Happy 5th birthday, Mouse-mouse

It is his Lordship’s 5th birthday today.

Wake up, birthday boy!

Breakfast of champions

We have a series of fun things to do and gastronomic delights planned. After a light breakfast and a saunter around the holiday park, he will be escorted by his Staff to ‘Brother Jenkins Café’, a very nice place a stone’s throw away, where he will be regaled with bacon and puppacino. A small snooze in the sun to allow that to digest, and then we will head out to Touch Park in Aeroglen, near Cairns Airport, where 3 or 4 acres have been fenced for the delight and leisure of Cairns’ doggo population. He will be free to romp, run and roam to his heart’s content.

Home again, and I will produce the Oinkers, a bag of porky delight: air dried anonymous bits of pig on the bone, sliced thin. He can make an Oinker last for at least half an hour… I also have slow-baked chicken tenders and beef and tomato jerky. So, party food taken care of, then.

If he’s in the mood, we might take him along to Ellis Beach on the Captain Cook Highway, so that he can have a good sniff about there, and a run if he feels like it. If he doesn’t, then snoozing on his Floof in the sun will be the order of the day. He’ll find a way to let us know…

It has been both a pleasure and a privilege to have our lovely boy to care for these past two years, and we hope for many more. Our recent visit to GAP has shown how important it is to find homes for these gentle, loving and rewarding dogs, to make up for the harsh and sometimes brutal lives they led before.

Wishing you many returns of this happy day, doggo. 

 

Hors de combat

Hors de combat (French: [ɔʁ də kɔ̃ba]; lit. ‘out of combat’)

I have been out of action for a couple of days. These days, I don’t often get migraines, but when I do, it’s a doozy. Sorry about the radio silence, but I was barely functional. Nurse Mouse was supervising me throughout, so I was in good paws, even if it meant that the available space in the bed was somewhat reduced… I’m through the worst of it now, so normal service will resume shortly.

I’m watching you. Lie still and be good.

Mouse appears to feel that the overtime he put in merits double helpings of frozen chicken necks. We are in negotiations…

I’m also doing something about the endless time this ankle is taking to heal. Tomorrow I have an x-ray and ultrasound scheduled, with a referral to an orthopaedic surgeon in the pipeline. My doctor agrees that it’s taking too long and is still too painful. In a sense, a swift spot of surgery would be welcome if it means reducing the endless hobbling about. We shall see.

Funny. I can be endlessly patient when I’m making stuff, but when it comes to my body mending itself, I’m constantly wishing things would just get a move on.

So, just a bit more Hurry Up and Wait…

 

 

An aside from Mouse

Hello people, Mouse here.

I thought I’d better interject as the Staff are being pretty slack about posting just now (possibly, but at least we’re not being slack about your feeding and walkies and bones and strokies – Mum). Mum keeps lounging about with her foot up on a cushion, and I’m not at all keen on those big sticks she’s using to help her get about… they make me rather nervous.

Dad thought it would be good for us all to get out of the house yesterday, and as you know, I like a nice drive in the car. So, anyway, the Staff got their errands done and then it was lunchtime. Now, normally, I don’t do lunch, I have a figure to maintain, but the Staff need feeding to keep their strength up to look after Me. Mum put in a request for sushi and Dad wanted the Noodle Hot Box, so Hot Wok it was… I have to say, the whole thing smelled wonderful. They picked it up, and we went to the beach to eat it, which is the Staff’s ‘thing’. I had not realised they had bought me a snack, until Mum served me up an unrolled Beef Teryaki nori roll, and it smelled so good I wolfed down the lot, nori, rice and all. I mean, seaweed! Yuck, right? Not at all! I shall look at green stuff with different eyes in future. Mum says she’s happy to report that there were no, ahem, unfortunate side effects, either….

While they were noshing, Mum spotted a cloud which she said was me chasing a bone she’d thrown for me. I don’t see it myself…. I was more interested in whether she was going to eat that California roll she was waving about, or whether I’d get to try it. You’ll be happy to know that the Starving Greyhound impression paid off once again, and I got the end of it. Also extremely tasty!

Mum does seem a bit more cheerful, although she’s still seriously lame, and her paw is all sorts of strange colours. Her knee is also not right, smells like it needs a good lick clean, but she says she can manage that herself, thank you very much. I ask you, gratitude… She’s going to her vet later this morning, poor thing. I hope hers is less keen than mine – it seems like the first thing that always happens is a thermometer stuffed you-know-where. (So how is that different from your nose up my bum, steering me towards the frozen chicken neck department? – Mum) (Enough of your cheek – Mouse).

Anyway, that’s it. Thought I’d just bring you up to date. I don’t have any travel plans coming up, so I’m afraid I’ll be leaving you to the tender mercies of the Staff for news and entertainment.

Nose boops,

 

 

 

 

Mouse.

A visual antidote to Red and Blue

We just had to get away from it.

The news is full of it. My phone feed is full of it. I keep hearing soundbites everywhere. We needed a break from the relentless meltdown. (And while I’m at it, my utmost sympathy to my US readers for having to live with the hype as well as the consequences).

We headed out for a little diversion. After a brief detour to the beachfront at Seaforth, we headed for lunch at one of our favourite places: The Old Station Teahouse. We held one of the outings of the 2018 National Rally of our motorbike club there, and it received rave reviews from the 80 members who attended.

Tasty food, whilst relaxing on the ‘platform’ of a preserved old wooden station building set down in peaceful, beautiful, tropical gardens. Birdsong. The rustle and rattle of palm fronds.

The scent of murraya and gardenia. Vines, huge leaves, brilliant flowers. You get the idea… We brought Mouse along, as he loves the place, and the staff adore him and present him with scraps of chicken, mugs of puppacino studded with flakes of beef jerky, endless strokies, and best of all in his view, permission to lie on the comfy sofa!

He took full advantage, of course. Most of the customer seating is around tables in the gardens or on the event deck. There are a couple of tables on the platform, and one three-piece suite of two armchairs and a small sofa. We got the armchairs…. of course. Mouse was ushered onto the sofa in person by the manager, from where he issued his demands requests for sustenance and we were granted an audience with His Exaltedness.

At one point, it struck me how perfectly he was placed against gorgeous bright colours. I can almost see a quilt growing from those: saffron, orange, magenta, emerald and black. Or maybe not so much of the almost!

 

It’s certainly more to my taste than Red and Blue just now…

Worth celebrating

A perfect day, that is.

They’re few and far between in this time of coronavirus. Today was one such. Despite the frightening things happening in the south of the country, we had the sensation of being a million miles away from the trouble. The day was pleasantly warm and beautifully sunny. We had nothing pressing to do apart from loading the dishwasher to deal with last night’s family barbecue. So we decided that the Husband and I and doggo would go and do something we hadn’t done for a while.

Have brunch at the beach.

Doggo lay on his quilt under the table, peacefully digesting his puppacino while we demolished our Eggs Benedict, the Husband’s with excellent locally-cured bacon, and mine with garlicky mushrooms and extra hollandaise (they never give you enough). After we’d topped it off with coffee, Mouse made it known that he wished to visit the beach across the road. (In case you’re wondering, he starts hopping on the spot and dancing with impatience, with his ears pricked.)

Righto, Mouse, your wish is our command. He loves walking on the beach, the sand is a pleasant surface for him – softer than the road, less impeding than grass. He’s always straining slightly to run, but we’ve never let him off leash because he could be out of earshot in a few seconds. A colleague of the Husband’s had suggested that a sandbar surrounded by incoming or ebbing tide might be a good place to let him run, because he’d have nowhere to go. We tried that, wading out knee-deep to a good-sized sandbar surrounded by water.

Oops.

A delighted doggo took four steps on the sandbar, then leapt into the water, bounded up to the main beach and started to run. Before we could expire of a heart attack, we saw that he was doing a figure 8 around other people there instead of heading into the sunset. When I called him, he came, after one more lightning-fast loop, splashing back to us and bounding up with a huge grin on his pointy face. We made a big fuss of him and told him he was a Very Good Boy.

That was fun, Mum, can I do it again?

Of course after that he needed to shake off all over us a couple of times, submit to having his paws de-sanded, shake off again and leap into the car, still with the huge grin on his chops. Clearly an isolated sandbar is no impediment. We’d imagined he might be deterred, having previously indicated he was not keen on actual waves. Obviously that was all forgotten, and he is now Sea Dog. Luckily he doesn’t smell of wet dog in the car. And also luckily, he doesn’t mind being hosed down at home to get rid of the salt.

Our blood pressure has returned to normal, doggo has napped all afternoon, the Husband has fixed the scooter lights and I have done my chores. I can’t forget the sheer delight on that pointy black face, and the gift of speed he enjoyed so much. What a pleasure it is to make your dog happy…

Today, all is well in our world.

Anemone: Facing Finally Finished!

Yeah, yeah, I know.

It has taken an age. But that’s what happens when you decide to face the edge of your hexie quilt using the angled edges instead of straightening it all up and doing a nice normal binding. Mind you, it looks fabulous.

It’s a fiddly old process. You have to trim the batting and backing so that they sit ¼ inch inside the edge of the outer hexies. Then you have to make and stitch together 4 long chains of hexies to go on the back as facing. You have to stitch together – as invisibly as possible – all the outer edges. Then you have to remove the basting and the papers and pin down the facing onto the backing, keeping everything smooth. Then you have to go all the way round again, stitching down the inside edge onto the backing. It’s a tad mind-numbing. You can’t watch TV while you do it (although you can, and I do, listen to an audiobook. Or two, or even three).

But it’s done, and I’m really pleased with the effect. Now for the hand quilting. That’s going to have to wait till I get back from next week’s forthcoming trip north for a quick break in Cairns.

Next on the agenda is piecing together scrap batting for the second scrappy Sugar Sprinkle pillowcase, sandwiching and quilting. This is the first one, quilted with some moderately wonky-directional lines. I think I’ll do wavy lines on the other one…

I have another milestone to celebrate too, but not quite so decorative. Mouse and I have been gradually building up the length of our morning walks. It has been difficult because of my back pain, but the Husband solved that problem by buying me what’s know as a shooting stick, or spectator seat. When my back starts to hurt, I can stop and sit for a few minutes wherever I am, rest it till the pain eases, and then carry on walking. It has been a total game changer, and doggo and I are now powering through 3 or 4 km a day, something unheard of in earlier times. I’m working up to the 5km mark, and that’ll deserve a proper celebration, don’t  you agree?

Whether we’ll still manage it when the hot weather comes is another question; I might have to get up at 5 to walk him, feed him at the usual 6am and then we can both collapse for a bit, rather than feeding at 6 and walking at 7am. But for now, we have cool, fresh mornings, some with a mild nip in the air. The Crush is in full swing, and cane fields all around us are slowly being harvested. The landscape is reappearing from behind its 2m curtain of green sugarcane, and on these winter mornings there is a mist lying over the earth on cold mornings. It’s lovely, and makes walking a real pleasure.

Excuse me now. Mouse is demanding to go out and do zoomies in the back yard, preferable with his rope toy.

Your wish is my command, O Master…

 

Stink Eye

No one can stink eye like a dog.

Having got up at 6am to feed his Majesty, two carefully prepared bowls of rather tasty food, I poured myself a cup of coffee, grabbed a banana cupcake and retired back to bed. Normally at this point, there is a session of dog worship. He’s allowed on the bed this one time, after I’ve put a cotton bedspread over my precious heirloom quilt. He gets admiration and intensive strokies.

So I settle into bed with coffee and banana cupcake beside me. I call him. He comes bounding in and does a standing leap onto the bed. And then he freezes. The nose swivels. The nose wiffles… and then swings inexorably towards my banana cupcake. He begins to reach for it. I tell him No in a very decided voice. He lies down, reluctantly, still sniffing. I pick up my cupcake and he thrashes upright. Well, OK then. He’s not going to give up. He gets more NO!

He leaps off the bed and hunkers down into his best sphinx position. I dig in. I glance down and I am getting stink eye unto the seventh generation, straight down the barrel of his aristocratic needle nose. Clearly, in his mind banana cupcakes are ALL the property of Mouse Dog, I am now eating his food, and it is beyond the pale. I hold his eyes while I bite into them, asserting my dominance over this tasty, crumbly, bananan-y morsel. He stalks off in outrage, and is currently sulking on his bed. Note to self: do not eat banana cupcakes in front of dog, it is mental cruelty.

Mum 1, Mouse 0.  Mwahahah!

Miz Lizzie Adventures: before we go

We’re off!

Just a short trip, but it’ll tell us whether Mouse enjoys the road trip/caravan experience. We’re hoping, of course, that he’ll love it as much as we do, and make lots of new doggy friends along the way.

One thing Miz Lizzie wasn’t equipped with was a large dog bed. Mouse is not a small person, and when he sleeps, it’s usually with all four legs sprawled out. We weren’t about to make him sleep outside so sleeping accommodation had to be arranged. Between us, the Husband and I have come up with a Cunning Plan. The banquette seat opposite the Husband’s bunk is used once a day, tops, and often not at all. We’ve removed the fixed table, which was large, cumbersome and heavy, and have replaced it with a folding table which goes down flat most of the time.

So we’ve run a board across from under the cushions of the banquette to a ledge the Husband installed along the side of his bunk platform. It has stops to prevent it sliding about. On top, we have the option of using the seat cushions as a doggy mattress, or better still, a section of the old bunk mattresses we’ve replaced, with the backrest cushions at either end.

We lured Mouse into Miz Lizzie (less difficult than the first time), made sure we were both occupying the bunks to remove that option, and then encouraged him to jump onto this new doggy bed, now made comfy and familiar with his floor quilt and fleece blankie.  Once up, he did his usual spin in place, lay down and proceeded to snooze. Job done. Of course, being right beside him, it now falls to the Husband to provide the constant petting that will be demanded. If he neglects his strokies duty, he’ll get poked by a cold, wet, pointy nose. My bunk, on the other hand, is too far away for Nose Attack. Mwahahaha!

The trip ought to be a well-worn routine by now, but I can’t help feeling it’s going to be a totally new experience, thanks to our shiny black friend in the back seat.

Wish us luck!

Orange and black

No, I’m not planning a Halloween quilt. Bear with me.

First, the orange. I’ve been given a shopping bag full of beautiful cumquats (or kumquats, if you prefer). The neighbours have a tree full of these tiny orange jewels, and the smell of them is intoxicating. I’ve always loved cumquat marmalade, about the only marmalade I do love, and I’d like to make some. But oh, the labour of cutting up and de-pithing and -pipping these tiny things.

They really are very, very, very small. So my question is, does any-one have a recipe for cumquat marmalade that doesn’t involve picking all that stuff out? Can I just cut up the fruit, leave in the pips and skim them off at the end? I’ll do it ‘properly’ if I have to, but the idea of standing at the bench for what will probably be hours is not enticing.

And now for a bit of black. His Lordship the Mouse is settling in nicely. We have the routine established, and it involves me getting up sharpish at 6am to give him breakfast.

I’d sleep in if I could, but a cold wet nose in the ear is a marvellous alarm clock. After he’s engulfed his breakfast, I let him out to, um, commune with nature for a minute or two, after which he comes screeching back up the back yard at greyhound slow gallop, and then he goes back to bed (his bed) for another hour or so while I catch up with emails and the blog. At 7am, I shower, dress, make the Husband’s sandwich with ‘help’ from Mouse, and around 8am I get a call to say the Husband is 20 minutes away, so it’s time to clip on Mouse’s harness and lead, pocket some treats and the zapper for the garage door, and off we go. Mouse is now used to Big Girl the truck, so we hand over the sandwich when the Husband pulls up at the bottom of the hill, and then go for a walk so he can check out all the smells and disdainfully ignore all the dogs stuck in houses and yards who bark at him as we pass.

And then he spends most of the rest of the day sleeping. And yes, he does ‘roach’, or sleep with all his legs in the air…

Scinteallate #12: one row to go

I actually managed to get a row quilted.

Pretty respectable when you consider I’m still very short of breath and coughing constantly and we have a new family member to settle in. One row still to be quilted, and then I can proceed to assembly. I should be able to hit my mid-August deadline. In case you can’t tell or haven’t seen this one before, it’s my old favourite, freehand wavy line quilting, which gives a nice rippled vintage texture, is close enough to make the quilt very robust, and is dead quick and easy because there’s no marking. Win-win.

In the Life & Times of Mouse, the Husband took him to the local Council Pet Registration Open Day, a jolly event which is held on the lawns of the council building. Hundreds of people bring their pets old and new, and despite being a very new member of the family, Mouse behaved impeccably. Not a bark, not a whine, not a misplaced dump or glare at a cat. He is now a fully paid-up member of the community. He was then introduced to the ladies in my Days for Girls sewing group and was patted and petted by all and sundry, putting up with this stranger-mobbing with good grace and only a little shyness. His final trial for the day was being left in the car for 25 minutes while we shopped for groceries. We parked in the shade, it’s a cool day and the windows were open a crack. He had a toy if he wanted it, but he was calmly lying down when we got back, and submitted to being surrounded by shopping bags on the short journey home without even feeling the need to investigate them.

He’s been keeping me company in the sewing room, the Husband company in the shed and both of us company in the living room. He doesn’t snuffle, sigh or snore. Just, every so often there’s a little jingle from his collar as he changes position. I will say, though, that he has laser-sharp hearing for a packet rustling or the fridge opening, and arrives as if by teleportation. The Husband’s back at work tomorrow, so Mouse and I will integrate his lunch-sandwich delivery into a decent morning walk. I hope he’s not too scared of Big Girl the truck…

Hopefully I’ll get the remaining blocks finished tomorrow.