Flick's Writing ♥ Flick's Journal ♥ ♥ Flick's Contacts ♥ ♥ Add Pictures ♥ ♥ Tags ♥ ♥ Calendar ♥ ♥ About Flick ♥ ♥ Update ♥ ♥ Search ♥

Things for today ♥Nov. 27th, 2015 // 09:00 pm♥ [Tags | birdies, craft, fish, jodie the dog, neighbours, pilates, sewing ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1123678.html ] We've has a heron hanging around a bit, lately. Our fingers are crossed that the new pond cover is working, and it does seem that way: no evidence of fish being taken, although it's hard to tell when they're being sluggish in the cold. (The blue tit was trying for the study windows today. Persistent bugger!) My legs are considerably less sore today, thankfully. Not sure if it's helped or not but I did do a few gentle squats as part of my morning Pilate today. At least I managed to walk the pooch! (My only consolation is that if I was that sore then I suspect that most of the rest of the class will have been unable to walk at all. I look forward to the conversation at the start of the next class.) Earlier, Jodie produced a couple of exceptionally disgusting farts, which isn't like her: we did check that she didn't need to Go Outside, but she seemed inclined not to. Then, just as we were finishing dinner, Mrs Next Door phoned in a panic about her laptop having given her a scary error message as she was using IE: it was just a scam you-are-infected-call-this-number pop-up, but she couldn't get it to close so she brought it around for Mike to poke. As she was leaving, she mentioned that her lab has been incredibly farty all evening. Interesting. Apparently, TWWOTV's hideous rats pugs have been ill all week and had to have visits to the vet, so I suspect there may be something going around the local dog population. (Mrs Next Door was looking for inspiration for a new hair cut, which initially struck me as an odd choice for nasty pop-ups, but actually makes sense when you think, statistically, of the level of IT security knowledge of the people likely to be looking at celebrity hair styles.) Speaking of Mrs Next Door, I've finished the fiddly hand-sewing bit of Baby's quilt (thankfully: my hands approve), and pinned the quilt together: should be well on course to finish it in time for Christmas! Link Who loves you?

Fish tank ♥Jan. 18th, 2015 // 06:59 pm♥ [Tags | fish ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1062797.html ] I thought I may as well get on with it, and emptied out the fish tank (finding Mr Fish's little fishy corpse lying at the bottom as I did so). Mike and I had a conversation about what do do with it, and after I'd vetoed 'sticking it in the store room forever' we concluded that it would be a faff to clean so he'd stick it on a a local freecycle-type-thing and see if anyone wanted it as-is. But before he did that I idly checked eBay to see what they're worth, and it suddenly became worth my spending a couple of hours cleaning it up! Before I start thinking about listing it, though, does anyone want to buy it from us? It's a white Biorb Life 60L, with a round beech stand and all the bits (plus a few others, like a water testing kit). It'd be a PITA to post, though, so we'd have to be seeing you soon-ish. £100? Link Who loves you?

Alas, poor fishie ♥Jan. 18th, 2015 // 04:44 pm♥ [Tags | family, fish, garden, house ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1062407.html ] (Yuck, new DW beta update page is hideous. They've increased the font size and added acres of white space, presumably to make it easier to use on a mobile, so you now have to scroll and scroll and scroll. In what universe does anyone need a 1000-pixel-wide dropdown to distinguish between the names of their icons? I've slightly improved it by manually changing the font size for the page, but it's still enormous in the text entry box and generally bleh. Anyway.) It appears that our last indoor fish is no more. I saw him a few days ago, but then my mother asked why we had an empty fish tank and I couldn't find him to show her, yesterday or today. Ah well, they had a good run. (The visit seemed to go well. No one died!) This afternoon, we've been pruning trees in the garden. This evening, as it's forecast to be below freezing until mid-morning, we're going to defrost the freezer. I heard today that our new vegetable planters are ready, and should be with us mid-week, and I had a small accident buying plants online.... It's exciting, out in the countryside! Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

