Category: positive thoughts

You can’t win

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Ah. The magic of the Third Round of the FA Cup. A wonderful opportunity for the smaller clubs to take a pot shot at the big boys.

And it’s great if you are a smaller club. Nothing to lose.

Get hammered? Well you were up against top class opposition. Internationals.

Lose? Plucky performance. Well done. On to the next league game.

Win? Write your names in the giant killing history books. Sutton United. Ronnie Radcliffe. Fucking Wrexham.

Of course, it’s the other way around if you’re the big club. No-one is saying anything incredible about Lille, despite this result:

Literally, you can’t win.

But we did.

Beagle update

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Many of you have asked for a beagle update and I feel somewhat duty bound to supply one. As her mobility improves, and her dressings come off, we’re having to employ the “cone of shame” more and more.

Not actual footage

She’s not impressed. Generally, she has that kind of look that says “When I am Queen, you will be first against the wall”, and generally, it’s aimed at me.

But aside for the misery of the cone, things are going well. She’s definitely moving around a lot more, but we still have to be careful that she doesn’t take off after a cat or a hadeda in the back garden.

Most of the time though, this is her: dozing and recuperating, mostly spaced out on her various painkillers. But she’s putting pressure on her bionic leg and she’s more concerned about the cone than her repaired knee.

Which I guess is good.

It’s another week and a bit before the stitches come out and she can lose the comedy headgear. Building her strength after that will be tough. Building her trust in us again might be even harder.

NYR

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Happy New Year to you and yours. Ours was quiet: a post-op beagle requiring TLC and a sudden, yet brief, torrential downpour moving us and everyone else in the village inside.

I was asked if I had any plans for 2024, and maybe my one thing is to learn how to use Photoshop properly. I’ve never really done that. Not a big thing, but actually quite a complicated thing, so that’ll maybe take up 11½ of the 12 months available. I’m already looking forward to the couple of weeks off.

I also took the time to think about a few changes I want to make from 2023. Things I want to include in my life, things I need to rid myself of::

IN
Kameeldoring
More 50mm photography
Decent brandy
Restart my Instagram account
Buy a big vase
Finally do that number photo collage thing (I can’t find the post about this, but once I do, I’ll link it here)
Walking in the rain just to get wet on purpose
Being concerned about the future

OUT
Rooikrans
Not getting small tasks done
All involvement in anything to do with heraldry
Letting people hang out with me just because I’m a world famous blogger
Spongebob Squarepants pajamas
Cats (again)
Lego (sorry)
Worrying about the past

I’m sure everyone reading has a similar list, even if they’ve just stored it mentally. I might come back in 12 months time and do a post on how well (or not) this has gone, likely illustrated by a really impressively edited image.

Back home

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Thanks for all the messages about the beagle. We picked her up from the hospital this morning and she’s happily dozing – smashed off her face on painkillers – in her favourite basket.

Lots of hard work to come with recovery and rehabilitation, but we’ll do our best with her.

Also got permission from the team to head down to Agulhas: she might as well recover there as anywhere else, and we could all do with a few days away after a busy and stressful week.

So far, so good

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We were all a bit totes emosh taking the beagle out to Paarl this morning for her op. But the news is good: things went well and she’s come around safely after her procedure. Some minor complications therein, but nothing huge, so it’s looking positive for just a couple of nights away from home.

What does that mean for our New Year plans? Well, let’s see. But more on that tomorrow.

So while we wait, life goes on here.

One child is off partying in the Waterfront: in December, nogal. There were only a couple of positives about this: I used Admyt and got a freebie, and we took the opportunity (since we were in town dropping said child off, anyway) to knock out a gentle 8km along the Prom.
Very busy. Very hot. Very sunny. Would not advise.

Safely back and straight into the pool, and now the only thing I still need to do this evening is to go into town and do a fetch and carry from the Waterfront. Hopefully all of the traffics will have gone by then, and I can just enjoy a nice drive into the sunset.

And back.