Blue

The colour of the New Zealand sky is almost indescribable.

Spoiled Dog

As I've mentioned before, we have a little dog, a Bichon-Frise.

Waltzing the Dog

It was a crisp night last night, and it wasn't raining, so I decided to take our little doggie for a walk.  Readers may remember the fiasco that was the melon-fuelled diarrhoeal nightmare called "walking the dog", but little Samo hadn't been near any type of fruit for some days so I felt reasonably safe.

50000 and a Pantie Pervert.

I didn't expect it so quickly, but my blog hit 50,000 views last night.  The hits are coming mainly from the UK and USA, and I've given up trying to figure out why the sudden explosion of interest occurred in January and has continued ever since.

Oh well.  C'est la Vie.

Walking the Dog (2)

Back home after another long day at Nuova Lazio High. Getting on with the Report writing, and only one class left to go.



It really was a beautiful evening. An evening for walking the dog. An evening of contemplating nature, this lovely country I live in, and Mrs. J****** in her bikini on the hill behind us, silhouetted against the evening sky.



I took the wee fella down to our front door and got prepared.

Steel toed elastic sided boots (paint covered and scarred from many an encounter with unforgiving concrete blocks)

Dress socks, pulled up to the calf (left over from school, I don't necessarily change ALL clothes when I get home)

Trusty Army shorts

Classic baggy grey T-Shirt two sizes too big from the Warehouse)

Old hat for protection from the sun . Even at 6:45 in the evening. I really don't want a melanoma on the scalp. I should add that my hat was given to me by my lovely daughter when she was over here on a visit 6 years ago. It's khaki-coloured canvas, has a stiff brim, a kiwi embroidered on it and a chin strap made from an old ex-Army leather bootlace. It's covered in blue stain splatter from the time I foolishly tried to spray-stain a previous house in Normandale when the Southerly was blowing. I ended up looking like a bewildered, aging Papa Smurf. I wouldn't swap that hat for anything.

Hip-flask with a generous measure of a proprietary blended whisky (Single Malt is just too pricey for every day consumption)

I checked the plastic poo-bag supply in its dispenser, and off we went.

Quick check for Mrs. J***** up the hill, but she must have gone indoors. Blast.


I did what I normally did on these perambulations. Either planning my next day's work at school, or my next post on the blog worlds. I kept an eye on Samo of course, as he went sniffing around trees, bushes and mailboxes. (I should add for any Non-Kiwi readers that New Zealand uses a system similar to the US, where household mailboxes are situated at the end of each house's driveway, and the mail is delivered to them. The idea of the UK system where the mail is delivered directly to your front door is laughable, when many driveways are hundreds of metres long)

Kiwi Mailbox

Uh oh. First signs of poo-making from the wee doggie. (I had made absolutely sure that the wee thing hadn't been eating any Melons. Or any sort of fruit. See the previous post on Walking the Dog which explains my nervousness regarding dogs and melons)

The little crap-machine started the usual snuffling in a single area, eyes began to glaze, legs straddled and *pop* out it came. I did the usual dog-owner thing here, and looked nonchalantly away. It's not really thought to be polite to stare at your dog's arse as it defecates. Look at the sky. Whistle. Look vainly again for any sign of Mrs. J****** on the hill. Take a plastic bag out of the dispenser and get it ready for use. This allows any observers (nosey-parkers) to note that you are a good dog-walker, one who is prepared to pick up the poo. Open the bag. Damn these things are so tightly compressed I couldn't get it open. Quick lick of fingers to increase fingertip coefficient of friction and it's open. Wrap ostentatiously around free hand (other hand firmly grasping doggie's lead)



Doggie's finished. Quick grasp of the still-warm pellets. A practiced twist and tie, and the jobs done.



Back to the perambulations and bush sniffing (the dog, not me). Mrs J***** still not out yet. Blast. Going to take another swig from the flask, but stopped. I vividly remember the last time I had taken a swig after picking up the poo. Somehow a trace of the material had got onto my fingers and the taste transferred to the neck of the hip flask and hence to my lips. The combination of tastes is not one I ever wish to repeat. It put me off whisky for hours. Returned unopened and un-drunk flask to capacious pockets in my trusty shorts.

