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 Holly passed away last night, suddenly, as budgies do. Holly is the one on the left above; the one on the right, Pearl, passed some time ago. I think Holly was between 5 and 7 years old. He has some offspring out there somewhere, thanks to a little breeding holiday he took care of Cindy, our friend who used to live near here. Here is our current roll call of birds and other critters:
- Toby, a white, totally deaf English bull terrier / Jack Russell cross, male, neutered, drama queen, thinks he's a cat
- Max and Chewy, a pair of gorgeous Blue&Gold Macaws
- Fred, a cockatoo
- Leslie and Freddy, a pair of Amazons
- Four! Hahn's macaws (we now have more Hahn's macaws than budgies) : Han, Vernie, Kermie and Harry (we think they are all males)
- Three budgies : Bill-or-Ben, Little Bob (who is female, and she made babies with Holly) and Nelson (also female)
We are also temporarily boarding a pair of parrotlets, whom I have provisionally named Oscar and Lucinda. Of course, in truth, all these critters are Lewis's, although I do contribute a bit to their care. Quite a lot to Toby's, almost none at all to Fred, who would rip my hand off if I tried to handle him. Lewis has been making some forays into the world of web design on behalf of the charity he is an officer of, Soft Landing.
We lost another budgie. One of our young ones who had a damaged wing, and then had also lost her entire tail behind the sofa in a mysterious accident, died under unseen circumstances following an adventurous leap from the cage. We generally let them get out and back in via a long rope ladder throughout most of the day, and with their wings clipped, they can fly short distances, but seem to prefer an exciting plummet from the roof of the cage to the ground, sometimes followed by a little exploration, before climbing back up. But we found little Hillary, who was the tiniest, loudest and cutest of the bunch, expired on the floor, so we don't know if she broke her neck or possibly died of fright due to the dog Desmond's interest in her. We buried her in the back garden near to Sanjay.
We are hoping to get three more, to build our flock back up, as they seem happiest when there are plenty of friends to play with. The cockatiels, Winston and Clementine according to DH (even we chose those names to be androgynous, i.e. Winnie and Clemmie) are doing fine. I am beginning to suspect, though, that Winston is the girl and Clementine should have remained Clement.
 Here is a picture of the newest additions to our household. These are two young cockatiels named Winnie and Clemmie. Clemmie is the one in the foregound with the peachy cheeks; she is actually smaller but is standing in front. They join our budgies (but in a different cage for now, although they all get out a lot) : Pearl, Hughie, Holly and Hilary. And of course our little black (now black and grey) dog Desmond.
Winnie and Clemmie came to us as a freebie from my friend Cindy, who runs a parrot rescue centre (not actually restricted to parrots, she also has at least one pigeon!) and she hand-rears birds, does bird-counselling and bird-sitting and all kinds of stuff. She gave us the 'tiels supposedly because they were possibly becoming "feral" after their hand-rearing, so she didn't want to sell them, but really as you can see they are quite tame. We thought it might take a week before they would let us handle them but they were stepping up on our hands and perching on us on the second day.
We are having a great time here. We are staying in a four-storey Georgian Terrace with a smashing view of the harbour of Penzance and St. Michael's Mount. It is easy walking distance from anything you want, from charming seafarer's pubs where the dog is welcome and the beer is warm and strong, to a fancy deli with great local produce, to a little cafe that serves hevva cake and pasties and crab sandwiches. The weather was great for two days, then rained for two, and is now OK (and very sunny). This morning we drove in the direction of Land's End, failed to visit the Telegraph Museum because it's closed, and happened upon a gorgeous and completely deserted beach. I have provided one picture of the beach as a taster. I have tons of pictures of varying quality. We buy fresh seafood at a fishmonger attached to the wholesale fish market in Newlyn and cook it in our pretty well-equipped kitchen; so far we have had scallops, gurnard and sea bass for dinner.
Yesterday in the rain we went to St. Ives. I got no pictures there, but I will try to find some; it's amazing, and I wouldn't want to try to drive there. We went to the Tate and I had a revelation about JMW Turner, who I had never at all appreciated before. There will be more later, both words and pictures.
