Dry January has been tricky each friday night, but I’ve actually found the mid-week and even saturday and sunday to be pretty easy. This is the first month fully off booze I’ve had in over 7 years – normally I go through phases of being good about drinking, having just a couple over the weekend and very little or nothing in the week, then I have phases where I have something pretty much 7 days a week.

So my reintroduction plan is currently that Fridays and Saturdays are fair game for a couple of beers or half a bottle of wine, plus the odd pint during the week if I fancy it, but see if I can keep it at that for the forseeable… I give myself about 2 weeks of February before that plans falls on its arse…

Edit: Oh – and I intend to break with a pint of whatever the Adnams guest is in my local next friday night… Here’s hoping for Sole Star or Ghost Ship

johndoh – maybe try a different healthcare professional for her if osteopath is not getting any long term benefits without regular treatment.

FIFY

Washing meat is a great way of splashing raw meaty water all over your sink and probably the nice pile of clean washed dishes next to it – a super idea if you love salmonella, listeria, campylobacter and E. coli!

Edit – beaten to it…

God how dull did I just sound? Can you tell I’m sat here waiting for my stupidly complex spreadsheet to finish calculating?

If challenged, it’d be down to you to demonstrate that “I need it to fix my bike” is good enough reason. Why, specifically, do you need a locking knife rather than a regular one?

Not sure that’s the correct distinction. You don’t need to prove you need a locking blade instead of a regular one, you only have to demonstrate you need the tool itself – not that there are no alternatives you could have picked instead.

The law isn’t there to limit your choice over the right tool for the job – it’s to say that if you have a locking blade, even under 3 inches, you need a reason to carry it. Your reason wouldn’t be invalid through the fact that a similar tool might have a non-locking blade.

Did you read the OP? Breeder didn’t have either of the dogs when the accident happened.

Yep – it’s their dog and their responsibility, regardless of where or when it happened.

I wouldn’t touch this. Too many risks associated with father/daughter or son/mother mating. The inbreeding coefficient will be way too high (at least 25%) and the likelihood of this causing problems is huge. You sound like you’re tempted because its the breed you want (GSP?) and cheap – but inbreeding can lead to health problems which will be incredibly expensive to deal with in the long run. Saving a little money now by taking on a cheap dog could cost you lots more over time.

I’d also be worried about the state and suitability of the sire and dam to be bred from in the first place if the breeder doesn’t know what they’re doing enough to keep them separate.

About 50 meters – across Fort Knox footbridge over the Cam, we decided to swim across – but didn’t want to get our clothes, shoes and phones wet, so we walked over, put everything in a pile, then ran back over the bridge nekkid so we could swim back. No – it didn’t make much sense at the time either…

I think it invovled a quick dash through the pub beer graden – which now I come to think about it probably has CCTV… Hmm…

So this isn’t 120-150 sq ft, insulated, heated or double glazed – but it is a bloody relaxing place to sit and do some work…

About an inch of fluffy-ness this morning in Ely/Cambridge. The dog enjoyed his first snowy walk and celebrated by going batcrapcrazy.

Another dry January over here… Should have done thsi in February – it’s shorter…

A little game terrine for boxing day starters… Sadly let down by the awful weather stopping my game dealer getting in what I needed, but the butcher sorted me out with rabbit, partridge, venison and pheasant… Shame really as I was looking forward to a bit more practice at butchery…

The potable water contamination from the fracking process is bollocks, water table and shale layers are seperated by thousands of feet of rock in most cases – they’re going no-where near your water supply. There are of course risks associated with spillages from the pad, or when the chemicals are in transit, or whan the produced water are stored at surface, or if the well integrity is poor when it goes through the water-bearing strata – but Friends of the Earth and the rest have got no scientific evidence to support the stuff they spout on water contamination from the fracking itself.

If you can convinced the whole UK to turn down their thermostats and switch off their lights then you won’t need fracking, or we could buy more off that nice Russian chap, or we could accelerate drilling in the Arctic before we have the technology to manage spillage in areas made inaccesible by sea-ice for over half the year, or we can keep shipping the stuff thousands of miles across the ocean from really politically stable regions, or we could admit that we really fancy hacking the nice shiney clean white Antarctic to pieces to find more oil and gas… Choices choices choices…

Like several people above – I wouldn’t sedate for anything unless it was completely necessary. To the extent that I work very hard with mine to teach him to lie flat so he can have concious x-rays.

