The House Husband

It’s days like today that I know why I love living here in Farnham. The sky has been blue, all day, the temperature not high, a light breeze and birds everywhere.

I took the poodles for a long walk around the park today, because it was so beautiful. We passed a young chap (at the age when they do not say ‘hello’), head inside a hoodie, face down, the white cable from his iPod disappearing into his fleece. I thought it was a shame he couldn’t hear the wonderful world around him. The birds were being delightfully raucous, flitting from branches, dragging semi-buried worms to the surface. I was glad I was there to see and hear them. But to be there and to cut myself off from nature’s delights? I could imagine little worse. But I didn’t let his stupidity upset me, I merely chuckled as he scuffed by.

As we reached the highest part of the path, I stopped and looked around. Not a soul for miles. It was like the park belonged to us. I’m not sure about the puppies, but I felt true perfection; a lucky spectator in a world of glory. The greens were greener, the mud less soft, the poodles bouncing and running. What more could there be?

The mud is important. Because of the February drenching we had, everywhere is, more or less, a quagmire. However, the cold nights (rarely getting above zero) have managed to freeze the ground and if we walk around early enough, the girls manage some semblance of clean feet.

Eventually we met another dog walker (the lady with the big white husky-looking dogs) and we exchange pleasantries. She always has one of them on a lead and he exchanged not-so-pleasantries with the poodles. We chuckled, as she chided him for being ‘silly’.

And then there are the crocuses everywhere, starting to appear as spring sidles in. Really, it was one of those mornings. Nothing could ruin the mood and beauty. I really do love it here.

“Well, she crossed her legs so there can’t be too much wrong” – two old ladies talking in Waitrose in the dairy aisle. I assume they were talking about someone’s plastic hip. Actually I found out the other day that Waitrose was named after two grocer-type chaps who joined together in 1908; a Mr Waite and a Mr Rose. Actually, there was also a Mr Taylor, but he left in 1906. It was then called Waite, Rose and Taylor, which doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. Had Mr Rose left, it may now be called Waitaylor. Or if Mr Waite had slipped off, it could be Rosetaylor, which is almost Rose Tyler, and we know what happened to her. I can’t imagine having to dimension hop for my groceries.

Having a rest from my presentation preparation this afternoon, I had a dig around the old family tree for about half an hour. I have been a tad remiss in keeping up with the ancestors, I must admit. I did find something interesting about the Buttericks. For some reason (a reason I may find out one day) three of the Butterick children were baptised on the same day at St Augustine’s church in Kilburn. This may not sound particularly odd, but bear in mind they weren’t the only children and one of them not baptised was, I think, a twin of one who was. Bloody confusing!

The rest of the afternoon was spent on my presentation, prettying it up, basically, and making sure my jokes are evenly spaced. Mirinda was doing a bit of work, so we both beavered away in adjacent rooms while the puppies occasionally wandered from one room to the other. There is also the occasional movement of documents between email accounts as Mirinda finishes drafts of things for me to proof read and give an opinion on.

We did take a break to wander up to the castle and back. Though, I should admit, we didn’t quite make it to the castle because of the deep mud we’d have had to plough through. The park, like our back garden, is not particularly pleasant this time of year. I think February in England – I think rain and mud. Naturally, while the sun has shone for large extents of the day, it drizzled with rain the whole way around, soaking the dogs.

Which reminds me, the odd hail storm we had last night and the fact that the temperature took a while to creep into positive figures this morning, made the path into town quite slippery this morning and I was fortunate that my muscles remembered the various flexing techniques learnt from a year spent ice skating in Homebush, or I would have found myself with a wet butt on a number of occasions.

This is an experiment. I have uploaded a video of the poodles to YouTube. You should be able to see it below. Please let me know if you can’t.

Normally I would have attended uni today. I was up and preparing to go. I’d had my relax in front of Breakfast, had my first cup of coffee and my toast. I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth when I heard it. The unmistakable sound of a waterfall.

