Last year I meet someone who made me question whether I should have got married. I decided that I could not just throw away my marriage and should try and make it work.

Well for the last week I have been thinking about the this person more and more. We have kept our distance from one another so that I was not so tempted but hell! it's difficult.

Hubby and I get in from work and we both put on our computers, he has join a guild in a warcraft game and not end up playing that all night and I either search websites or play COD (new game came out). We never go out, no matter how much I ask him. And I have slowly lost all my real (not cyber) friends. All I want to do is go out and talk with people, real people not just words on a screen.

However I have be cheered a little this evening. the person that made me question things, came on line and started a chat with me. I could feel my mood lift straight away, but only 20 minutes in to the talk, his connect crash. So he text me and told me he would try later or tomorrow.

I can only hope that my hubby will one day look up from his computer and realise that I exist, with out me having to say something.

Dog Agility

Last week Lilly and I ventured out to the next village to "tryout" for the Club.

Of the dogs there I think that Lilly did very well. no constant barking or trying to get to the other dogs.

the first test was just to walk in a large circle with the other dogs that we did fine. Until they asked me to take the head collar off. I use the head collar to stop her from pulling. We then had to get the dogs to lie down and stay while we walked to the end of the lead. This Lilly can do but not with everything going on around her. She just wanted to know where I was going!

The next task was to weave through the dogs to find out if they would react to the them. This we did fine, if not for a little pulling and because she was pulling she was putting pressure on her neck, when she finish pulling she coughed, I was asked if my dog always coughed like that! I did think it was a silly question as I had been there for at least 20 minutes and she had only just started to cough after I had taken the head collar off. Anyway Lilly ignored the other dogs while they walked passed her. At one point she was even watching the other dogs actually doing the agility course.

We then had to do the "sit, stay and come" this was all while another dog was playing half way along the course. Lilly sat, she stayed (for a little while), When I looked over my shoulder she walked a little towards me. So I made her sit again and walked quicker to the point. Then called her.

The finial test was the tunnel. She had to be held by the trainer and I had to go to the other side of the tunnel , it was only set to about a foot long, and call her. when she realised where I was she came sprinting through.

At one point we were told to take out our toy and play with the dog. Well Lilly's favourite toy is a ball. I was then informed that a ball was the best toy to bring as it did not allow you to interact with the dog.

So with all that I have been told about what would be expected:

• I have to teach Lilly to walk on the left side and not just the right.
  
• I have to teach her that playing tug with me is more fun than a ball.

I have found a tug toy for a pound! and I have brought two books;

Expert Obedience Training for Dogs by Winifred G. Strickland. - I find this book quite amusing, it was written in the 60s but updated for the changes to the American regulations. But if any of you watch Cesar Milan (The Dog Whisperer) i contradict some of the stuff that he says. So I will try to keep him in mind when I read this book as I think he has the dogs best interest at heart.

The beginner's Guide to Dog Agility - this book is fun and even tells you how to make some of your own jumps.


We Lilly and I have started to do lead work after we exercise and we seem to be getting used to walking on the left but it is still early days.

1 Month On

Well I can not believe it has been a month since I last wrote on here.

"What have you been up to?" I hear you ask.

The Salsa dancing went well even if I felt that I didn't dance with Hubby very much. We have finished the eight weeks beginners course that we were on, so we have decided to give it a break for eight weeks to give Hubby a chance to go back down the pub and win at the quiz again.

In the mean time I have received an email from the local dog agility group and they have invited me and Lilly to try out to see if we can be trained, I will be off doing that on the 19th and I am looking forward to it.

I have been playing COD 4 again but I don't think I will be getting COD5 I think having the game less than a year with so many weapons I have not quite mastered them all yet. The clan also need some players on the old servers. I have been doing quite well and getting to the top of the board at the end of the games.

My employer sent me on a management course for two days. I found it quite informative and I hope that it will help with my "communication" skills. My boss didn't award me my full salary increase because he said that I was not a good communicator. He awarded the rest of the company 5% and I only got 4%. Well I have been making sure that I talk to him everyday and keep him up to date with what is going on in the team. (I hope he will get sick of me soon and tell me to stop communicating with him). The course has given me the taste for learning again, I am not sure what I should learn but I think it should be work based so that if I want to I could move on from this job.

I have only 4 more months to save and then I can book my motorbike lessons. I can not wait for it but I have to book the written test for the motorbike first. I feel a little nervous about that as the hazard perception test will be a little hard. One persons hazard is not necessary the other person! Well if no one buys me the books for Christmas then I will have to get them myself and set myself a time scale.