Not wishing to doubt your resolve with training him, but it should be possible to get him acustomed to it with enough time and effort. I wouldn’t be grabbing him and holding him down, or creeping up on him to get it done as it will only make him more afraid of you. Take a very softly softly approach over several days.

With mine, he had a thorn in his eye recently, and after sugery to remove needed eye drops 6 times a day for 3 weeks. All fine except he hates eye drops with a vengance and it took 3 of us in the vets to administer the first time we tried. seriously – he seemed to think we were going to pour acid on his face the way he bucked like a loon. I helpfully went away for work for 3 days, leaving my wife to give him his drops by herself. She started out getting him in the kitchen and making him sit, then touching his snout before treating and sending him on his way – did this every 10 minutes or so for a few hours, then started introducing the bottle of eye drops near his face, treating and sending him on his way. After building this up and a few struggles, she had him running into the kitchen to sit calmly as she administered his drop and waiting patiently for his treat within about 2 days. He is a very food-driven dog, so that helps us. If Monty isn’t food-driven can you try rewarding with a toy or favourite game?

I would give it a go again before resorting to sedatives. Start just rewarding when he lets you touch his paw, then build it up slowly, only introducing the clippers when he is desperate to give you his paw. Once you manage to get one claw trimmed, make a massive fuss, enjoy the victory and leave him alone for a while before trying again.

I’m with Dave. One of the most pathetic and depressingly ignorant things I’ve ever read.

Do you use frontline spray or similar on them? If so, and they hate it as much as everyone I’ve spoken to about it, then take the bottle, and put it smack bang in the middle of the sofa at night. Worked for someone I know.

[hijack] Phil – didn’t you get a rescue recently? How’s (s)he getting on? [/hijack]

Good god – someone shoot me now. It took me two attempts to get that joke.

I couldn’t do my job without my degrees. I work in conservation and they’re such a bunch of academic snobs that they won’t employ anyone without a masters or higher in my office.

My current favourite tipple is Adnams First Rate. Price-wise is comparable to a bottle of Tanq 10 or Beefeater 24 (two other favourites)

Depends how special you want to go really – to be honest I’d welcome any bottle of gin, and feel rather more pleased with something that you can’t pick up in average supermarket. Just like whisky the enjoyment of trying something new is a real treat…

Are you going on a date with another STW’er?

Try the other Chop House round the back of St Johns? It tends to be a little quieter…

I was a massive fan of Efes on King St. when I live round the corner (Not the same as King’s Parade) just up the road from the Oak Bistro… Superb Turkish food and well worth it…

Nope – but I like making my crews do them while I’m in the pub… Seriously tho – I used to find 5k to be tedious so I have very little keenness for longer distances personally… Give my a long day on the water over an hour on the erg any day…

Midsummer House has a couple of Michelin stars – but most people I know who’ve been have complained that the staff are a bit stuck up and it’s overly pretentious.
Restaurant 22 used to have a good reputation – but I’ve never been myself and not heard reports for about 5 years.
Hotel du Vin is excellent, and my preferred choice for special occasions.
The Chop House is great for good quality local British food. There are 2, one opposite Kings and one round the back of Johns. Clicky. My favourite place to eat out.
The Galleria on Magdelene Bridge is a nice spot, and used to be my favourite before the Chop Houses came along…

Indy is sulking today cos he went for a swim at the start of his walk and then had to traipse around for another hour soaking wet… He is now suffering from cold tail and is hiding under the kitchen table because he’s feeling a bit sore…

Strongbow, but only cos I’m painting the bathroom today, MrsH doesn’t fancy wine so I’m not allowed to open a bottle of red, and my latest batch of homebrew needs a little bit longer in the bottle… Strongbow fron the corner shop is therefore all I have… Tragic, tragic…

Mine goes batshitcrazy when it is windy… He was proper bonkers on his walk this afternoon – loadsa fun… He’s now passed out in front of the fire…

Aspalls for me, on tap in my local. I love the way the colour changes throughout the year as the apples change.