I thought the poodles were playing some odd sort of game with my dressing gown outside the door. This isn’t strange. I generally leave a pile of clothes outside the bathroom door so they can wrestle on them. They enjoy it a lot. Generally, having finished their game, Day-z will curl up and have a snooze before I emerge. She will then dart across the hallway as if the space she was in had simply changed into something horrible. It’s any noise, of any kind. Makes her jump a mile. Carmen, on the other hand, will only move if it’s absolutely necessary. And not always then.

Anyway, the noise was getting louder so I turned the tap off and went into the corridor. I could quite plainly hear rushing water and looked down the stairs. A stream of water was pouring from the ceiling to the two bottom steps. And not just in one long stream. It was a curtain of water. Could have been beautiful in other, more appropriate circumstances. Like, outside.

I stood there for a bit, shocked and frozen solid. I stared at Day-z, stood just beyond the gradually growing pool at the bottom of the stairs. As I stood, the water started to slow and I almost sighed with relief. It meant it was the waste rather than a supply pipe. This set me in motion, leaping over the sodden bottom steps and into the laundry for the dog towels. These are four towels I use to dry the poodles. I spread them all over, soaking up the water. I left the last bits to drip down and went for the phone. As I reached across the prone body of Carmen, I realised she hadn’t bothered to see what the kerfuffle was about. Fast asleep.

Anyway, jumping onto yell.com (the Internet is WORLDS better than some stupid telephone book) I found a plumber and rang. He could have a guy out in about two hours. I realised I wouldn’t be going to uni. I made a second coffee and watched Breakfast from the dry lounge.

About two hours later, Pete arrives. He’s the plumber. He had a good look around, moaned (quite rightly too) about the ridiculous bathroom and rooted around under the sink. His face then brightened as he announced he’d have it fixed in no time. I left him to it and went back to the lounge, keeping the poodles company and using my Netbook for uni work.

It took less than half an hour! The problem, Pete explained, was the bit that collects things. The cover had worked loose and the water had just poured from the plug hole to the ceiling with gay abandon. To be fair, he didn’t actually say ‘gay abandon’. He did say he’d have to charge the full rate because I’d gone through the switchboard.

It irked, not because of the cost, but because I could have fixed it. That’s the trouble with having a bathroom you hate. If anything goes wrong you assume it’s going to be the hardest to get at bit and will take three tradesmen and a crane to fix.

So, no uni, no commute. Instead I worked on researching my dissertation as well as finding some Open Source stuff. And if you ignore the rain, it’s been a very pleasant day. The real rain, not the rain coming from the ceiling.

John Terry, allegedly, had an affair with the ex-girlfriend of Wayne Bridge, his Chelsea & England team mate. It made the front page of all the national UK papers today. And, apparently, having an extra-marital affair will hamper your ability to play football for your country. Also, there are things called super injunctions. So, if you want to keep things out of the media, you get an injunction. If you want to keep that injunction out of the media you get a super injunction. This means, you not only can’t talk about something but you can’t talk about the thing that has stopped you talking about it either.

I heard an interview on Football Focus. Three ex-footballers were asked about John Terry’s future as English captain since his affair has come to light. All three, very grave and concerned, were convinced that Capello (the England manager), known for being strict and moral, would strip him of his captain’s armband and demote him to…well, not being captain, I guess. Of course, all three spoke of it all in just emotive terms.

And then, following them, came the sports writer from the Financial Times. I much prefer his level-headed approach. Basically, he said, these are professionals. They are paid to play football and to win. When they are on the pitch, that’s what they do. They have to in order to justify their wages. Capello, too, is paid a lot of money to get England to, and maybe win, the World Cup this year. It is up to him to gauge how the team will be affected by the news story but really, Capello would have to think hard about removing one of the best players in the team.

And then Chelsea went to Burnley this afternoon and Terry showed his worth on the pitch. He scored the goal that won Chelsea the game.

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Anyway, today the sun was glorious hot, though the wind was frigidly cold. The two evened out somewhat to make a lovely day, full of blue skies. It seemed the perfect day to go to Frensham for a walk across the sandy hills and through the spiky gorse.

All was lovely and peaceful (I didn’t let the noisy trail bike riders upset me to much). The gorse that lines the path that follows the bronze age barrows on the top of the ridge has been bent over by the snow and is now growing across the path. This can be quite painful in shorts as gorse is covered in prickles, but when the temperature is just above freezing, this is not really an issue. We just brushed on through.