Gulfport MS has a puppy crisis. Amongst the survivors of hurricane Katrina are a lot of dogs, some homeless, some still with their owners although both are without proper housing. I expect nature's drive to repopulate after a disaster has taken hold of the dogs, and the animal shelter is now overwhelmed with an unseasonal glut of puppies, as well as the numerous strays still being picked up in the abandoned neighbourhoods and environs of the devastated coastal town.
Some people are so stressed out by their jobs that they have a whole separate blog to bitch about how bad their job is. Up until about a year ago, I really liked my job, although I have never liked the 2 to 3 hours of train commuting and certain other specific peripheral aspects of it. However, in the last year, the department of the large, mostly profitable international company I work for has been beset with diminishing revenue, lay-offs, the departure of the most capable, the selecting out of some of the less capable, interpersonal stresses, the madness of paranoia, and general decline in morale. I think a lot of us "left behind" are somewhat in denial about how stressed we are.
A co-worker of ours is blind, and he is accompanied to work each day by a guide dog (I will call the dog Sarah - not her real name.) She is relatively young and new to her job, having replaced another dog who retired last year. She is usually quite sober and professional, though she occasionally "breaks the rules" a bit to show affection. So, this evening, as usual on a Friday, about half of us got ready to leave at the stroke of 4 pm. Much switching off of computers, putting on of coats, nonchalant behaviour, lest the management would think us too eager to leave. But Sarah, bless her, picked up the vibe - and ran with it. Tongue hanging out, foolish doggy grin, bounding around the room from desk to desk. She was ecstatic that it was Friday, and she didn't care who knew it!
 Leicester Animal Aid, which runs the really excellent dog (and now also cat) rescue centre in Huncote, Leics, is facing the possibility of closing down at the end of this year due to a severe funding crisis. As the link explains, the organisation is entirely funded by donations (money and in-kind) and volunteers. The future survival of over 100 dogs and cats is at stake. Please visit the website and donate what you can to help. Our Sandi, who passed away about a year ago, and our current only-dog Desmond (pictured), both came to us from LAA at Huncote, as did Cassie, our Akita who died in 2000.
Tomorrow I am going in to work to supervise an implementation. A really major implementation. It is my first time doing something like this, there are many disadvantages under which we are labouring, and it is always possible that the whole thing (or I) will fall in a heap. This thing looming on the horizon (and it has been postponed twice, which hasn't helped much) is a big reason why I was so stressed before my holiday to America, and got back up to high stress soon after it, and why my blogging has fallen off and my Google rating gone from 6 down to 5. But soon it will all be in the past, for better or worse, and I can get back to the things that matter - books, cooking and the internet. And writing about politics, sex and religion. And maybe taking our poor old neglected dog for a proper walk.
Meanwhile, did you know I have a sort of "greatest hits" column? In the left-hand "menu" of this page there are some links to my favourite old posts, which I think distill the best writing I have done on this blog. Today I added a link to the kitchen blog, That Hash Browns Story. Check it out, you may enjoy it.
A lot of my favourite bloggers have recently gone into semi-retirement or just totally packed it in. I guess I may have to do some more pruning in the blogroll, but in some cases, their old stuff is so good that I'll leave it there as long as the link works, and maybe some passing stranger will discover it.
Update (Sunday): the implementation is in. It took about 8 hours longer than I estimated, for which I was roundly excoriated by client and upper management. But I am philosophical about that. It could have been (and by all rights might well have been) a lot worse.
I made a draft of this post from Time Goes By, about old pets for old people, almost a month ago. I was going to take a nice picture of Sandi, our very old pet, to illustrate it. But I never got around to it, and Sandi didn't have any good hair days - she hadn't had any for many months, as her health was failing terribly. On Wednesday, she died at the veterinary hospital. I was on my way home from work, on the train, when I got the call from DH to say she was there and was not coming home, and did I want to come by and say good-bye to her. She was suffering from major kidney failure; and she hadn't been able to eat for days and so did not take her "brain pill". Finally, she couldn't get out of her bed, which is why Hubby had taken her to the vet.
