Charlie is feeling very sorry for himself. Bless. The vet confirmed it was wet excema and gave him two injections, one for his poorly tummy and one antibiotic. A course of Zantac 75, … (okay…!!) for his poorly tummy, a course of antibiotics and some corticosteroid cream to apply twice a day. I’m sure he will be fine 🙂

Just as I was going to bed last night, I noticed Charlie’s coat on his back looked a little bit strange. I suppose I should introduce Charlie. He is the most loved and spoilt Golden Retriever ‘in the world’ and even he would agree with that, although he might say that there was a Golden Retriever down in Timbuktu that had just had an extra cuddle and really to redress the balance he might need a cuddle or two more.

Charlie had been poorly sick earlier, but I had just put that down to him being a pig. The dogs had some left over veggies after Sunday lunch and Charlie does like to make sure he gets his fair share. On closer examination of his coat it became evident that Charlie had wet excema, otherwise known as Acute Moist Dermatitis. He has had it before many years ago. So at getting on for 1 a.m., I’m clipping the area around the wound, applying iodine solution and clearing up more dog sick. He was sick three more times! On reading my trusty Dog Veterinary Handbook, I find that many dogs need sedating or anesthetising for any initial treatment as its simply so painful. Charlie completely trusts me and stands still whilst I attend to his wound as gently as I can. I can see it is painful, but he knows I’m just trying to help. The trouble with this condition is you never see how bad things have got until you have clipped the hair from the area. Fortunately its only a two inch square that is affected. Then at 5.30 a.m. an eighty pound Golden Retriever lands upon my bed, waking me up with a thud, yet at the same time nearly knocking me unconscious! because A) he’s had a very bad night and really needs a cuddle and B) There is a fly in the room!

He’s settled at my feet now, fast asleep of course, whilst I wait for the clock to tick around until such time that I can ring the vets to make an appointment, as he will need a course of antibiotics to clear this up.

This, we suspect might be the culprit. As often this skin condition just starts with a nick or a scratch and Pip has been known to play just a little bit rough.

And this is a lovely puppy picture of him and our two other dogs who are rather old ladies now.

And this piccie just because its mostly ladies of a certain age that read my blog.

I woke up today, feeling almost human again. I must thank Mary and Carie for the humorous and thoughtful comments they left on my last post. It helped enormously, thanks girls. I must also apologise to Mary, for the bizarre phone call when I’d just heard a phone ring and did the old 1471 routine. A) I was fast asleep when it happened and B) I was probably (who am I kidding!) just a little bit drunk, having been out for a rather boozy lunch with friends. What can I say, guilty as charged me lord 🙂 I did find out that it was the other line that had rung, sorted it out and went to bed properly for a couple of hours, rather than falling asleep on the sofa. No excuses, its just been a tough week.

Hubby and I wandered over to Warwick today, we looked in both wool shops. One was piled high, one was piled not so high, but made to look rather pretty. So I had a quick look around then hubby dragged me off to the antique shops.

We wandered around the antique shops, but the best part of the day were the firework displays. We snook into hubby’s office which has a huge private balcony (you could seat forty people on it) overlooking Warwick racecourse. There we had a spectacular view of the racecourse firework display and also several others in the vicinity, it was wonderful.

The other news is, the Cobblestone jumper has been restarted. We had to count the stitches four times before we were convinced we had the right number. Hopefully, I will have got it about right this time, although, I might have to ask Rachel (she who knows mathematics so much more than I) just to check, 🙂

Its amazing how much you can knit when your feeling a tad grumpy with the world. I’ve been knitting since 5.30 a.m. as I could no longer sleep. ‘Twas a bad day yesterday 😦 Without boring you all with the details, I had to face up to the fact that I will probably never have hair again. I knew it was coming, I am internet savvy after all, but it was still a tough call when my consultant said the words. For some reason, whats upset me the most is that my grandchildren, (should I be so blessed) will never know me with hair. I know there are so many cruel and heartless things going on in the world and really my hairloss doesn’t even register and I do feel so very selfish feeling like this, when it could be oh so very much worse. It just hurts at the moment.

So today, I have knitted and sewn beautiful beads on my cable scarf and all I need to do is to block it. And that is all I have done, to the point that if my darling children hadn’t made me tea, I would probably be a shriveled up prune like person on the sofa as we speak. It helped, it stopped me thinking and leaking and I know tomorrow will be a little bit better than today.

We decided to dig up a couple of parsnips to try them, its a bit early, they say you should have a few hard frosts first to make them sweet, but we just couldn’t wait to see what we had. We were so surprised to find these beauties. We had them this evening to go with a homemade cottage pie. I roasted them gently and then glazed them with honey and sesame seeds, they were delicious.