We passed a chap who said that ‘they’ had made a big path through the heather because of the snow. I couldn’t work out what he meant so I just nodded and smiled and said something inane so he’d think I had. He walked off smiling so I can only guess it worked. I’m pretty sure he didn’t tell me who ‘they’ were.

We have two options when we reach the top of the ridge. We can go straight back down and then around the pond or we can continue on, through the conifer woods then sweep down behind the pond. We hadn’t been round the back for ages so I voted for this. I was soon regretting it as we wound up sloshing through semi-frozen puddles of mud, half of which adhered to the puppies. Still, it was a lovely and long walk.

Mirinda & Puppies at Frensham

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Tonight we went to the Yvonne Arnaud theatre and saw the new Alan Ayckbourn play, My Wonderful Day. It’s been a while since we went to the theatre together (I went to the opera in November and Mirinda went to the ballet a couple of weeks ago) and we always try to get to Ayckbourn’s latest as it always tours to Guildford.

Well, as usual, it was excellent. Maybe I’ll give it a proper write up tomorrow. It’s late and I’m half watching Match of the Day.

A miserable, drizzly, grey day. ‘Nuff said.

Poor Day-z has been having an incontinence problem. This has been going on for a few months. Back in November I took her to the vet and she prescribed some HRT (hormone replacement therapy) tablet that, she explained, would tighten the relevant bit of her anatomy and stop the leaks. They worked fantastically well, and we managed to relax rather than rush her outside every hour and make sure she was sitting on a towel anywhere in the house.

She has to have a tablet every day. She gets it wrapped in whatever sliced meat I’m having for lunch, a practice which both of them have now become accustomed.

Well, the tablets ran out about a fortnight ago and I didn’t think about it too much since she’d been fine. And then we spotted a few accidents again starting to appear. I rapidly grew sick of stripping the furniture and washing everything every half hour and so went down to the vet to get a repeat prescription. Not so easy. I had to make an appointment for Day-z to once more see the vet just to see how she’s going.

Long story, short…the vet was pleased with the progress, told me Day-z will probably always have to take them and gave me a card for repeats with an invitation to see her again in three months time. But that’s not what I really wanted to talk about…

The poodles love going to the vet. It’s weird. When we go up to the park, we follow a path which turns left into the park or goes straight ahead, down an alley and, eventually, to the vet. I watch their tails when we walk along (it’s hard not too when they’re walking in front of me) and they’re always happy, trotting along, tails jiggling joyfully. This makes no difference whether we go left or straight on. And the only reason I take them straight on, is to visit the vet.

When we get to the vet, they get all excited, jumping up and down, panting and licking. We always have to sit and wait and, of course, they climb all over me. The staff generally fuss over them, saying how cute they are and generally making squealy noises which makes them worse, of course. And then we’re called in to the exam room.

It’s like a race! They leap off my lap and can’t understand why they can’t get there quicker (the lead is holding them back somewhat). When we get into the room they both jump onto the chair that’s sitting just inside the door. I’ll unhook one of them while they sit on the chair and lift her onto the table. The other one just sits and watches from the chair. Unless she can’t see. As was the case today.

I had Day-z on the table, holding her steady while the vet examined her and poor Carmen couldn’t see anything. She patted me on the back, repeatedly, until I moved. And then she was fine. Of course, Day-z was a bit unsure on the table but was all bouncy again, the minute I took her off. I’ve never known a dog that actually likes going to the vet but these crazy poodles definitely do. Though, in saying that, they are quite eager to leave as well.

And then, late this morning, I’m busy typing away, working feverishly on my essay and a hunger pang strikes me. Day-z, as usual is curled up on the office chair behind me (that’s right, she insists we share the same chair) and I haven’t seen Carmen for a while. Normally she’d be happily asleep on the Doona but the Friday rule is invoked today.