I am feeling a little ignored by Hubby the last few days. When we get home we both go on to our computers and play games read emails etc. But even when he is off the computer sometimes it takes him a little while to answer a simple yes and no question. I sometimes think that he is sick of the sound of me. When he talks to me I show interest and I listen to what he has to say, but I don't feel that i get the same back. I have to say through he has been better at the chores, when I get home from work he has lite the fire (after I had to ask him to make sure it was done before I got home or I was putting the central heating on!) He even does the washing up from the night before sometimes! (oh what I would give for a kitchen that is big enough to have a dishwasher in it). I can hear you thinking "What do you do when you get in?" Well there is the dog to walk, which I do in any weather and light or dark. I cook the dinner and get ignored while eating it as we sit in front of the TV while eating. I have tried to get us to eat at a table but in the winter it is difficult as the table is in conservatory which is not heated and has little light in.

Salsa Dancing

For the last 4 weeks I have been learning to dance the Salsa, I have convinced Hubby to come with me. Which has been really nice as he seams to be enjoying it to.

I have tried various pairs of shoes but each time I come away from the class my feet are hurting. They have advised us to ware shoes that do not have too much of a grip to them. So I found a new pair this week and Ouch my feet are really sore now. I think the heal is a little to high. Oh well I can keep them a wear them else were.

The Clan have awarded the medals for the year, so I now have my 1 year medal. woo hoo! Also in the last week have been coming respectfully high on the score board. Which I am very proud of. I have even managed to get a higher score that the person who taught me the best way of playing. It may only be 1 game in the thousands that I have played with him but still I am very pleased.

I have some new wellies that I can wear to walk Lilly and they are really funny.

No one has said anything to about them when i am walking the dog. I think they think I am mad. We have also found some really nice walks close to home, which is great as we do not have use any petrol to go out.

Count down to my holiday in Cornwall is 9 days.

4 Years On

I have celebrated being married for 4 years, this last year of my marriage is has been a hard one for me. I have felt trapped and did not know where to turn. It is not that it is a bad marriage just that I did not know how to deal with the emotions that I have been going through.

I got very drunk one night and picked a fight with hubby and told him how i felt. Probably not the best way to get about it but it worked for me. I have found myself not telling him how I feel about things and just keeping them to myself. I did start the marriage with talking so why i am finding it so hard to do now? Is it because I just wanted an easy life and saying yes to things i did not really want to do was the easy way? Did I get married to quickly? I had only known him for 13 months before we agreed to get married and then married 6 months later. Or is it this is the first relationship that I am unable to walk away from so easily.

Well, part of me is looking forward to the next year and part of me is holding my breath to see how it goes.

Gaming

For the last year or so I have been playing Call of Duty on line. I have meet some really nice people while doing it and have had some great fun and some very frustrating moments (to the point that I cried!)

Well tonight I played for the first time in ages and I had fun again. The summer months have been hard to get people on the servers that I wanted to play on but has the holidays come to a close and the rain set in the players come back to the servers.

I joined a clan a year ago, I got my medal for 6 month membership but they have forgotten to give me the years medal. Should I remind them or should I leave it? I think I will just leave it and see if anyone spots it.

I hope they will be on again tomorrow but I am sure they will be busy again.

Wet

I did promise myself that i would not use my blog just to moan. That is why have not written on here for a while.

In the last week the weather has been wet wet and more wet. The ruby field that I take Lilly for a walk is full of large puddles. This would be a problem if she did not like water. However I have found out that she loves running through the puddles at full pelt, with spray coming up behind her.

The downside is her towels are not getting a chance to dry and I may have to get the hair dryer on her soon.

Lodgers

Bank Holiday Monday, and No rain!

2 years ago we had a wood burning stove fitted in our lounge. The first year we purchased a load of logs. That lasted us through the winter. Last year disaster struck and our water boiler broke down and after waiting over a month for the parts, we had to purchase a new water boiler so there goes the money for the wood. The water boiler also supplied the main source of our heating so we were burning pallets for Hubby's work place. We seamed to be asking anyone if they had wood to help us heat the house.

This year we have been inundated with offers of wood. So much so that we actually accepted at least 2 trees worth. This was being stored under plastic covering in what should be my vegetable patch.
Well today we had fine weather. So I went and pulled up some weeds while Hubby chopped some of the wood. As he was getting further down the pile, he spotted a Slow Worm.

