Author: e.v.

I like sleeping

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

Monty is being quite difficult at night now. It started last Sunday, i.e. when we changed the clocks. Probably changing the clocks upset his routine, which we didn’t really consider at the time. He was settling down in his pen in the living room at night, but now he seems very stressed at being left in the pen. So we tried letting him sleep out of the pen, and it’s a bit hit and miss. Sometimes he settles on the sofa, other times he seems restless and paces around a lot and goes behind the curtains and looks out of the window. I think he doesn’t really feel safe at night on his own, which is strange because he’s always been happy at night up til now and he’s happy to nap in there on his own during the day time.

Apparently adolescent dogs can go through something called a fear period where they just seem to suddenly get scared by things they never used to, so maybe that’s it. Some people say you should just put them in a crate/pen and let them cry it out, but it seems so mean and counter-productive. We tried that for about an hour and when we went down he was genuinely very stressed and took a few hours to calm down. It’s not that he’s being naughty, it’s that the little guy has his own needs and for whatever reason he’s actually upset! So over the past week we’ve had three nights between us of sleeping on the sofa with him. Which isn’t ideal.

So anyway… I think he’s going to be sleeping in my room soon. I just hope he can behave and not start chewing my bed sheets 🙄

This is the expression of a dog who can’t understand why you interrupted his tasty grass meal to try to get him to pose for a photo
Apparently sleeping in this position, on his back with his stomach exposed (kind of), means he’s happy and feels secure

Life and stuff

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

I don’t seem to have done very well with running lately. Actually that’s not entirely true. Two weeks ago I set a post-lockdown Parkrun PB, which I was pleased with (but still over a minute off my pre-lockdown PB!). But in general I feel slow and achy. My hip/groin has been bothering me for a while and last week I somehow strained both hamstrings a few days apart such that they really tightened up and made the back of my knees feel stiff. The groin issue has been getting quite painful at the weekends, with doing a fast Parkrun Saturday mornings and then about 18km on Sundays. The Sunday runs are generally a bit awful, my legs feel like they don’t want to move properly and I get achy in the front of my hips and groin by the end.

Last week I possibly made a breakthrough when I realised that the groin pain is actually groin pain rather than abdominal pain and it hurts when I stretch my adductors. My left adductor was in a real state and I could barely move my leg towards the right across the front of my body. So I keep stretching it and I keep doing cossack squats when I’m at my standing desk, and slowly but surely it hurts a little bit less to stretch. Will that translate to less running pain? We shall see, but I feel optimistic. Will it translate to becoming faster and being in better shape? Doubtful, but maybe.

My sister went to a Ukraine protest at the weekend. It seems kind of pointless to protest against Russia in the UK, but anyway, she did, because she was accompanying her Ukranian friend. The friend was born in and grew up in Kyiv and is very upset about it. I don’t really know what the right thing to do about it all is. People say that direct military intervention would trigger nuclear apocalypse but I think that’s a little bit hysterical. I imagine that a lot of western governments are very pleased that we are weakening the supposed superpower Russia and all we have to do is keep pushing weapons into Ukraine and they’ll sort it out for us, but is that ethical? It’s the Ukranian civilians who are really paying for it and they’d be in a much better position if there were western troops in there.

Every few days a news article pops up about how you can phone Russia or send them emails or text messages and explain to an average Russian citizen what’s going on, but I think that’s pointless at best. Imagine if you got phoned up by someone with a thick accent speaking broken English trying to convince you that he had special insight into your domestic politics. You’d say “errr” and hang up. I used to work with a Russian lady around the time that Russia invaded Ukraine the first time around in 2014 and despite living in the UK she was completely hyped up on Russian nationalism and propaganda. I’m not sure that average Russians are going to be as sympathetic to western messaging as you think…

The whole thing is desperately sad and horrifying.

Boba Fett and events

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I have started watching The Book Of Boba Fett…

I’ve seen the first two episodes, and… I like it! I’m not very critical of Star Wars media in general. Most Star Wars is entertaining without being very deep or complicated, because it’s aimed at children. Which is fine. I thought the sequels were nonsense (particularly the third one) but otherwise I like Star Wars. Boba Fett is kind of the same. It’s entertaining and not complicated. I like seeing how the Sand People live. It makes the universe feel a little bit more interesting.

