A dogless morning at home before we get away for the weekend – nice! Catching up on housework, packing and organising, and watching episodes of GH (on tv) and Days of Our Lives (on tape – thanks Sam!!). Watching the tape from Sam reminds me how lucky we are in the UK not to have very many commercials at all – but at the same time I am fascinated to see commercials from BC!

The weather is gorgeous – has been like 20 degrees for the past couple of days. Flowers were up before but now they are really blooming. Last night we took the dog out before we dropped her off for the weekend, out in the conservation area at the back of the house, and out by the ponds on the path there were like 50 million frogs!! We had to walk really carefully not to squish any; there were heaps of like 4 of them or more tangled all up together; and the dog was just confused as anything as to what was going on. Spring fever is what. It was gross though, I thought I had frog guts on my wellies. Not going out there again at night!

We started letting Piper off the leash last weekend and it’s been fantastic. The first time we were out at Ruislip Lido, which is a small lake/big pond with some facilities around it, surround by a fence. And there were a million dogs there to chase and play with, as well as her finally for the first time running in the water and not being afraid of it – it was a great afternoon. After that, we got home, and she slept for like the next 12 hours!! Turns out she expels a lot more energy when she is off the leash, and for some reason we’ve been able to have her out on walks more often this week – so she is a nice calm dog now!

Mark’s friend Chula has taken her for the weekend; he’s some high ranking police officer who does things like travel with Tony Blair to Libya, and he grew up with Irish Setters. I’m expecting her to come home fully trained actually as he’s great with that stuff – he taught her how to stay when she sits. His wife Elaine just called and said he took her for a run this morning and she is thoroughly pooped again; sounds like she is just fine over there until we pick her up on Sunday.

I’m not going to complain about work. I’m not going to complain about work. How crap it is and how I want to leave for something else and I am just not getting any support. But I am not going to complain about it and just celebrate a quiet day off from it, and the fact it’s another 4 day week next week with then 9 days in Ireland. Excellent.

Better go get ready and finish packing…Isle of Wight awaits.

So I splurged out and bought myself an Orla Kiely handbag on Friday, which I have been dying to get for a while. In fact I have been bidding on some on ebay, but they all get really expensive and so you might as well just go and buy one yourself! It looks like this except in blue instead of red. I love her stuff; thankfully she also does this cheap range at Sainsbury’s where we grocery shop, so I also have a gorgeous notebook of hers for work, and also some nice wrapping paper that she has designed. Expensive handbag hopefully means it won’t fall apart as I am pretty rough on mine, filling them up with various bits for work and whatever.

While I was at Selfridges admiring the handbags and then finally relenting and purchasing one, right beside the Orla Kiely shelves were these two craaaaaaaaazy handbags made of suede and leather that said ‘Pure F***in Maple Syrup’ around a big maple leaf, and then ‘Born in Canada, Made in Italy’. I picked up the small one and it was £225!! That’s like $500 Canadian!! I understand that price for Chanel; I do not understand it for some green and brown Canadian concotion that was made by who knows what company.

I am on strike from work right now; I am fed up with how much stuff I have to do, my workload is just out of control, so what the heck, let’s shop online instead of doing anything real.

Speaking of ebay, we managed to sell an old 1970′s sideboard of Mark’s that he inherited from his aunt for 99p! Actually the girl that bought it who sent her parents to pick me up gave me a fiver instead, which was generous and unnecessary; we were just happy to get rid of it. Now the rest of the house needs to be emptied!

Took the dog for a HUGE hike across the Downs at Dunstable yesterday; she was so exhausted afterwards she slept all night and is still sleeping this morning. She’s so well behaved when she is tired!!

This is not good – a blog only update once a month? No, that is very bad.

Things are pretty crap at work though. I think I am complaining about it too much but I really just have too much to do and I am DRAINED…

Nothing else is getting done – the house is a tip, the dog isn’t getting walked enough (although I have to say a good walk in the field is a big stress reliever for me, and I’ve been coming home early when I can to get that in before it gets dark), the little things just aren’t getting done.

On top of the projects to manage at work and then add in another project management task like a wedding and I am just overwhelmed. ACK. UGH. Somebody, please, mr. bus driver, hit me with your bus and that way I can spend a couple of months in hospital and de-stress!

The weather has been very interesting lately – we’ve had this cold front in from Russia for like 2 weeks, and just a few minutes ago this deadly black cloud came over and hit the place with nasty hail for 10 minutes. This morning we had snow that actually stuck for a bit – I wonder what it’s like at home, because at work it’s all gone now. But it never sticks here downtown – too much traffic, people, pollution means it’s significantly warmer down here compared to just a few miles away where home is. I see some blue sky, but it’s freakin’ cold! I’ve been wearing my tuque (no Brit knows what that word is) and mitts and scarf for a few weeks now, this last wintery blast.

Anyway, the good part about this job, and the one that makes me stop from applying to other ones (although I have been looking) is the generous, generous annual leave (what, do I have like 12 weeks holiday or something crazy like that?!), and I have some coming up to look forward to. We have a long weekend on the Isle of Wight on Friday the 18th, and then the week after we’re off to the south west coast of Ireland for 9 days. I am looking forward to that. Hopefully we’ll catch Em and Mark outside Cardiff in Wales before we head across the sea on the ferry. We are dogless on the Isle of Wight, but she’s coming with us to Ireland (the only place she doesn’t need a pet passport for). Should be good!