Sisyphus

…and now we are in our stride.  We are hot, it is true, but coping with the heat. Our frail bodies forgot how to cope over the winter, but now they start to remember.  We doze a bit more.  We go easy on ourselves.  We drink plenty of water, juice and tea.  On a health kick I have been trying to substitute my usual builder's tea (with lashings of milk and some honey) for green tea with mint taken with just a dash of honey.  I started including the honey for medicinal reasons actually as it is supposed to help counteract hayfever.  Looki is still confused by the new tea.  He loves his cup of PG Tips, though I wonder if he loves the milk and honey more.  He is not too keen on the new beverage.  I keep telling him that it is good for him, so he dutifully licks around the edge of the cup, but cannot get enthused about the pool of greenish liquid at the bottom.  So we leave the dregs in the cup.  Bless his heart.  He will always try something I am eating, a slice of apple, mango or pineapple, but those things are not to his taste so he spits them out.  He prefers cheese or ham.

Lovely Looki prefers cheese and ham

The garden is coming along well enough.  It is dusty and heavy work and can only be tackled early in the morning and late in the evening.  Even if the heat allowed me to work all day I could not.  I am not as weak as a kitten, but I’m not as strong as an ox either and my body gets more and more tired as the hours wear on.  So I have to be kind to myself.

The steps begin the ascent

I have a theory that if I can at least turn a rock over then I can get it to where I want it to be...given time, but nonetheless it is hard rolling large rocks up the flight of steps that I am building.  The rocks are under the house and the final, upper-level terracing rises above by about three metres.  I was in a bit of a Catch 22 situation really, as I could not get up and down the slope without steps, but now the steps are of course impeding my ability to roll the rocks up it.  Then you hit that wall, when you just cannot roll the rock up even one more inch, so you step back and look at it and go and do some weeding, in the shade.  Or take a nap.

If I can turn it over I can move it.  One rock climbs the stairs...slowly...sometimes painfully....

The only advantage is that after a stint of rock-rolling, carrying large buckets of rubble up the steps is sort of easy-peasy, especially as buckets have handles and rocks, notoriously, do not.  There is lots of rubble that has to go up, to backfill the terraces once the large retaining rocks are in place.  Every so often, through gritted teeth as I sweat and swear and strain I say "I wish I had a man!"  I very quickly add "just to move this rock, then he can have a cup of tea or even a beer and go away again." But it really would be most useful to have someone strong around just for lifting those big rocks for me, because sometimes I simply cannot do it and the big rock has to be nudged to somewhere else entirely and not to where I actually wanted it in the first place.

Rock-rolling is not without its dangers

I feel like Sisyphus, of Greek Myth.  He was a king of Corinth and for his sins against the Gods during his lifetime he was sentenced to futile hard labour in the afterlife.  Hard labour: he had to roll a huge boulder up to the top of a hill.  Futile labour: whence it would roll down again…and he had to go down to the bottom of the hill and roll it up all over again...for all eternity.  How many times have I, or Vic and I, done jobs of hard labour in the garden only for builders and workmen to trample over our work or push it all down to the bottom of the garden again.  And now I labour on alone.  This time though, I hope, no builder will come to undo my work. 

I had a literal Sisyphus moment the other day when I dragged a great lump of rock up to the top of the hill and then, just as I was dropping it into place, it decided to bounce and went over the edge and guess what?  I had to walk down the hill and carry it all the way up again and very carefully I slid it into place.

I am still waiting to get stronger and fitter…but just need to have a little nap first.

I think that the dogs too are starting to acclimatize and getting a bit more active again.  They have discovered a large rat in the garden.  I have seen him on three occasions now, so he must be getting braver.  There is lots of cover in the garden and no open land to catch him on, but the dogs, the girls to be precise, are staking him out and I think they will get him one day.  At first it was just Candy.  She is always the one who follows me down to the garden and has a good look around.  In the last couple of weeks she has become more vigilant, staking out two or three little spots.  While I am heaving stone around she lies flat on the ground with her nose in a hole.  All I hear are serious snorting noises and then she moves and sits looking intently into another hole.  This time she just stares and occasionally tilts her head to one side or the other, listening for her prey.

Candy often comes in looking like this

or this

or even this!

This morning Kerry spent a happy couple of hours doing the intense staring and hole snorting while Candy scurried around checking all the other holes or gaps in the walls…and there are plenty.  I think she was slightly nervous that Kerry had the best pitch so she was working double time to ensure that if anybody got the rat it would be her.  Still they seem to work in tandem.  They are a formidable team and if only Looki could take more of an interest, a formidable pack.

On the other hand, he does not get half the garden stuck in his moustache...every other day.  No matter though, it is lovely to see Kerry being more puppyish at times too and in addition to the rat staking she enjoys a good roll in anything be it sand, gravel or mud (or poo).  I think it must be very cooling, perhaps I should try it (though not the poo).

It must be very cooling

It fills me with great joy that the garden is getting so full of life now and not just the Westies.  We have sparrows and blackbirds a-plenty.  There is our rat and previously a snake, which I have not seen for ages, so perhaps he has moved on.  Personally I would prefer the snake to the rat, but I am not overly worried by rats either, having lived in a vermin-leaky farm house for many years.  We also have abundant swallows, some of which nest in the roof of the old ruined building.  Bats of course.  I see them at dusk flying sideways into tiny slits in the odd-shaped shed two doors down, that belongs to Antonio and Antonia.  There are beetles and woodlice and the other day I saw a great fat green caterpillar on my rue bush.  I was looking at the plant intently as it is looking a bit brown and was thinking of giving it a prune, but when I saw the caterpillar and a buddy of his having a snack I thought better of it and left it alone.  They will be swallowtail butterflies eventually.  The list goes on; locusts, black redstarts, starlings and pigeons to name a few.  And there are many more species that I do not know the name of.  The point I am making is that the garden was once pretty barren.  There was only tough grass, tougher weeds, rubble and rubbish there (including for a period of time, a stolen cigarette vending machine).  There was very little wildlife apart from a few wandering gypsies, but slowly the garden is coming to life on many different levels…and it fills me with an intense happiness and pride.