It is a legless lizard and is endangered!

We knew we had them but thought that we had scared it off when we moved the compost heap last year. So I helped Hubby move the last of the wood carefully as not to squash the 1 that he sow. I found 1 and hubby says "the one I sow was darker than that one." Moved another bit of wood. found another 1. In total we have 5. 4 adults and one juvenile. One of the adults looks pregnant too.

So we have donated some of our logs to the slow worms. they now have a corner of the vegetable patch. We like Slow Worms as they eat spiders and slugs.

The Joys of a Farmers Market

On the last Saturday of the month there is a farmers market in our town. I have been there before but later in the day when most of the produce was gone, Before owning a dog that gets you out early.

Well today Lilly and I went there on the way back from our walk. There was so much nice stuff there. Various cuts of Pork Beef farmer a small vegetable stall and a cake and jam stall. yum!

I brought Lamb and Rosemary sausages, two small steak pies (one of the ladies at work buys them every month and has been raving about them. So I thought i would give them ago.) At the next stall there were the cakes so I got a Cider and sultana cake and some Lemon curd.

The best lemon curd i have tasted always comes from a market stall. It is best on fresh soft bread. So that is my breakfast sorted out for today. For Dinner i think sausages and mash with gravy and mint sauce.

Lilly

Everyday week day I get woken by the alarm clock, I pull myself out of bed and put on my dressing gown and go down stairs.

In the last 4 months I have be greeted by this:



It is so nice to be greeted with such excitement every morning. After I let her out to run up and down the garden a few times. I sit on the sofa trying to drink a cup of tea to wake me up properly, all the time having the use my free hand to stroke her. Can be a little tiresome but I don't mind as her coat is so soft. If I stop I get licked! yuk!

After a quick shower, I have to put some casual clothes on, because my friend is waiting for me to take her down the park.

My arm gets pulled out of the socket a few times on the way there but she stops and sits at the road side waiting for the command to cross. When we get to the park she sits and looks at me. "What?" I ask. She sniffs my pocket. You can not hide a tennis ball from her, even if you have forgotten where you have hidden it she will find it.

After a few throws of the ball she looks like this:

The tail never stops wagging. Even if I do not feel like walking her once I am out there I feel a lot better for it.


Thanks Lilly for always having a smile and a tennis ball ready for me.

Work Day

Like every other work day, it went really fast. I am lucky cos I enjoy my work. I am not sure I am all that good at it but I try my best. It is appraisal time of the year, when we all think about what we are going to be told, we could improve at. I have a list of how I could get better but I just wish that I had the time to do. I am also lucky that I work in a converted barn with view over fields with horses in. That was one of the reason I took the job.

One day i will learn how to put Photos on here and show you.

Different Lands

I have found out that a friend, she is going back home to America. I feel a little sad about this as all though we are not very close, I always thought that if we had lived in the same town we could have been. But her lack of transport and a combined lack of time, on both our parts, have meant that we have not spent a lot of time together. When ever we have spent time together has always been a good experience for me. I have always respected her as she moved over here to be with her husband (who is British), not knowing anybody and has tried very hard to settle here. But I think being away from her family as got to her. Good Luck M & S.

I have wondered for many years what it would be like to go and live in a foreign land, To live with their culture. So what has stopped me? Is it all the worries of being able to survive? Would I cope so well? Would I manage to learn the language? The feeling of be adrift, and not to ultimately, having your family to fall back on. I have also wondered if I had lived on mainland Europe would that have changed my view on travel and not made it so scary?

Mama Mia!

Last night I watched Mama Mia. Wow back to the good old days of musicals. It is not a patch on 7 Brides for 7 Brothers. The dancing was not so good and you did not get the feeling to jump out of your chair and dance round the room like a loony, but still enjoyable never the less.

Europes little Squables

Every day I sit and read the news from a a Greek website (I have Greek friends and want to keep up todate with what is happening there). Well today something really vexed me.

For those of you that don't know there are issues between Greece and FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). The problem is the name "Macedonia", FYROM want to call themselve this but they boader on to an area of Greece that is also called Macedonia. So you can see Greece's problem with it. If they let FYROM call themselve this will they want the area in Greece to?

Will today I read that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice commented "The hope is that the name issue can be resolved very quickly now" and then said that the dispute between the two countries "should not get in the way of the admission of Macedonia to NATO"

Does she not know that Macedonia is already a part of NATO as it is an state in Greece!