June's Jolly Jawings

[suzeanna]

Hope Ted is improving. I saw a chap on my walk with Rosie with his very elderly doddery little lurcher Amber..I think she's 19 now...and he was saying she's been in the vets, as he was walking her last weekend a whippet and a jrt came out of their front garden, raced across the road and attacked her, poor old girl. She's had to be stapled underneath, no anaesthetic because of her age, and although the owners said they would pay his vet bill, every time he calls round they are out (convenient!) and his notes through the door are ignored. It's so unfair, the shock could have killed her and they seemingly don't want to know.

[Yantan]

A little story to warm the cockles of your heart. You have to read it all!

 

Elephants Never Forget

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

 

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully.

 

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it.

As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

 

The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.

Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.

 

Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

 

Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son.

As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing.

 

The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

 

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant.

 

Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe' s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly .

 

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

[snow]

LOL thats one of my favourite jokes Marion.

 

Well so much for my plan to try and reduce some of my TOIL this week - I got up at stoopid o'clock and was in work at 8am intending to be there until 10 at the latest then tomorrow I have what should be a 2 hour meeting so that would have made 4 hours and I was taking the other 4 hours off as TOIL as they already owe me over 8 hours and next week my diary has me working at least 12 hours instead of 8 so I'd be owed almost 2 weeks off. Instead I got in at 8 and left at 12 urrrgggg and I have some emails and prep to do from home which will probably take another 2 hours. Oh well home now.

[owl]

Still no car. They guys are working at it, and just may have found the final problem. Bits of junk are getting through in the fuel and getting into the fuel pump, and the fuel filler pipe is rusty. May need new pipe or whole new tank. Very worried as not able to check on mum and she is able to talk to me about things she won't discuss with the carers even though she really likes them. Will have to do a bus visit on Wednesday, nearly 2 hrs each way and can't stay too long or will miss the last bus back to mine.

[owl]

Poor Amber, that is so unkind that those people are not coming forward to pay the bill. Hope she recovers soon.

[merledogs]

 

Morning darlin'. Why were you up so early?

 

 

Twasn't unusually early for me - my favourite time of the morning

 

Hellishly busy day in work today (when is it ever anything else?) Was going to work from home tomorrow but have to go in now for a meeting.

[snow]

Just sacked our gardeners - really feel let down by them as we'd stayed loyal after mum died as we weren't going to carry on having them as it was a bit of a luxury but they said they'd budgeted for mum for the year etc. so we agreed to continue and then we rather liked it as it was so much more convenient so we agreed to keep them on indefinitely. They were supposed to have cut all the trees, hedges and bushes back before winter and even though I had at least 5 different gardening firms knock my door during Oct/Nov offering to do it I said no as I'd already booked with this lot only for them not to show up and then claiming it was too wet so would do it at the start of the year, they said they'd do it by April but then apparently one of the lads got married and took a 3 week honeymoon so they said early May which was getting a bit late as it was and I was worried about nesting birds and budding bushes etc. they last came on 13th May and cut the grass and said bushes etc "in a day or so" so I even tagged on a couple of hours weeding at extra cost and discussed extending the contract to include regular weeding. Grass is now knee high and seeding, hedges and bushes over growing the paths and borders and weeds out of control, my mums gorgeously kept garden looks a ruddy mess! We spent a few hours out there on the weekend and went and bought a hedge cutter to do the big hedge (no nesting birds in that we checked) so we could at least get up the path at the side of the house, hacked down a load of brambles and pulled up a load of weeds but the grass is far too long for our mower to handle without strimming first and we ran out of time and energy, besides we thought they'd be here today - and yet again they haven't shown up. I don't really understand it, its regular income and we were going to increase it with weeding at £20 an hour can only assume they have bigger contracts and dont need to do household gardening any more just wish they had bloody well told me before the garden got into this state.

 

Am now looking for a new gardener asap.

 

note: Its no longer really a luxury as Rob comes home around 6pm and ends up working on admin and things until 10 - 11 at night (for which I nag constantly over the amount of work he's doing), the garden is a fair size and bordered on all sides by various trees, bushes and hedging most of it well over 8' - 12' high and the trees at the back are taller than the houses. Mum used to spend a good 2 hours a day every day keeping the borders and pots nice and we simply don't have the time to do the same.

[Whizzie]

Sympathies for Owl, Ted & Amber.

Good gardeners are hard to come by Snow. I hope you find someone reasonable & reliable. It is a worry we have for the future as we have decent sized garden & allotment patch at the end, my parents do too & there will come a time when theirs becomes too much plus we have WagTails which fortunately has a simple garden layout & we pay for the lawn to be mowed. The garden is Mum's pride and joy and it will be very hard for anyone to match her standards!

[merledogs]

Ickle baby wood pigeon

 

[Jazz]

awwwww

[merledogs]

Moaning

[murtle]

Morning already?! Hello!!

 

xx

[Jazz]

early moaning today

 

my brain started with silly thoughts,so when trudy came up at 5.30 we all got up

 

ruby is going on her holidays today, going to play at obedience and agility

 

good luck to them lol

[Yantan]

Morning.

 

Fingers crossed the builders make a start here today.

[Yantan]

The builders are in and making a hell of racket. I can barely hear myself think. They have the ceiling down already and are using power tools to break the floor up.