The music is really good. I want to say it’s unique, but actually the main melody keeps making me think it’s going to break out into Pirates Of The Caribbean (He’s a Pirate), so I don’t think it’s quite as unique as maybe it should be. But the whole approach is very unique. The rhythm has a bit of a folky feel and the vocal harmonies are amazing. It’s a very original way to approach film/TV music.

In other news I think the whole Ukraine situation is really sad. I think it’s sad there hasn’t been a stronger response to this. I could write a lot about my perception of Russia because I used to work for a company that employed a lot of Russians in Russia, but maybe another time.

However I do remember that the proposal to remove Russia from the SWIFT banking system was floated back in 2014 when they invaded Ukraine (Crimea) the first time (I remember it, because my employer at the time was concerned that it would stop us paying our Russian employees!). Russia would have expected it to happen this time around and apparently deemed it an acceptable risk. And yet… despite Russia launching a full scale invasion of a European country, we haven’t even managed to hit them with the level of sanctions they anticipated. I think that’s pathetic, and should Russia find success in Ukraine they will feel emboldened to continue west by a toothless response from the Western European nations.

The Castle

~ e.v. ~ 1 Comment

I finished Man In The High Castle!

It’s quite a strange experience, because it was a bit unsatisfactory but also probably more believable than the alternatives. There were a lot of storylines at the start of S1 but by the end they were focused mainly on two characters who were both bad people, but they were very well written and humanised. They weren’t really bad people exactly, but they did bad things. For complex reasons, some of which were very understandable. I’m not sure it would have been satisfying to give them a redemption arc, because they did do some pretty terrible things.

I suppose it’s a window into the concept of the Banality Of Evil, which roughly says that evil in real life is generally committed by relatively normal people doing relatively normal things. I sometimes feel guilty that I’m not a vegan because the amount of animal products I consume means I am indirectly responsible for a lot of animal suffering, and I have no doubt that some of the details I’ve avoided knowing are horrific. Yet I’m just a normal person, as are the people who run the industrial processes required to support it all. But that’s a different post.

The whole program was a bit strange really. I really loved the alternate history setting and the politics, but the character drama especially in S1 was a bit low quality and out of place. Things improved a lot when they started fleshing out the Smith family.

I think I would recommend it with the caveat that the first episode (or was it the first two?) is very grim.

COVID and stuff

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I don’t really get the apparent push that COVID is alright now and we just need to go back to normal and it’ll be fine. My boss’s dad died of COVID this week. It’s strange to see the contrast between people saying that it’s harmless and someone one degree removed from me dying from it. It looks like the push to open up again is coming from Boris Johnson trying to placate backbenchers to distract away from the ongoing disaster that is himself.

And on the topic of Boris, then there’s the National Insurance increase. I’m kind of annoyed about this if I’m honest. I don’t feel that the quality of services we get in the UK for our level of tax burden is a good deal. The NHS in particular worries me a lot since COVID. When I last needed a GP appointment, I had to wait about 30-45 minutes on the phone to speak to a receptionist and then the best they could give me was a telephone appointment a month later. It’s not so much a big thing for me personally, but my parents are getting older and it worries me that they will be deterred from seeking medical services should they need it. But overall it’s just a horrible policy that takes money from people who don’t vote Conservative (i.e. working aged people) while shielding those who do (i.e. pensioners).

Anyway… It prompted me to do some sums. I pay into a personal pension and a workplace pension. The workplace pension is salary sacrifice, but the personal pension is a better fund with lower fees. Obviously I get income tax relief on both, but the workplace pension is salary sacrifice so I also pay less NI as my taxable income is lower. It turns out that if I took all the money I put each month into my personal pension and instead paid it through my workplace pension, I would pay quite a bit less NI after the increase than I do now. And I can transfer it every so often into the private pension where the fees are lower. I hadn’t ever thought about doing this before. So… thanks, Boris?

In other news, it’s been a strange few weeks as Monty hasn’t been very well. Not last week but the week before, he woke up from his nap Tuesday morning and threw up. He looked unwell for a couple of hours and then perked up and seemed fine, until Thursday evening when he started vomiting again and had diarrhoea. I always knew that having a dog would involve it sometimes, but ideally you want this kind of thing in the morning so you don’t end up wandering around the garden multiple times during the night while your dog empties himself at both ends. We took him to the vet Friday morning but by the afternoon he seemed quite happy again… until Monday evening when we pretty much had a repeat of Thursday night. But he’s been OK since then and seems back to his lively self, so hopefully he’s got rid of it! According to my mum there was a post on the local Facebook group about such a bug going around and a few people noted the on and off nature of it, so I think he just picked something up. He’s only six months old so I guess you have to expect this kind of thing until his immune system is a bit more experienced. Plus, this is a dog who enjoys splashing in his water bowl with his muddy paws before deciding he’s thirsty and starts to drink the now brown water. He’s not really big on hygiene.