I stood up, making Day-z jump up and fly through the air in her normal crazed form of excitement and headed out of the study. When I reached the doorway I realised I’d loaded a washing basket and forgotten to take it down to the laundry. I realised it because it was still sitting on the floor outside the bedroom. What I didn’t know but which made me burst into laughter was the fact that Carmen had decided this was a very nice and smelly place to curl up for a nap.

She looked a bit sheepish when she saw me but managed to stay put long enough for me to get the camera and take a few shots of her. She was a bit bemused, I was totally amused! Talk about LOL. I DID!

Carmen in a laundry basket

I should explain the Friday rule. Friday is my day for washing the bed linen. I do it first thing in the morning, and, once it’s washed and dried, replace it in the afternoon. Because of this, the bedroom door is closed all day. I’m pretty sure Carmen is a bit confused. I know Mirinda was when she found out about it.

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Here’s a funny story. This guy parks his car near a speed camera and every time someone speeds by, his car gets fined! Read about it here.

A glorious blue day with no snow, rain or wind. And the temperature has risen. So much that I started to work up a sweat on the way home from Waitrose.

After a very late breakfast, we drove up to Hankley to walk the dogs. We haven’t been up there for yonks. There has been a lot of warnings about the impending floods as a result of the meltwater. I think they’re all at Tilford. The river had burst its banks and was flooding the road and swamping onto the village green. We crossed the river earlier and it was swollen but not higher than the bridge.

We parked and started up towards the common. There was little snow left, though what there was, Carmen frantically rubbed her face into. There were far more people than we normally see. Mirinda figured it was because it’s the first sunny day in ages. Maybe, but I think it’s because it hasn’t been accessible for weeks because of the snow.

Whatever…it was lovely and very peaceful. I’m pretty sure Mirinda agrees. Back home we had lunch and watched the miserable Wallander and I put dinner on. After 4 hours, we enjoyed roast duck in cherry sauce.

Having watched Lark Rise to Candleford, I’m now watching Ronnie O’Sullivan play Mark Selby in the Masters final. It really can’t come close to the excitement of the semi-final against Mark Williams. And, talking about sport…

Why do some football players wear those silly little black gloves? Wayne Rooney, a tough, chunky player has started to wear them and I wonder if it’s anything to do with Colleen, worried about him handling the new baby with cold fingers. But all of them can’t have doting wives, surely. I mean, Berbatov thinks he’s pretty slick but he looks pathetic wearing gloves. I’ll never understand it. Mirinda thinks it proves they are real men because they’re not afraid of standing out when they have cold hands. She’ll never understand football.

Anyway, Chelsea thrashed Sunderland yesterday 7-2, so I’m happy.

So everything is getting increasingly slushy. All the fun of the snow is almost at an end although we keep being told it’s only going to get worse. Though I just looked at the bbc weather site and it seems we’re in for a heatwave towards the end of this week – a whole 7°! I mean, really!

Today, walking in the park, we spotted a guy trying to call his dog, which was busy chasing a crow round in circles. The crows in the park love playing this game with the dogs. They wait for the dog to get within a few feet then they fly up into the air, flap around in an ever-increasing circle while the dog chases them uselessly from the ground until it gets bored. The crow knows exactly when this will be and lands just before it happens. This means the dog’s interest is once more piqued and it will start all over again. This happens many times until the crow gets bored and flies off. Anyway, the crow and this guy’s dog were playing this game.

As we drew closer along the avenue of trees we could hear him calling and blowing a whistle. When we were close enough to hear what he was calling, Day-z immediately pricked up her ears and went trotting over to him. Confused, she stopped then came back to me. He called his dog again and once more she trotted off to him, this time sitting at his feet, wondering what he wanted. He bent down and patted her head, looking a bit quizzical.

“You’re confusing her,” I said. “Her name’s Day-z as well!”

He laughed, I laughed, Day-z was more confused and Daisy still chased the crow. Carmen, meanwhile was busy rubbing her face in any available pile of snow.

There’s actually quite a few dogs called Daisy in Farnham Park – no Carmen’s though, or not that I’ve found, anyway – and I’m surprised it’s such a popular name. I always think of it being a cow’s name.

