUS spiders who inhabit the whole area and live in massive structurally engineered webs which even Small Dog carefully avoids.

However, some welcome light relief today was provided by a very nice chap (Hello Bill!) who came to collect some freecycle stuff and revealed himself to be a reader of this blog.  It's not often I get to meet readers of this drivel  shimmering prose in the flesh.  Naturally, he asked after Small Dog and was rewarded with a personal introduction albeit she was a bit subdued.  In spite of feeling distinctly under the weather, Small Dog is always acutely aware of her responsibilities to her loyal fans, and is a consummate professional, adopting a similar modus operandi to that of the Queen.

Her tail wag may have been a bit lacklustre, and there was a definite lack of her normal joie de vivre, but she nevertheless gave a bravura performance, lapping up the attention before retiring to her basket to recuperate further.

Tomorrow we have more of the same. Dog help us......