Another busy week – I can’t tell you how much I’m waiting for next Monday! Here’s a lovely Monday Buzz from The Killers with Human
God I love this band. I’ve got a very special spot for Brendan Flower. I could quite easily have a full playlist only of the Killers and never get bored.
I’m back to full-time classes this week – the first week of school always starts slowly and some students were still off last week. Then it’s back to cake-making duties for the weekend as it’s Les Dames de FER foire at Condac. Fingers crossed for good weather and that everything runs smoothly. There’ve been some busy bodies behind the scenes, and Saturday will be a full-on day of putting up marquees and getting everything ready. All we can do then is hope for lots of clients! It’s been in all the magazines and publications, so I’m hoping for a few faces at least. There are some very lovely stalls coming – would not be hard to spend a bit of cash. I’ve got my eye on the plants.
Sylvie does all our lovely graphics and I can’t tell you how much she does behind the scenes. She puts me to shame. Her tea-towel empire (yes, such a thing does exist!) has really taken off and she’s even in this month’s Devon Life magazine.
Expect a very tired version of me this time next week.
The refuge website went live last week and you can see the fruits of our labours here
To move from a 1990s-style forum where you couldn’t really see any of the animals at all to this wonderful beast is quite a miracle. It’s still in the development stages, but the photos of the dogs are what I spend my Fridays doing. I’ve got plans for the 2016 calendar underway and today I need to get myself into gear to start planning that. It’s my next big project after the foire is out of the way. Then it’ll be the Hope October booksale! How time flies!
The main event of my week last week was putting my book on Kindle. I’m pleased to report good sales and nobody’s said how terrible it is.
The best bit of the week was briefly being above Cesar Millan on the Amazon rankings. I can’t tell you how much that man hurts my sensibilities. He’s single-handedly responsible for all the nonsense jargon about dogs and why the word ‘dominant’ is so frequently bandied about these days. Needless to say, I’m no doubt dominated by my dogs all the time. They’re constantly trying to get the better of me and outsmart me. It’s just a matter of time before I’m answering their every whim, responding to their beck and call, moving chairs just so they can sleep on undisturbed, petting them every time they come near. Hang on… that sounds like living with cats. Why has nobody worked out that the real dominance problem is with those cats who won’t be happy until they’re our overlords?
Like cats are not in control of the universe anyway!
A study was out last week that said that cats don’t need us to survive. Like that’s news. By implication, then, cats just hang around us because they have got us under their thumb and even though they don’t need us, they have us whipped into servitude. I’d like to see Cesar Millan do his stuff with a cat. Has anyone ever alpha rolled a cat and lived to tell the tale? Most dogs know not to mess with cats.
Anyway, if you’d like to buy my book you can find it here for Amazon UK and here for Amazon.com. You can buy it at any Amazon store for a truly great price (and all proceeds are going to help me buy stuff to improve the refuge photographs even more) I’m even a few thousand words into the next one, which still needs a name. It’s kind of weepy writing about all the calendar dogs who found a home, and the two that haven’t yet: Gentil and Tulipe. If you’re in France, the UK or northern Europe and you know someone who hasn’t got other animals and wouldn’t mind being home to a pensioner doggie, let me know!
My own pensioner doggie Tobby is having a bit of a time. He had a couple of falls last week. He does so love to be excited and race about. I wish he’d understand how much better it’d be if he wouldn’t throw himself about. He is an amazing dog. He manages to haul himself up onto the couch next to me for cuddles of an evening (or, if you’re a Cesar Millan fan, in his bid to dominate me and have control over my couch) and he is just the biggest sweetheart. He is almost never without a toy, God love him. He doesn’t want you to play with him or to take it from him. He doesn’t want you to throw it or play fetch or tug of war. He just wants to carry it about. I wish I knew his story and where he’d come from. He’s an amazing dog.
He and Heston had a scrap last week. Not sure what it was over. I was in the barn and something moved. Heston got excited and I’m not sure if Tobby was right behind him. I’m pretty sure Tobby started it and before I could blink, they were rolling around on the floor. Luckily, it was all noise and even though I couldn’t pull Heston off, there were no teeth involved. I went to turn the hose on and by the time I had, the fight was over. Tobby looked a bit sheepish and Heston looked like nothing had happened at all. They’re back to their usual behaviours, but I’m keeping an eye out. Tobby’s always loved Amigo and will happily lie next to him licking his ears, but though he’s tried to give Heston the same, Heston just grumbles in a general way of “yeah, none of your ear-licking for me, mate” whereas Amigo just looks at me in a way that says, “please make him stop!”
Needless to say, whilst Heston and Tobby were sorting out their differences, Amigo, Tilly and I stood around being useless and making a lot of noise. I do wonder always if they smell a change on each other. Heston was always very well-behaved around Ralf, right up until three weeks before Ralf died, when Heston tried twice to hump him. I’d never seen him do that before and if anything, Ralf was boss and had humped Heston on arrival. Boys! So temperamental.
I say this knowing full well that I have ONE princess in this house and she is more temperamental than the lot of them. She’s definitely the boss of all of them. One cocker to rule them all.
Anyway, have a lovely Monday. May your week be less stressful than mine! See you on the other side.
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