I managed to finish my philosophy essay today and, to celebrate, watched a bit of snooker. I wish I hadn’t. My boyhood hero, Jimmy White, played an awful match and was beaten by Mark King in the first round of the Masters at Wembley. It was a very pro-Jimmy crowd. Even Ronnie Wood (from the Rolling Stones) was there, cheering him on. But he just couldn’t get into the match. His cueing was off, his positioning was off, everything was just off. I’ll just have to wait for Ronnie now.

I woke up to 7.5″ of snow this morning. I opened the back door to let the poodles out and Day-z disappeared. She resurfaced covered in snow, looking a bit shocked. She then ran around like a lunatic. She normally does this in the morning but not with white stuff sticking to her fur. The snow didn’t stop falling all day but generally just a light dusting. The temperature didn’t rise above zero.

My first task for the day was to shovel out a path for the dogs to run up and down. While snow is obviously easy to dig, I can see why they use plastic shovels for it. It just sticks to metal. I also made some newspaper areas for bird feed, which meant we had most of the birds from Farnham Park feeding in our garden all day.

I couldn’t take the poodles for a walk. They wouldn’t have made it up the street, let alone into the park so, having dug the path, I wandered into Farnham at about 8:30 for supplies (and to have a sticky around). I say wandered but shuffled would be more accurate. The going was tough. A well trodden channel had been started in the centre of where the path normally was and it was generally an excellent idea to follow this. Treading either side could mean snow in the boots as you sank into the drift.

Waitrose was virtually empty – there were about three customers and five staff members – and I was in and out in about 10 minutes. Starbucks was closed so I forced into Costa’s for my morning coffee. From my seat inside I watched the normally busy West Street. Traffic was minimal outside and the little there was, was moving very, very slowly. A steady stream of customers came and went, most of them explaining to their bosses why they couldn’t make it into work on their phones.

I wandered down to St Andrews for some photographs. The church always looks marvellous after a generous dusting of snow and William Cobbett’s tabletop tomb looked nice and cosy beneath it’s own white blanket. As he lived during the Little Ice Age, I’m sure he saw a lot more snow in Farnham than I’ll ever see.

Wandering back home, the park was alive with kids on sleds, or makeshift platforms of plastic and cardboard pretending to be sleds, squealing and shrieking with joy.

Standing in my back garden in the afternoon I could hear nothing except the delightful squeals of the children in the park, clearly still enjoying the snow, courtesy of the closed schools. According to Mirinda, if you stand in the back garden in the afternoon, all you can hear is the roar of the traffic from the A31. Well not today! I doubt there was much traffic anywhere in Surrey.

Tweetdeck was full of weather watch type tweets, with people posting pictures of snowmen, snowfall measurements and stranded Christmas trees. And there’s been an almost constant barrage of tweets about either having to go to work or having to stay at home. There has been a LOT of snow so I guess people would be more vocal than usual.

I called Mirinda at the flat and we discussed the logic of still going to Paris. sadly the train tickets are non-refundable and non-exchangeable so, unless the train is cancelled (unlikely) we will lose the fares. We can cancel the hotel without a problem so we shall wait and see what tomorrow brings. In the meantime, spare a thought for the little chap below, caught mid rung as the snow fell today.

Santa gets caught without his reindeer

This is just getting boring. Blue skies, sub-zero temperature, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Mirinda’s first post-Christmas day back to work. It was with heavy feet we strolled up to the station this morning, careful not to slip on the frosty path. Actually, it wasn’t very slippery. There was a frost last night but no liquid and the temperature was still below zero so it was crunchy. So we crunched up.

My voice has not improved very much though I’m feeling otherwise fine. Mirinda, on the other hand, is still very weak from her ordeal and left work early to an early retirement at the flat.

Back here in Farnham, I took the poodles for a lovely walk. Now that everyone’s returned to work or school or to where ever they came from, the park is once more the domain of the regular walkers and joggers. The friendly people who smile and say hello. Well, most of them. There’s also the grumpy old lady with the cocker but I just her. So it was a lovely, uneventful stroll across the frosted grass, which the poodles loved with their usual reckless abandon.