Hopefully we’ll be OK from now on… I have been quite worried about him at times. We’ve only had him four months but it seems like an eternity now. It feels like you very quickly develop an unconditional love for him. Maybe it helps that he’s so cute 🤫

MONTY!

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Monty went to the groomer again today. He’s had a proper clip! He’s gone from being such a fluffy boy to looking just like his mum, the last time we saw her! I’m kind of sad he’s not as fluffy but it was nice to see him and think “wow, he looks just like his mum!”.

Before and after. He’s all velvety now.

I feel like he has regressed a bit recently though. Over Christmas we took him to the park every day and he was pretty much completely crazy every time we went. But after almost two weeks of that we managed to get him walking quite nicely on the lead (loose lead walking) about half of the time. Obviously, when he sees another dog or someone comes and makes a fuss of him it all goes wrong, but he’s walking a lot better most of the time in general.

But in terms of his behaviour around the house, he seems to have gone backwards a bit. He’s getting the zoomies a lot and nipping more than he used to. Some of it was definitely teething and it was obvious his mouth was hurting, but I think he’s finished with that now and he’s still quite nippy and zoomy. I can always tell when we’re about 3 seconds away from zoomies because he’ll just suddenly stare at your feet and move his head with them as you walk around. This is always a bad sign because it means he’s thinking “wow, those look fun to bite”. I think it’s his working dog instincts that makes him want to chase things that move and when he’s overexcited he can’t resist the urge. So once he’s focused on your feet, it means he’s a few seconds away from lunging at them, possibly biting them, then running away grunting, growling and/or barking as he does laps around the living room at full speed.

I suppose that progress isn’t linear and cockapoos are particularly excitable and energetic dogs, and he is still only 5 and a bit months old.

However, I ❤️ him lots.

Almost Christmas!

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Sadly this year we can’t really have much in the way of Christmas decoration because Monty would eat them, but it is almost Christmas and I’ll be really glad to get some time off work.

I was playing with Monty a few nights ago and he bit my finger. Well, he jumped to get a toy I was holding and caught the bit of skin right next to the nail with his tooth. It wasn’t an intentional bite but it hurt and started bleeding so I went upstairs to put a plaster on it. I was standing in front of the sink putting the plaster on when I started to feel light headed, and the next thing I knew I was waking up on the floor. I can’t believe a tiny little cut made me faint. It wasn’t even still bleeding by the time I’d rinsed it and got the plaster out! Anyway I’m taking a more zero tolerance approach to his jumping now. If I have a toy, he has to sit before he can have it. I started letting him play more roughly with a lot of tug and throwing/chasing his toys in the living room because it seemed like he needed it to burn off his energy but it only works if he doesn’t bite me!

He has discovered how to jump to get onto the furniture. It used to be that he’d go up to a chair and put his front paws on it while trying to push with his back legs and kind of pull himself onto it, which didn’t work at all. He’s now discovered that he can actually just jump straight up in one go, and now there’s no stopping him. We didn’t really want him on the furniture, but when you leave him alone for a minute and come back into the room to find him sitting in your chair looking like he owns the place, what can you do?

(We have to cut the ears off all of his toys eventually to stop him from swallowing them. Mrs Elephant looks a bit sad now but he still seems to like her. When he’s tired he just lays there holding her in his mouth)

Here’s a picture from the puppy meet. Monty is the fluffy boy in the top right with the red harness. His mum is in the bottom left with the red collar. Notice how they are the same size as their mum already! The other three black dogs are his littermates. The white dog is a westiepoo (westie x poodle) who belongs to one of the other owners, and the other dog is a Rottweiler puppy who belongs to the breeder.

He looks like a fully grown little dog now. Or a little bear, the way he pads around the house. His behaviour is still very inconsistent though. He is teething at the moment so that may account for some of the craziness. We had a day last week where he’d seemed a bit unsettled all day, and then in the evening one of his baby teeth fell out while he was chewing on a toy. He’s usually very good at settling down and sleeping through the night, but that night I had to sleep downstairs with him because he started crying every time we would leave him. He’s a funny little guy. I guess that his gums were hurting and he wanted the comfort of knowing his caregiver was near. I kind of liked waking up in the night and being able to see him.