I’ll second the secret falling-over ingredient in Addlestones. Many unhealthy evenings and even more unhealthy mornings from my yout’ can trace their origins to that particular tipple.

Westons Old Rosie is another brain melting favourite, and in fact was my weapon of choice alongside a nice full English at 9am on the day they brought on 24hr drinking… Happy times…

I want a more permanent deterrent.

Just how unpleasant is it having your prostate tickled by a male GP?

What does the fact that your GP is male have to do with anything?

I’ve just come back from there. Not seeing Santa onviously as I’m 29 and don’t have any children…. I was at a meeting. I’d probably visit just to see the Northern Lights again. Absolutely stunning. And I have to say that flying through Helsinki and on to the north was a breeze given how short the connections were.

Funnily enough, I’ve been looking at this and ordered one of these Karcher steam cleaners yesterday. No experience of it yet obviously – but it seems to get far more positive than negative reviews and Karcher have pretty good build quality.

It’s going to be put to use all weekend cleaning up after we’ve had the builders in all over our tiled floors and (if i dare) it might even get used on a few bits of the parquet that suffered with builder boots near the front door.

Oh, and you know the rules. No puppy posts without photos. Get posting.

Here he is, fast asleep last night… He hates having his eye drops, and was whimpering a lot all evening… But he seems to be getting better… MrsH is fairly unimpressed that I’ve gone away this morning and won’t be back til Tuesday – so she has to do all his meds by herself!

Well he’s out of surgery and apparently it went well… Some risk his eye might develop further complications but the vet sounded confident… They said he was standing up in his cage like nothing had happened! I now have to wait to get him back hopefully tomorrow… Have a very quiet house right now 🙁

Still hearing tales of flip flop eating spaniels and bum cancer (plus the cat and sudocrem thread) has cheered me up no end…

philconsequence – Member

passed the RSPCA homecheck, should be picking up the dog tomorrow :D:D:D

Nice one! We need pictures now…

Where is best place to park to go exploring and avoid the extortionate FC parking charges?

Fire road 10 is another good option, on the B1106, can get straight onto waymarked and off piste trails from there.

The Elveden Arms on Elveden crossroads is a decent pub for a post ride pint too!

Oli,

My wife and I work full time 9-5 jobs. We pay a very nice (but very expensive) dog walker to look in on Indy twice per day so he is left no more than 3-4 hours at a time. We also try to work from home one day a week, and I often go to work early so that I can be home by 4… We also took loads of time off and worked from home most of the week while he was a little pup. It just about works for us. And I can’t imagine life without him now.

We were lucky in that Indy doesn’t suffer much in the way of seperation anxiety and basically sleeps all day long (even when we’re at home). He then gets all of our attention when we’re not at work. Which means we don’t go out unless it’s to the pub he is allowed in, and don’t go away at weekends unless it’s to somewhere he can come too…

I forgot to add – thanks for all the advice from everyone on here – I was ready to start levering the back off the thing to (try to) fix it myself…

Also – the scores on my rant made my day – I’m not sure I’ll ever get the level of incoherence needed for a 10/10 – but next time I’ll certainly give it a go…

Well – the nice man on the phone at Apple sorted me out – a quick reference to SOGA and the EU Directive and he was helping to “restore my faith in Apple” with a one-off gesture to fix the phone for free. In fairness he was genuinely helpful, unlike the smug teenage blue t-shirted “Genius” who told me to sod off…

Hey Poodium – You can have the one they’re sending me for £85 (as you say fair’s fair – it was only £150 new) provided you also sign up to what I did back when I paid £150 for it – a 2 year contract at c. £30/month. Can’t say fairer than that… Cheers.

Nah – not annoyed – but if I was you should be looking for a separate RANT thread on “pEOPle WDINGN ME UP abut WarRANTy CLaims$” with which I would hope to beat my existing best score of 9/10 from yesterday.

To cross post slightly – the SOGA and EU Law thing worked a treat for me… I called Apple today about my problem and the genuinely helpful man sorted me out with a “good faith” replacement as soon as I started talking statutory warranty, SOGA and EU Directives…

bruneep – did you just post this to wind me up over my Apple rant?