Mrs B

Morning. Nothing too exciting to report here - except I'm here and not filling in the form I need to take to the Doctors in just over an hour so that I can complete my Government Health Check (or whatever the latest iniative is). I'm expecting to be told I'm overweight and have an increased risk of diabetes 'cause it's in the family. Gooster you made me laugh. Trawlln Farm - 8 horses and no-one's spotted the lack of them ....... for lots of folks who seem to need them

San, very sorry to hear about your Uncle. My week is going pear shaped by the day. I am now out every single evening this week - and only one evening is a "me" evening. And I HAVE to finish my tax return by the end of this weekend, so don't let me be here too often!

That is very exciting news. What % is Charlie pup by the way?

Come on Liz, don't leave us in suspense. What did Patrick think of Charlie? Great news re Tia.

Don't forget Liz that we never intended to adopt a deaf dog, let alone two. I can understand your qualms, as Mr B and I spent hours and hours before we adopted Tigger, researching and reading and talking and wondering about whether we could give a deaf dog the life he deserved. However I would honestly say that ALL the problems we had with Tigger were to do with his lack of socialisation and all the stuff that was going on in his head, rather than to do with his deafness. I would always say to anyone thinking about adopting a deaf dog "do you like the dog?" After that I am sure the rest would come more easily than you think. It's just about thinking about communicating with the dog in a different way - and I bet you have already used hand signals and body language with your dogs without even realising it! And think of the advantages on bonfire night!

HLGS - perhaps the life of my flapjack needs testing. Whizzie - Tigger is leaning hard on me and says to remember that he is just a normal dog - good and bad - who just happens to be deaf. And Daisy has just plonked her head on the keyboard and typed something in Daisy-language which I'm still translating. Gemstone - lovely photo. Suzeanna - hope Tia's home very soon.

Morning RMF-ers. Just having a catch up her - so guess I will now forget everything I've read. Phoebejo - love your Robin HLGS - I think you need a supply of Mrs B's flapjack as well. Liz - sorry your family have been so insensitive - and don't forget I'm always around for information when you join the deaf dog owners association. Welsh Cakes. Got me going too. No bakestone here, but I do have a griddle. Off to find a recipe. No more snow here. Just very soggy outside. Losing battle to keep the mud outside and the carpets looking anything other than brown. Off to tackle house jobs. That always requires a major kick up backside.

That's a bit similar to mine Trudi. My friend's husband commented - to my face "You're quite fit ................. for an old bird" I haven't let him forget it!

Morning. And a Happy New Year to all - sorry it's a bit belated. I am thinking some thunks.

Cycas, do you know anybody who lives nearer to you who has cats? If someone from my village asked me if I could share some dog food 'cause they were running out, I'd be more than happy to help them out. Mrs-B-who-has-no-snow-anyway!

Having a look at PC Stitch. Has anyone used IStitch? (Jane Greenoff)

Today I am mainly sitting at the PC doing OH's Christmas shopping for him (he decides, I do the grafting) - and for some reason the PC is running at about one page per hour! Wishing the packed ice which constitutes our local roads would melt itself - but that just doesn't seem to be happening. Time for a cuppa.

This is why I love The Refuge - it gives me somewhere to come to ask about anything when all other avenues have failed. Mr B has decided that he would like to buy me a software program for Christmas, which turns pictures or photographs into cross stitch charts. I would never have thought to ask for it for myself, but I'm quite impressed with his innovative thinking - but we have failed to work out what would be any good - either we're looking in the wrong places, or people who cross stitch are too busy doing that to review programs or put helpful information on the internet! I know very little about what these programs do, but would like something that is adaptable enough that I can choose to use 10 colours rather than 110 - and I'm more likely (at this stage) to want to convert small simple pictures for cards and so on, than complicated photographs (Tigger and Daisy, you will have to wait a while). Oh, and it needs to run on Windows 7. I'm sure Mr B would pay a reasonable amount, but I suspect there is little point in him spending £100 on a professional program - unless someone can convince me that's what I need. I don't seem to be able to find either a definitive listing of programs, or any decent reviews of them. Anyone able to help?

We seem to be a bit all over the place (north of Lincoln). No post at all for over a week, now I think we are getting post occasionally. And the post boxes have been taped up! Mind you, I fell over going to the Post Office this morning. I certainly haven't received things (bills!) that I was expecting/know are due. Today I received a letter from the Blood Donor folks apologising for having to cancel my appointment ........ on 2nd December. I fear that posting things from here at the moment is a bit of a finger crossing exercise. I couldn't get my friend's birthday present to her on time.