All the animals ♥Nov. 2nd, 2014 // 01:40 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, ducks, fish, jodie the dog ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/1049538.html ] We seem to only have one indoor fish left, a three-ish-year-old male White Cloud swimming around on his own. What was the remaining female has been looking a bit sickly for a couple of weeks, which culminated in her spending a couple of days resting on the fake plant, a day lying on the bottom looking miserable, and then no subsequent sightings. There might, or might not, still be a male shrimp in there: we've not seen him for a month or so, but that's not unusual. We're not sure about the outdoor fish: Mike disturbed a heron the other day, so we put the cover on. At this time of year, though, we don't see them very much. It can't have cleared the pond out, at least: some of the fish in there probably weight nearly as much as a heron! The ducks are a bit off their feed, which might be partly because it's been so warm and damp that the lawn (and fallen leaves on top of it) are full of tasty bugs. On the other hand, it seems to be more Esme that's not eating, and I noticed a few days ago that she was wheezing slightly as she went in to bed. Yesterday and today, she's been going through phases of just standing there, panting furiously, in between the more usual rootling around in the grass. I'm hoping that she just has a cold, or something, but I think I might call the vet tomorrow and see if I can have a chat with the bird guy (I vaguely remember one of the receptionists telling me that there was a specific vet who did ducks and hens). I dashed out to jump on GB for twenty minutes before the rain arrived, this morning (in fact it's only just arrived, inevitably as we were walking Jo): we was going nicely, but then his leg went from under him and I decided not to push it. We're supposed to be having a riding lesson tomorrow morning but, given the forecast (solid rain all day; this is an improvement on the forecast from this morning, which was mostly hail) I suspect that it will get postponed. Yesterday, we took Jodie to some woods a bit further away (it's doable to ride there, have a little pootle around in the woods and then ride back, or was before GB's leg went dodgy), and she got absolutely covered in mud and little burrs: not sure what they were from, similar to goose grass burrs but shaped like pointy acorns. Still, she had a fine time of it: she likes going to places that she knows but doesn't often visit. Yesterday felt very Last Day Of Summer, which is silly for 1 November. Today, on the other hand, feels very Novemberish, and it's forecast to get chilly over the next week. Link Who loves you?

Animal update.... ♥Feb. 2nd, 2014 // 06:34 pm♥ [Tags | fish, jodie the dog ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/960558.html ] Posting about the fish last night was obviously a mistake: I've just changed their water, and there's a very sad-looking Minnow alternating between flailing around on the surface of the water and hanging vertically in a corner of the tank. I had a pootle around online and found a a couple of threads on a Black Lab forum where people said "We just had out bitch spayed and now she's being very odd: she's making dens that she takes her toys into, and whenever we move around she come to check on us then dashes back to her toys. She keeps whimpering even though she never normally does, and she's not eating properly." A couple of them also reported that the dog was lining the toys up next to her, one per nipple, and licking the nipples to try and get the milk flowing, which might explain why she has chapped skin next to some nipples. Fortunately, they all came back a few days later and said "she's back to normal now". Mr Next Door came to borrow me a little while ago: could I go and help with Mad Horse as he'd over-reached and cut himself (Mrs Next Door is at the "bending down is hard work" stage). (In retrospect, given that he's had his shoes off, this was unlikely.) ( There was some blood ) Link Who loves you?