Back to perambulations, wee doggie having a great time sniffing and snuffling everything in sight (or in his case, smell)
Uh-oh. Pre-crap signs again. I sent up a fervent prayer to any Deity which might be(against all rational thought) floating around for a non-repeat of the Lentil Soup effect (See Walking the Dog)

Phew. Just normal pellets. No reason to panic. Back to my established doggie-poo routine.

Look at the sky. Whistle. Look vainly again for any sign of Mrs. J****** on the hill. Take a plastic bag out of the dispenser and get it ready for use. Open the bag. Damn these things are so tightly compressed I couldn't get it open. Quick lick of fingers to increase fingertip..... Oh shit.

Really. Oh SHIT. There must have been a minuscule transfer of material after the last poo-wrapping. Onto my fingers. And I'd just licked them.

Have you any idea what dog shit tastes like?

Believe me you really don't want to know. The last episode with the hip flask contamination was nothing compared to this.

The only comparison I can make was when my son was still a baby, and when I took over nappy duties one evening the little sod blew an explosive fart/diarrhoea mix over me as I attempted to apply cream to his tiny reddened bum. The experience of having the semi-liquid crap drip off of my moustache is not one to be repeated.


I made the ultimate sacrifice. I used the whisky remaining in my hip flask to rinse out my moth and lips. AND I HAD TO SPIT IT OUT. Do you have any idea how such behaviour corrupts a Scotsman's soul?
Started home, retching slightly (Actually dry boaking. But all of you Sassenachs wouldn't understand)

I left his last deposit where it lay. I'd get it later.
Thank goodness; Mrs J******* had come out at last. Looking at her in the sunlight certainly took my mind of my troubles. (But not the taste. Never the taste)

Mrs. J******
See Nicola, Fflur, Pinky and AliX.  No more semi-naked pretty girls

Walking the Dog

We have a little dog, a Bichon-Frise called for some forgotten reason "Samo".

I say we have a dog, but to be accurate, my beloved, because she is at home alone a lot of the time (she is on a full medical pension because of a very bad back injury) wanted to get a doggie companion two years ago.

We eventually bought him (more accurately "it" as he's "been seen to") from a Chinese family in Kelson, from a Trade Me advert. I should point out here that dog people (different from dog-owners) prefer to use the term "adopted", rather than bought. Whatever.

Loose weight or die

On the first visit to the Vet after we had adopted him, we were told he was about 2 kg overweight, so we put him on a diet, and took him for regular walks. His previous owners couldn't have walked him very much, because Samo strongly objected to walking further than 50 metres from the house. He showed his reluctance by sitting down and refusing to move. I solved this problem by ignoring his objections and continuing to walk. As I weigh considerably more than even the overweight Samo, the result was he got dragged along the sidewalk on his arse, which caused him to re-think his objections and continue walking. He soon lost weight through a reduction in food and the extended exercise, and he is now quite keen to go on fairly long walks; the little chap now gets excited as soon as he sees the lead.

The lead which I am carrying.
For some unknown reason, I'm the mug who now takes him for his walks. Ignore the fact that it was my beloved who wanted the bloody animal in the first place, ignore the fact that I work from 7:00 am until 6:00 pm, and come home knackered, ignore the fact that my beloved is home most of the day, watching TV, reading etc., I'm the chap who takes Samo for his walks.

But I'm not bitter.

Before we had a dog in the house, I was surprised by the occasional comment by a friend or colleague about the propensity for dogs to produce "poo".

Only this machine produces more crap than a dog

Dear God, they're just ambulatory crapping machines.



Samo gets one portion of dried dog food at 4pm every day, and maybe a couple of small bikkies as treats once or twice a day, but I'm sure that his gut exhibits a complete disregard for the law of conservation of matter, and he produces at least 3 times the amount of "poo" compared to his intake.