So I went to the vet's, but we are not sure how conscious she was of us, as we stroked her and talked to her and cried softly for a few minutes. Then DH called for the vet to come in a give her the merciful dose. She was a good old dog, and we miss her.
I have been very busy today and reviewed two books - no - four books! - on my book reviews blog. One is a trilogy - the Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. The other is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon. Please leave a comment if you like my book reviews.
Back to the UUUK that is. I had an interesting and fun visit - no political arguments and surprisingly little contention of any kind. Both adult children are doing pretty well (not that they couldn't both use some money if you're offering!) And my parents are still going strong despite such calamities as having a broken neck and two rounds of surgery or being bitten by a dog while out walking. I went shopping with my two younger sisters at an outlet mall in Gulfport, something we realised we had never done together (that's go shopping full stop, not just at this particular place.)
I am very out of touch with things. They do have newspapers of a sort in Gulfport and the family is on the internet through AOL (which is a bugger to use when you're not used to it.) But I only caught the high points. My dad is a fan of Faux News and my Mum doesn't watch news unless something that is important to her has happened. 'Nuff said. (But I love 'em anyway and I am not just saying that in case they read my blog, either.)
So maybe a real post with content and links and all that will come out tomorrow. I need to readjust my sleep cycle now.
A dog story, a war hero, a heartwarming tale. I could have linked to anywhere but I chose the Huddersfield Examiner, because I am just like that.
No, not me. And we have two dogs, anyway.
 
Alexander Chancellor has been documenting his relationship with his little puppy, Polly, and his attendant potty-training struggles, etc. Apparently it was all too much for exactly one reader, but that was enough to cause Chancellor to recant. (Also, the fact that he was receiving wildly contradictory advice from his readers on his dog-training methods and often of a very emotional nature had led him to see that it was better to discuss something else.)
Chancellor also writes: "I know from my mail that a few of you will be disappointed by this decision. There are some people, even among Guardian readers, who are not really interested in anything except dogs. Their lives are governed by dogs, and their minds are so clogged up with doggy matters that there is no room in them for anything else."
I think I may be married to one of those . . .
I used to think it was cool that my birthday was a holiday in the UK. Then I went to York on a day trip and learned what Guy Fawkes Day is all about. Now, living in the UK, I am in the ridiculous position of looking forward to my birthday (I have always loved birthdays, I don't know why) and yet dreading "Bonfire Night". In fact I dread the whole fortnight starting at about the 29th of October. That's when the neighbours starting playing with fireworks, and "Fraidy-Dog", aka Desmond, starts cowering under the furniture and refusing to go walkies after dark.
Of course, it's really bad on the night. The loud booms are beginning to frighten me now, because they seem to be coming right through the wall about a foot to my right. I never appreciated so much living in places where personal fireworks are illegal until I lived in a place where they're permitted. Just give it a rest, will you?
I am 51 now, by the way. Thanks for the e-card, Joani. Thanks for going out and getting me ice cream, Lewis. And now, if this temporary lull in the noise means that next-door have used up all their exploding toys, I'm off to bed.
The world is going to hell in a hand-basket; I cannot find anything hopeful to say about Israel v. Syria v. Palestine; it's the s.o.s. in Iraq and most of the US blogs are freaking out (one way or the other) about the Governator / recall election. Which just depresses me no end. And I've already done my obligatory Plame-outing post. And British politics right now is so-o-o-o boring. So I thought that today I would post about 'Walter the Farting Dog'. Don't laugh, this is serious.
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Holly passed away last night, suddenly, as budgies do. Holly is the one on the left above; the one on the right, Pearl, passed some time ago. I think Holly was between 5 and 7 years old. He has some offspring out there somewhere, thanks to a little breeding holiday he took care of Cindy, our friend who used to live near here. Here is our current roll call of birds and other critters:
