I know, I know, I haven’t blogged for ages. Again. Where have I been?

Ok, that’s me on the right but I haven’t  actually been holed up in a top secret bunker waiting for everything to stop being on fire. Although now you mention it, that doesn’t sound like a totally bad idea.

Here’s the thing. 2018 was… challenging, so boo to that. This year so far has been way busy and way beyond stressful. For those who want to know why, read on. If you don’t, just skip to the funny story at the end. I won’t mind, and it pretty much sums up the last three months.

In January we were involved in some nonsense which (and I have always wanted to say this) I cannot talk about for legal reasons. Suffice to say neither of us was a defendant and we have not suddenly become Thelma and Louise. Sorry to disappoint.

Later that month, my mum finally had a knee replacement she’d needed for a long time. I arranged to stay with her for a few days when she came out of hospital. That turned into nearly two weeks, as it became apparent she had been discharged without a ‘care package’, so no nurse visits, physio etc. Happily, she is up and about without crutches now and doing really well.

Shortly after that we lost our gorgeous old Etty dog. Hardly a shock, as she was at least sixteen years old, but heartbreaking just the same. She deserves her own blog which I will be writing very soon.

In happier news, in February, we adopted these two gorgeous loons, Ruby and Lola, who ended up in rescue after their owner died. They also deserve their own blog, also coming soon.

Regular listeners know I have been struggling with back problems, particularly over the last three years or so when I have also had referred leg pain (a bit like extreme sciatica). Good news is that I finally seem to have a diagnosis that makes sense! I’m booked for more surgery on 8 April, all being well. If that works I will have another op 8-12 weeks later, so things are looking up, but I have a little way to go yet.

All this has meant that I haven’t been able to work full-time for a while now, and hardly at all this year. I am so very grateful to everyone who has stuck around and supported Poochweasel and I’m determined to get things up and running again as soon as possible. Seriously; if you’re bothering to read this, you rock.

So yes, funny story: Here’s a perfect (and dog-related) illustration of how 2019 is going for us: to set the scene, we’ve been trying to get our house on the market for ages. Luce has some free time at the moment, so the plan was to to get as much as possible done before April. We made a start and the house was in… well, let’s call it ‘organised chaos’ as we sorted through clutter, rearranged storage, boxed up charity donations and so on. Last Tuesday afternoon, Luce took the dogs for a walk and Lola found some lovely, stinky mud to roll in.

I ran her a bath and we popped her in as soon as they got home. We stuck Ruby in and washed her paws for good measure and congratulated ourselves on having such little angels who sat happily to be dried and barely made a paw-print in the bathroom. Then we heard a weird noise from downstairs… Turns out that the waste pipe under the bath had chosen that moment to give up the ghost.

We can laugh about it now and, on the plus side, the insurance company have been brilliant and dealt with everything very promptly. However, you would not believe the damage a dog-bath’s worth of water can do when it crashes through a ceiling! In addition to the other clutter, our downstairs rooms are now full of furniture from the living room and we are camping upstairs. The ceiling needed to come down and once that had been replaced, the entire room needed redecorating. Thankfully, all the work-people have been lovely, friendly, efficient folk who have made friends with Lola and Ruby, which has helped. When the decorating is finished, we need the electrician to sort the new light fitting, someone to assess the state of the wooden furniture and someone from ‘soft furnishings’ to approve cleaning or replacement of sofas, rugs etc. Such fun!

My work room is directly above this. Yesterday was the first day I was able to venture back in:

Of course, our story is that Lola, affectionately known as ‘Tank’, broke the bath to avoid future cleaning. The irony being that everything in the house is now covered with a thick layer of plaster dust and the dogs are pretty much the only things that don’t need cleaning.

In conclusion, as delightful as March has been, I am ready for April now, pleaseandthankyou. What could possibly go wrong?

Fin.

Bonus music thing: If you recognised the lyric reference in my blog title, come and talk music with me! 😉  If you didn’t, meet the legendary Kathleen Hanna and the Julie Ruin:

If you enjoyed, I urge you to go catch up with everything else Kathleen Hanna. Look up her other bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre and/or buy Julie Ruin stuff here: Julie Ruin Store