We have big wooden decks all around the house, and every morning we do a poo patrol removing the deposits and spraying the contaminated area with bleach or disinfectant, before thoroughly rinsing with water from the hose.

Cute bone-shaped poo-bag dispenser

But the little bugger ALWAYS retains enough to make deposits on his walks. We have fitted a plastic bag dispenser to his lead, so we are always prepared to remove anything he leaves as we walk around the neighbourhood, so we try to be good citizens and keep the contamination to a minimum.



But it's always me. My beloved doesn't even take Samo out for a daytime walk anymore (to be fair, her back is playing up badly at the moment) so it's moi who accompanies the little white happy but crapping canine on his perambulations.



It's really not that much of an imposition, and if I can sneak a quick alcoholic infusion before we leave, I can actually enjoy the walk.

OOOh, Hello Neighbour

I can do lesson plans and units of work in my head, dream about new cars, imagine DIY projects, design death machines for the prolonged and painful destruction and dismemberment of Ringo (always a favourite), meet and chat to other dog walkers, (mostly blokes oddly enough) view with unalloyed delight the fluorescent blue of the gorgeous New Zealand sky, especially as it segues into the almost more impressive turquoise and pink of the sunset, admire the silhouette of a neighbour's wife against the evening sky, spend the next 10 minutes trying to eradicate the arousing fantasy which popped into my fevered brain after seeing her voluptuous silhouette

So the walks can be diverting, (Please note: I do not consider rain to be a part of the contract.  Rain = No Walkies.  Ever.  No Exceptions) a relatively benign way of taking a modicum of exercise for the both of us. 

Melons    
See Nicola, I don't use every excuse to put pictures of large-breasted women on my blog.

Then someone gave Samo some melon.  We had a few friends around last weekend for a barbeque, and my beloved had prepared plates of fresh fruit, including melon and watermelon.  A few pieces fell off which were promptly scarfed down by Samo, waiting under the table. (He never begs for food while we are eating, but he reckons  that anything that falls on the ground is fair game).

I took him out for his walk that evening, following the usual route, stopping at the usual places for him to sniff and pee, everything normal, except his walk wasn't quite normal, he seemed to be waddling a bit, almost as if he didn't want to move his hind legs very much.  I didn't give it much thought until the first crap stop.  Samo exhibited the usual precursor signs, grass sniffing/snuffling, going in circles repeatedly, then the final sign, the glazed eyes and the straddled legs.

Poo bags come in all sizes

Sighing, I removed a new bag from the dispenser, and after he had finished, removed the pellets, sealed and tied the bag, and hung it from the leash. (this is now de-rigeur for dog walkers, demonstrating that we're actually picking up the poo, and not leaving it to foul the sidewalk).

We carried on walking, but Samo began to exhibit the pre-poo signs again!
WTF
Oh well, out with the bag, ready....

JESUS CHRIST, where was this coming from.  My little doggie had turned into a monster.
The area was becoming covered in large deposits of a foul-smelling semi-liquid, looking remarkably like lentil soup.

Looks like this
Smells a bit different.  Can't comment on the taste.

I couldn't pick this up, I'd need a straw, and I certainly wasn't going to use one to suck this stuff up. I'd need a hose and gallons of disinfectant, but I was quite a bit from our house, and I didn't really know these distant neighbours.

So I did what any other bloke in similar circumstances would have done.

I buggered off, sharpish

Wishing I had a cork somewhere on my person to plug up the dispensing orrifice of my now dribbling doggie companion, I walked/shuffled back home.  On the way, the little white shit-machine had by now added farting to his repertoire, and mixed with the still dribbling lentil soup, resulted in him spray-painting large areas of the pavement, grass and a parked campervan with a layer of dark beige pigment, which smelled vaguely of fermenting melon with an admixture of dead, decomposing goat.

Spray painting, the proper way

Spray painting, the Samo way

Once home, I locked all the outside doors, banishing him to the outside decks until the plague had resolved itself.  I did put out a large bowl of water, knowing the poor little sod would become dehydrated quite quickly, but no-way was he getting back into the house until it was all over.