Socialization

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Tomorrow is the puppy meet up so Monty can meet his brothers and his mum again. I didn’t really want to go but it’s good for his socialization (and probably mine too). I guess that’s being a dog parent. There will be his four brothers, his mum, the breeder’s new puppy (apparently she missed them after she gave them away and bought one of her own!) and one of his brothers’ owners has another dog too, which I think is a westie.

I don’t know what Monty will think to it all. Despite being completely crazy he’s actually quite shy with other dogs. He obviously wants to go up to them and play with them but when he gets close he often runs and hides behind my legs and takes a while to actually go up to them. Though we did meet a cavapoo puppy (very similar) around his age a week or two ago and he loved playing with him, so maybe it’s more that he’s shy with adult dogs.

Rare photo of Monty sitting still

Anyway the only negatives are that I have to miss parkrun and also that the park we’re meeting in is literally directly across the road from my old boss’s house. I hope we don’t see him 😕

Groom

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He went to the groomers yesterday, for the first time. I think he’s feeling cute.

He went in looking a bit shaggy, and he came out looking like a giant bundle of fluff. She’s trimmed the hair on his face but left the length the same on the top of his head, so combined with the blow dry he ended up looking very 80s for a while. She also trimmed the fur around his paws so he looks kind of like he’s trotting around on tip toes. It’s not exactly what I was expecting… But he does look cute!

I don’t think I ever posted an update on my standing desk. I’ve been trying to keep a routine in my work day, which starts off with a run and then shower and breakfast, then a few hours standing at my desk. I like to stand first thing because I’m trying not to let things seize up after running. Then I try to stand again for a while after lunch and for the last part of the day. The non standing periods are sitting in the living room with my laptop to keep an eye on Monty, sat at the desk, or lying on my bed with my laptop depending on how tired I am.

The main things I found are:

  1. It didn’t really help my hip at all, but I worked out that my hip feels a lot better if I stretch my hamstrings. If I feel that annoying ache in my hip then usually a few minutes of hamstring stretching sorts it out. This seems slightly bizarre since the hamstrings are at the back and the ache was at the front and almost into my stomach, but anyway, that’s how it is.
  2. Standing is really tiring! At least to start with, I was feeling a lot more tired and hungry.
  3. Standing makes your bowels more active 😳

Life updates

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I haven’t written here for too long. It’s the usual update – dog takes up all my time and energy, when he’s asleep I go to sleep too. Well, sometimes.

I’ve had the week off this week and have been spending a lot of time with him. He is amazing and I love him. He’s also a total pain who wants to run around and jump at me all the time, and my hands are covered in little scratches and tooth marks, but that’s OK and we’re working on it. He’s such a lovely little dog when he’s just padding around the house. He looks like a little bear.

He hasn’t enjoyed the fireworks. He’s OK with them when he’s inside, but getting him outside is difficult, which interferes with his toileting (as he’s very reluctant to go inside the house now – shouldn’t complain, but it’s not ideal for him to hold it). We’ve had fireworks every night for four nights in a row now, which I think is quite ridiculous and I really wish we could ban firework sales to individuals.

In other news… I have a stomach upset 🤔 Again! I think it might be spaghetti carbonara. I stopped eating spaghetti bolognese because the sauce is too much for my stomach (all the acid from the tomatoes, probably) and switched to carbonara thinking it would be better, but this is the second time I’ve had an upset stomach after eating it, so maybe not. It’s not as bad as last time, but I saw the signs and switched to an extremely boring chicken + rice diet (like my dog!) so that may have softened the blow.

So I’m back at work next week. Work annoyed me last week. My manager asked me to create some fake data in the system to display some charts for a demo. So I did. Then on Thursday morning the managing director called me into a meeting to complain that it wasn’t what he’d asked for. The problem was that he had created this data with no thought to how it would actually look when plugged into our charting system. What he actually wanted were completely different charts, but that is not what I was asked to do, nor was it realistic for the timeframe. He didn’t even tell my manager that he’d called me. I don’t deal with the managing director much, but when I do I always come away with a bad impression of him. So in some ways I’m not looking forward to work again tomorrow, but in other ways I feel like I have more important things (dog) in my life to worry about instead. It’s just a job.