We picked the last of the french beans and peas today, dug the rest of the beetroot out and tidied up the herb section. The tomatoes are still ripening in the greenhouse, if we can just get a little bit lucky with the frosts, we should get most of them ripened.

This is made from a free pattern from Elle to make a felted hat. I used Elle Wool Boutique Merino Brights in Underbrush. I lengthened the pattern at the rim and on the length of the hat, to accomodate my larger than the average bears head and this seems to have worked quite well. At least it covers my ears, as it wouldn’t have done had I not altered the pattern.

I wasn’t sure about this hat before I felted it, but it is growing on me. It would be perfect if it didn’t have the bright green circle at the top, which looks to me like I’ve just been connected to and am just about to be beamed back to the mother ship 🙂

Yes, I have had to frog the Cobblestone jumper. 😦

Rachel very kindly gave me a quick maths lesson on how to work out the guage on Tuesday evening. I’m still not sure exactly how the maths works, just that it works.

I took it a stage further and re measured one of hubby’s jumpers that is a little baggy and realised I might be out by quite a margin. I’ve had to wait over two days as hubby simply hasn’t been around at a sensible hour to try the jumper on, whilst I critically appraise it.

This morning at something silly o’clock, (about 4.30) thoughts of the Cobblestone jumper were chuntering around in my brain, to give it to Dad because it would fit him, only Dad doesn’t wear jumpers. To give it to son no.2 as he’s built like a rugby player and will with a growth spurt be nearing 6ft 3” within a year, but he doesn’t wear jumpers. To give it to son no.1, who is a slimmer build (not much slimmer, but slimmer) than the other two, he doesn’t have such huge shoulders, but it would just look silly. And… I really wanted to knit a jumper for hubby.

So hubby has just tried the jumper to get the size from on at just gone 6 a.m. Sadly, we have decided that the Cobblestone jumper is going to be too big. So it has been frogged. I might need a day or so away from it before starting again, just to get over it. Its a sad loss. Only knitters will understand those last comments.

I’ve finally managed to finish my Elfin hat from Interweave knits, and I love it. Its so cozy and warm and it has such a fun element in it. I just love the way the pompom bounces around my head, (how old am I!!) I am going to have to knit a red version as Christmas is around the corner, Ho, Ho, Ho…

Seriously though folks, Becky, who I have never met, who is a wondrous woman, knitted me the version below in the summer, when my head was so cold and I really needed a woolly hat and there was nothing to be bought in the shops. I put out a distress call on Ravelry, something along the lines of , “I need a woolly hat:” and she came to my rescue. I was and still am so very grateful, she was a godsend. Thank you Becky,

🙂

I spent a rather pleasant afternoon with Mary, drinking tea in quite lovely surroundings interspersed with sporadic bouts of knitting, mingled with girly chat. It was rather nice.

Where on earth does the time go, one minute it was 2.30 p.m. then the next it was nearly 5.00 p.m. We were in the same time warp that only exists with knitters, I find it most prevalent on a Tuesday evening, I sit my bottom down and the next thing I know, hubby is walking through the door to collect me..

But then I find the same time warp exists at the plot.. I go up to do a thirty minute job and come back home over two hours later.

Perhaps its just me !!!

But I don’t think so.

I’ve just been up the plot for a couple of hours to put in a few rows of Japanese onions. When I realised that we may very well have a frost this evening so decided to pick the butternut squashes.

Huge aren’t they.

Well actually, no. It was a terrible summer for butternut squashes. My plum tomatoes are bigger than the smallest and the largest squash is barely bigger. Still they will make a lovely addition to the Sunday roast.

Quite labour intensive are leeks. Pricking out and puddling in, along with carefully weeding around them. Although you can’t see it in this picture, I have about 96 leeks. So it was backbreaking work but it should be worth it come January, when the frosts are fierce and there is a bubbling pot of home made leek and potato soup to welcome my boys home with.

Some lovely Kale, which will be most welcome mid winter.

And lastly a picture of half of our plot. You can see the greenhouse acquired on ebay that hubby put up in gale force winds and constant rain one weekend in February (he’d spent the previous fortnight digging out the footings and putting in a concrete base) along with my lovely, gorgeous, mine all mine, potting shed, that has been grandly furnished from the tip, no expense spared! Our compost heaps and rows of vegetables that should come good, fingers crossed and quite a lot of weeds! Still, it will all get tidied up for the winter and then to dream about next years treasures, their delights and disappointments.