Can I just bang Sam over the head and remind her about EasySearch? www.easysearch.org.uk Sign up in the same way as EasyFundRaiding - you can even sign up to two different organisations by doing both. I have to admit it doesn't always give me the best answers - but if it's not giving me what I want, I search for Google. EasyFundRaising is fab by the way.

Love that picture Owl/Sam (and title!) More snow here, just north of Lincoln, overnight - couple of inches I think - waiting for Mr B to get up and go to work (very, very, very reluctantly) to see how much we've had. I'm officially declaring this the "most-snow-since-we-moved-here-24-years-ago-snow". I'm also declaring my employers very nice (for once!) - they've officially said we are to consider weather conditions before travelling, and should heed all ravel warnings - we still have to make up hours before the end of December or take holiday if we can't, but at the end of the day I'll go with that - my work refuses to do itself so I'll need time to catch up! Seeing as I had to walk the 7 miles home on Wednesday having been stranded in Lincoln with all buses cancelled and no taxis running, I have become slightly wary about setting out for work before I'm certain the buses are running so have been arriving late and going home early. Tigger and Daisy like my new working hours!

Very little snow in my part of Lincolnshire - but it's slippy - and I'm supposed to go out this evening and I don't want to! Needless to say, as I'm at work tomorrow we are forecast for heavy snow all night. Meanwhile, I'm keeping the bird food 'manufacturers' in business with the birds munching through the seeds as fast as I fill up the feeders. Oh, and, on the very little snow that we do have, I was able to spot the path the fox takes around our house overnight. I guess it would be foolish to say that we don't get snow too badly around here ........

It appears my list is relatively short - Pigs trotters Does that put me in the "dustbin" category?

Looks as if I have set the impossible task here! One thing about all the other answers was that they were always Models of cars, never makes - so we had a "Herald", but wouldn't expect a Triumph. So it would have to be a Silver Shadow for example, not a Rolls Royce. Anyway, here's some Clues and Answers (that we know were correct). Clue: Not the shortest route from A to B Answer: Clue: He took part in medieval battles Answer: Clue: This HMS was the pride of Queen Victoria's fleet Answer: Clue especially for Snow: The RAF gets here with difficulty Answer: And what sort of prize would Mags be after I wonder ........... ?

Josie-Thyme's home. I seem to have wasted the whole evening thinking about all the things I 'could' be doing, and actually doing none of them. I think I am very tired.

We came up with that answer too ........ but it's wrong! On the night you are told whether answers are right or wrong ...... after that you have to wait! Some interesting thoughts here - I will have to let you know when I have the correct answers. Maybe I should give you a fighting chance and post some of the clues we know we had the right answers for!

Josie. from Thyme. I am currently joggling Wiccaweys folks to try to do helpful things from afar like contacting vets and anyone else they can find. Lots and lots and lots of dogs gone running since the fireworks started. There are funny bugs around - definitely the no cold but doing silly things and feeling shattered variety.

All poorly Fugees. Snow, you still have the ability to make me go with a couple of words of you saying "computer". I am currently all befuddled. I had the dogs in the cars, coats, boots, everything ready to go. Just put the key in the ignition and the mobile rang to say my trainer was in an accident traffic jam and didn't think she could get there in time - given that I'm just under an hour away, we ended up making the decision to call it a night. So I've unloaded the dogs (who amazingly have immediately gone to sleep ) and I am now wondering what to do with myself, even though I have loads of things to do. My dinner's not programmed to be ready until 8.15 pm, so I'm trying to encourage that to be ready sooner. Think I'm going to make some Ribena and regroup. Wiccaweys have a nervous just rehomed dog who's climbed a 6' fence and gone AWOL.

(((Sigh))) And if a Mod person could sort my sub-title out so it says "Knowledge of car models an asset" instead of the rubbish I've managed to write, tht would save me

Anyone any good at cryptic clues? And models of cars? We were doing a quiz at a group I belong to last night, and all the answers turned out to be British car models (not makes), like Capri, Herald, Granada, Oxford – and some I’d not even heard of – Charade, Comfort, Westminster. At the end of the night, there were four clues we couldn’t do – and as we won’t get the answer for a week or two, I’d love to know if anyone else can help me crack them so I can sleep at night! Here come the clues ………… A Classic could be the scene of his triumph. Foot? Headline. “Goalkeeper turns ball and saves in tight match”. Academic royalty here is plural.