In the afternoon, I finally managed to burn some cardboard (the pile was gradually taking over the dining room). I have to burn our cardboard, by the way, because our council doesn’t recycle it. Paper, cans, glass, plastic milk cartons are all fine but cardboard? No way. So I burn it then scatter the ashes on the compost heap. My own recycling. Of course, I release a bit of carbon into the air while doing it…but what can you do? It’s actually quite a good additive to the compost. I’ve asked Mirinda to do the same with me.

I was also tied to my desk for a good amount of the day working on my Philosophy of Information essay. And I shall continue to be for the rest of the week, I expect. Either that or the one about Domain Analysis.

So a nice quiet day which, given I have little voice at the moment, was perfect.

Oh, I almost forgot the title of this post. Last night we had lamb chops and I made a mushroom sauce to go with the mash, peas and carrots. Imagine my horror when I found this in the bag!

A conjoined mushroom

The weather is getting warmer and the snow is now ice and slush.  Late in the day, ghostly clouds of frozen fog can be seen rising from the sports fields at the top of the park.  Eerie.

Hopefully I’ve managed to finish the Christmas shopping today as it’s now 5pm on Christmas eve.  Not much hope of getting anything beyond maybe some forecourt flowers at the BP garage on the bypass.

Spent most of the day cooking and cleaning and getting prepared for tomorrow; the usual Christmas palaver that I love.  Oddly, there are no presents for Karen & Nigel but given they are flying back to Australia tomorrow night and they’ve managed to rid themselves of virtually all their belongings in one way or another, it seemed a bit pointless.  Karen said Christmas dinner would be present enough.  And the turkey and cranberry sauce roll she’s ordered for eating on the plane.

Anyway, that’s tomorrow.  This afternoon, something very odd happened.  I took the puppies for a walk in the park.  No, that’s not the odd thing!  We walked along the playing fields then turned to walk along the Queen’s Bottom.  This is the very bottom of a big field which is actually called White’s Bottom.  It is bordered at the top by the Queen’s Hedge.  So, naturally, I call it the Queen’s Bottom.

The very bottom is the result of glacial melt following an ice age.  It’s part of the terracing that is evident all around Farnham.  Each level from different epochs.  Mostly the terracing ends in the River Wey but in the park, it is generally dry and full of alluvial deposits (that’s mixed gravel, basically).  During the Mesolithic, it would have been a wide river where our ancestors fished and swam and generally had fun in the summer months.  I know this because there’s quite a few Mesolithic camps dotted around the area.

The only reason I’ve bothered explaining all that (and I apologise if you’ve nodded off or wandered over to a more interesting blog about The Used Stamps of Sweden) is because it is now flowing again with the meltwater from the recent heavy snowfall.  It’s almost a glimpse into the far distant past, and quite exciting.  However, that’s not really why I’m telling you but it did get me quite excited.

As we wandered down towards the Queen’s Bottom, Carmen suddenly went mad.  She sometimes gets very excited and runs around like a lunatic and I figured this is what she was doing.  She started running in circles and rolling in the remains of the snow (more odd behaviour she’s suddenly developed) then took off at full pelt towards the quick flowing stream at the bottom.  Without slowing she ran into then along it for quite a distance before turning back towards Day-z and me, where she threw herself down into the snow and started rubbing herself in it.  She then repeated this over and over and over again.

Generally when one of the puppies goes for a run, the other isn’t far behind (they hate being left out) but this time, Day-z didn’t move away from me at all.  She was watching Carmen with that wary suspicion she excels at.   It was truly bizarre.  Once we reached the Avenue of Trees which is at the top of the Queen’s Bottom field, Carmen had stopped her lunatic running and rolling and was back to normal.

Something else I should mention.  A bit earlier, Mirinda had told me Carmen had vomited upstairs.  It was bright yellow and didn’t look right.  It seems to me that Carmen had eaten something yellow and it had disagreed with her.  Judging by the fluorescent colour, I understand completely.

Now, what I’m wondering is, are the two things related at all?  Did she find something that sent her on some sort of drug-induced trip?  Was she hallucinating that the stream made her hot so she had to cool off in the snow which made her cold so she had to warm up in the stream and around and around?

She seems to be fine now, lying on her armchair, pretending to be asleep.  It will probably remain a mystery.