Up the Swanny

Well the day started totally tickety boo and just went down hill.

Started the day off (well afternoon realy) by dropping Trixie off at the Poodle parlour. And by dropping I mean quite literaly, stopped out side and got out of the car with Trixie, she trotted across the road tail wagging. Went in the door of the poodle parlour and nearly ripped my arm off. Trixie had realised where we were, and had Nette splitting her sides. She just planted both front paws on the ground and plonked her bum on the floor. No way hosay was she going in willingly! I had to pick her up and carry her in, the lady who owns the parlour had to carry her to the waiting stalls for their canine customers. We went and parked the car and went to our regular cafe for dinner, afterwards we decided to have a stroll around Rhyl.Going past Smouts (who do cheque cashing and pawnbrokers)Nette saw a ring for me, so in we go so that I could try it on. A couple of minutes later we left with the ring, a puzzle ring. For those who have never seen one a puzzle ring is made up of several rings all linked together which actualy loop over and under each other, the reason it's called a Puzzle ring is if you separate the rings you have a right puzzle putting them back together as we found out. Nette took the ring out of the box to put it on my finger, and separated the four rings. Well we could we get them back together, no chance. OK back to Smouts they should be able to do it. Unfortunately Mr Smout the person who could do it was not in the shop, oh hell! Walking around Rhyl we went past another jewellers, could they do it No. But they knew some one who could, yepp you've guessed it Mr Smout. Carried on walking around and Nette decided she'd visit every jewellers in Rhyl if she had to. Next stop H Samuals and success, someone who could solve the puzzle ring, unfortunately she hadn't done one in years (apparently it's unusual to see them now days, well the ring was a unredeemed pledge) whist Nette was stood there looking at the jewellery on display, I went and had a look next door and found a Wales flag for the caravan. Returned with my new purchase just in time to see the lady complete the puzzle. Needless to say I'm under strict instructions not to take it off my finger.

Time to go and pick up Trixie who was sat at the front of the parlour being fused over. The owner said that as she was dealing with her, Trixie joint was popping in and out, and advised us to take her to the vets. One phone call latter and Trixie was booked in. As we had time to spare we went home for a hour, before going to the vets. Nette and Stephanie took her in as I've been banned from the vets by Nette when we take Trixie, as she says I get too emotional! A agonising wait followed, which ended with Trixie leaping into my lap.

Diagnoses is that Trixie has problems with the joints on both back legs popping out, and that she has had this condition since birth, but it is not and is unlickly to cause her any major problems. But to be safe she has to have a series of xrays on both legs, just to make absolutely sure that there is no degenerative damage to the joints. Since she is a typical awkward female, and the chance of her staying absolutely still for one xray never mind a series is no existent. She is going to have to be sedated. As the Surgery only does non major investigation tests involving sedation once a month, and the next schedueled date is the 10th of June, Trixie has been booked in for then, unfortunately she will not be able to travel for 24/48 hours until the sedation has fully worn off. This means that we will be unable to attend Carry on Camping Cache Event, which was going to be our first outing with the caravan. So our plans have well and truly gone up the swanny.

Upbeat Activitys

Well since my last Blog things have been Upbeat (cool,great, happy). On Saturday we got a new PC for Stephanie to do school work on, and the old one whent upstairs into Stephens bedroom. Peace at last, no need for a crow bar to get Stephen off his game. The only headache was setting up the router. And what a headache it was, after a phone call to the softwear centre and another one to the router manufacturers help line we still did not have a working router, by this time I was pulling my scalp off (I ain't got any hair to pull out) when all of a sudden "bingo" it was working with no problems, go figure. Next it was time to put the wireless network card in the old pc for Stephen, knees trembling off I went. Ten minutes later and one wireless networked pc, absolutly amazing!

Sunday we went camping site hunting, for the Anglo/Irish event on Angelesy. Amazing (Mark and Joan would have fainted if they'd been with us) I didn't get lost. The first site we went to look at looked a bit of a Dump, the second was just not right, but the third one was fantastic. Ad Astra is a quiet site, well maintained, and the toilet/showers are spotless, the owners live on site. There is a pub/restuarant close by (I'm thinking of organising a event for the friday night, 3 linked together in 24 hours).

After visiting Ad Astra we went caching, on the way passing another site I intended on looking at, another "No". Off we went to find Dovecote , Devotion and Drownings No clue as to what we were looking for. We just followed the arrow, until we ended up down this lane at a gate with the etrex saying we were 475m away. Found a parking spot for the car and off we set. After reaching the gate again we noticed some way markers, so of we set following them. When we reached the end of the wall and crossed the stile, we had 2 choices follow the waymarkers or follow the etrex of the path (the way markers had a church on them. and guess where we were heading). Off we set following the etrex, and finaly found our way into the site of the Priory by the backend, comming out just near the Well. Quick walk brought us to the cache which was quickly found, we then had to repete the journey through the nettles, stream (thats doing it a favour) and just a little bit of mud. Oh and I forgot to mention 2 trips through a field of sheep with 4PawDrive (Trixie) who behaved perfectly.

I've spent this week digging out a pile of soil so that I can put down some flags (paving stones) to allow us to park our new caravan (well new to us) on. Only 9 more days until we pick it up. Our first outing in it will be a caching event in Keswick. Carry On Camping by the House of Boo, I can't wait, 2 fantastic pasttimes in one.

Well thats it for today, I've a totaly crazy day tommorow regarding appointments and will be running around like a blue ar*ed fly. Oh and before I forget I've got permission for Wales second CITO event, so will be shouting details of that soon.