I seem to be busy lately.... ♥Nov. 18th, 2012 // 04:11 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, christmas, cons, fish, going out, owie, poorly, riding, riding: side saddle, shopping, work ] [ xpost | http://flickgc.livejournal.com/885997.html ] Last Thursday - Country Life Christmas Show: overdose on orange and cinnamon scent, bought a few bits, thought "I could do that" about many bits, thought "I would do that" about slightly fewer. Last weekend - Novacon, lovely. I really enjoy Novacon, these days. Lost of nice chats. Contrary to popular opinion, I did not spend the entire weekend sitting in the same chair, and most certainly had not in fact been there since last year. Monday - new job, first day, sort of. Seems to be doable. Proper start this week. (An observation: About six months ago, one of my big toes started hurting (ultimately, I think, due to a single side saddle lesson in which I Did Something Wrong and kept scrunching my foot up). It got randomly better and worse, until Mike made me go to the GP who gave me a leaflet for a foot clinic, which I never got around to going to. Then I was jumping up in the air trying to read a price tag in Costco when I landed, hard, on the ball of that toe, which was excruciating. Ever since, it's been pretty much fine: I remember thinking, as I walked down the road on the Thursday, that it seemed to be better. I wore Proper Shoes on Thursday, Saturday and Monday, as opposed to the usual yard and riding boots. My toe hurts, now.) Tuesday - went riding in the woods, in the sun. It was lovely. We have very pretty colours this year. At one point, a small tree has fallen annoyingly and (bottom of a hill, just after a corner) dangerously across the path. As I was later planning on coming around that corner and up the hill at speed, I jumped off and moved it. GB happily stood and ate the bits of leaf growing out of the tree stump I'd thrown his reins over. The horse I was with was utterly terrified by the crashing noises. C'est la vie. GB, incidentally, has been a little out of sorts this week: grumpier than usual, although I accept that most people can't tell. Not sure what's up, hopefully it's just the change in the weather, or something. Wednesday - side saddle: getting better at making him listen to the cane, but the grumpiness didn't help. Thursday - stayed at home. Was Domesticated: I'd decided to make bath balls and bath fizzers for people I want to give small presents to (eg, woman who cleans up my horse's shit). Made them all, much to my pleasure, and put them in the spare room to dry out without stinking the flat up. Went to check on them a few hours later and decided that it was probaly worth, for the sake of avoiding the risk of damp in the books, putting the heating on in there a little: the bath bombs were fine, but the ones that were supposed to fizz up as soon as they went into the water had, um, fizzed up. I should have taken a photo, it was quite impressive.... (Relatedly, I've had terrible trouble buying peppermint essence. I tried in Tesco last week, and found the empty place on the shelf where it should have been. Tried again a day or two later, hoping they'd have re-stocked, and found that they'd rearranged the shelf and got rid of the label. No job in Lidl, or Holland & Barrett, either. Gave up and bought it from Amazon, which feels somehow wrong, but there we go.) Friday - felt distinctly crappy (someone at Novacon is to blame, I suspect: coff, choo, sniff), so went to see GB but didn't ride him. Came home and lurked on the sofa. Saturday - went to France and Belgium. Failed to get preferred brand of dishwasher tablets. Refuse to go to Germany just for dishwasher tablets, have set Mike back on the web searching. On the way home, sms from Teenage Girl's mother saying there was a problem, could I call. Later, found out that Teenage Girl has been having "trouble" with other Teenage Girls at the yard, and is too upset / scared to go, hence a morning of sobbing and she didn't go to see GB today. I shall start making enquiries at the yard but I think it's too late; wish Girl had said something to either me or her mother sooner. On the one hand, I could find something else but, on the other, I think I'll just let GB have two days off a week, instead of one, and this means Mike and I can have more flexibility about which weekend day we ride. Sunday - went to the new Horse World Live show, at ExCeL. Crap. I can't imagine there'll be another next year. Dealers were all going mad with boredom, there was pretty much no one there. Stayed about an hour. Came home. Lurked on sofa. On Friday, one of our fish died. Given that it was one of the five still-live members of the batch of ten glowlight tetras that were the first fish we put in the tank (after we gave up on the manufacturer's instructions and just set it up properly) three years ago, this is pretty impressive. Looking at the others, I note that one of them is rather lying on his side and another looks worryingly skinny, but the rest of the fish seem to be doing ok so it's probably age, not a water problem. They've had a pretty good run. Link 8 kisses // Who loves you?

Navigation ♥ Viewing // Most recent entries ♥