I went back through the living room, heading for the front deck and a relaxing lie-down on the porch swing, thinking that maybe a glass or two of peat and barley extract would help my frazzled nerves relax, when I became aware of two things.

My beloved was screaming at me, something about carpet?
I still smelled the disgusting stench of the doggie diarrhoea.

Oh Dear.
SHIT

I looked down.
Brown footprints.
No relaxing on the porch swing, no nerve-numbing peat and barley infusion, just a long time on my hands and knees, scrubbing and disinfecting.

No more Melon.

EVER

The simple things are sometimes best

I got home about 6:30 last night, really knackered.

We continue to have computer network problems in Nuova Lazio High School, and even though I know that our Systems guy is working hard at it, it becomes very frustrating when you are losing 15 minutes out of every lesson to re-boot the computers and get the kids to log-on.



I've also been involved in fixing the timetable and setting up our SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) classes, plus teaching 4 classes, setting and marking assessments, taking my beloved's car into the garage and my own car into the body shop after some silly girl in a bright orange BMW reversed into me in Wellington. Her excuse of "I didn't see it" was a bit shaky. It's a big black Isuzu 4x4, how the hell do you miss a 2½ tonne truck?

So I was tired and a bit fed up.



After I had changed into my usual kit (mentioned on previous post, T-shirt and disreputable shorts) and my beloved had set out a nice big bowl of a meaty pasta dish, I began to feel better.

An ice-cold bottle of beer completed the process of making me feel almost human again.

Then I took our little doggie out for a walk. This is a Bichon-Frise, a small white fluffy bundle of mischief. My beloved wanted a dog, so she got one. Guess who takes it for most of it's walks? Yep, me.

Our outside thermometer, last night at 7:30 pm

But this evening I didn't mind. The temperature was a lovely 25°C, a balmy intermittent breeze was blowing, the sky was a brilliant, almost violet blue as the sun began to dip towards the Belmont Hills. I realised I was happy. Nothing special had occurred, no earth-shaking realisation or re-alignment, just the simple pleasure of walking under a perfect sky in comfortable clothes.

These are safety boots



These are not safety boots











I was wearing, in addition to the shorts and T-shirt mentioned above, a broad-brimmed hat and a pair of elastic-sided steel-toed working boots. These boots can be found in most kiwi homes, and are really useful. These boots have protected my little tootsies from dropped rocks, a carelessly swung pick-axe, a ladder dropped off of a roof an innumerable splashes of paint, concrete and on one memorable occasion, blood.

In addition to their protective qualities, they are very quick to slip on, which is why I was wearing them on my evening perambulation.

This is one of the things I really love about New Zealand. The casual approach to dress codes. I would not have dared to go out for a walk in the UK similarly attired. Apart from probably being too cold for just a T-shirt, walking in public in shorts and work boots would have been frowned upon. Decent clothes are expected, ties should be worn at most times, and some effort should be visible to being smartly co-ordinated. It's this cloying cloak of respectability, all but invisible and unremarked which makes life in the UK unexpectedly restrictive. You can't really do as you want, but must comply with the unwritten laws of public behaviour.

Kiwis mostly don't give a shit what you wear, do or say.

I love it.

Our front deck and swing.  (Note carefully placed G&T table)

After we got back home, I stretched out on the porch swing with another cold beer and just drifted to the sounds of the parakeets swooping up the driveway, the Morpork (a small owl) hooting in the reserve behind our house and the guttural, yet somehow reassuring snarl of a chainsaw drifting up the valley. The light had begun to take on that ethereal golden glow that warms without heat as the sunset approached.

View down the valley from the front deck

I was content.

I was happy.

I was sleepy.



Life was good.

Saturdays are Sick

Well actually it's not the day, it's me. Itchy eyes, raw throat, tight chest with large lumps of phlegm being expectorated. Typical. Three days off, long weekend and blam, rhinovirus and all his little cousins get their timing perfectly set. Took dog for walk, lovely blue sky and sun on the back of the neck.
Back home, hot toddy, bed.