I love sharing my garden with a vast array of wildlife 

So perhaps it is not such a ‘sisyphustic’ trial after all.  Things are changing out there, slowly it is true, but steadily the garden is evolving into something more beautiful and more interesting and whatever else happens, I will not let that fall back down to the bottom of the hill.

I think that today we will give the last word to Candy!  Gotta love her!

Hot Dogs.

It's hot…. and bit by bit we are getting into summer mode.

Kerry gets into summer mode

First it began by leaving the bathroom window open at night.  Next the over-quilt on the bed was washed, folded neatly and stored in the wardrobe.  Then the duvet was packed away.  One by one the dogs began sleeping under the bed, under the chest of drawers or on the cool floor by the bed.  They only come onto the bed now for a goodnight cuddle, but quickly hop off and find somewhere cooler to sleep.  I have no complaints, I get to stretch out delightfully under my single sheet and drift off to the sound of gypsy guitars wafted in on a slightly cooler night-breeze.  Not that I ever get a full night's sleep during the summer months.  With the window open every bang or cat yowl sets the dogs off.  Kerry starts the barking first, followed by Candy doing her lunatic kangaroo hopping and finally Looki joins in with his deep booming bark.  A bark that is much too big for his little body.

Speaking of his body….

Just lately, and I think it may be the heat too, he has become noticeably more aggressive towards some male dogs.  Generally I have found him to be easy-going enough with all the dogs we meet on our walks, but have just noticed this slight change in his behaviour over the past two weeks.  So I did a bit of reading:  first of all I am making efforts to reestablish my place as pack leader, just in case he is getting a bit too big for his little Westie boots.  He has to sit and stay now more often, for example for food and when I go up the stairs.  He is very good really, so I don’t think that is the problem.  Perhaps there is a bitch in season somewhere, perhaps he is feeling sexually frustrated, perhaps he is too hot, perhaps he is just getting older and turning into a grumpy old man.  Whatever the reason, I finally googled "castration for the older dog" and have discovered that though it may only reduce his ardour and aggression it will certainly be beneficial for his testicular/prostate situation in later years.  So I spoke to one of our lovely vets and she thought it a good idea too, especially as he is now 9 years old and if I leave it too late there will of course be more risk involved in the actual operation. 

Looki looking less than aggressive -  cooling down on the tiles

So I took the plunge and he is booked in for his op on the 20^th of July.  I was nearly in tears when I left the vets.  Looki has not yet twigged and whenever I look into his lovely brown eyes this joke keeps running through my brain.

This is one of my all-time favourite jokes from that Master of the Far-Side, Gary Larson

And during the day the dogs are visibly hotter.  They pant a lot more and even though we go for our walk early in the morning when it is at its coolest, they drag on the way home and flop onto the cool tile floor the minute we step through the front gate.  Their water bowl has become their constant companion and they lie around a lot more during the day…. more than usual.  These dogs are not exactly Border Collies but I do expect a little bit of activity.

They lie around all over the place

When they venture into the garden they seem very relieved to come back inside again and they seek out the strangest (coolest) little corners of the house.  The couch and the cushions are largely ignored.  Looki's favourite spot is beneath the second couch on the bare tiles, all you can see is his nose and bristly moustache sticking out sometimes, though he does do a bit of fake snoring if he thinks he is being neglected.

This afternoon I was on the couch, which is always my personal favourite place of choice winter or summer, reading the paper and Kerry was under the fireplace, a very nice cool cave where they all take turns, Looki was under his couch and Candy was wedged between the floor cushion, the wall column, the back wall and the tv.  It must have been cool, but I did not think she looked that comfy.

under the fireplace

As well as being hot it is also very dusty and so I decided it was time to give them all a bath.  Well, it was Looki who started it all off as he had had a runny bottom and was a bit messy around his rear-end as well as being dusty.  I started the shower.  Usually they all come running to watch the crazy lady douse herself with water.  They all have their places in the bathroom too.  Looki on the bath mat, Candy under the sink on the dog towel and Kerry, always erring on the side of caution under the chest of drawers….er…..  just outside the bathroom door.  This day they must have sensed something and I had to drag Looki up the stairs and into the bathroom.  Candy followed us and I closed the door.

They all behave as if I am dragging them into an acid bath instead of nice, mildly warm water, where they will get their bodies soaked and then rubbed and stroked and generally taken care of.  They get their little furry bottoms washed and Looki even gets his balls rubbed.  Though the next time may well be the last time for that pleasure. 

So Looki stands there, trying to edge away the whole time.  I wet him thoroughly and he stands with his head hanging down with sufferance written in the downward tilt of his ears.  Dirt flows off him and then I reach for his own, specially medicated shampoo, as he is slightly prone to Westie skin.  I lather him up, clean his bum and rub his balls.  He stares at the drain hole looking as if he wishes it would suck him away from this terrible place.  It is only a five minute affair, I rinse him and then I put the shower-head down and I tell him to have a good shake.  He does not really need to be bidden.  Then it is frenetic rubbing along the bathmat and the towels I have lined up on the floor, plus I rub him dry from the top.  From there he is let out of the bathroom to rub at will, along the bedroom carpet, around the skirt of the bed, along the tiled floor, which must hurt and can't dry very much.  Then I close the bathroom door again just as Candy thinks she is going to make her escape. 

Same scenario for dog number two minus the balls and I'm exhausted.  Kerry is nowhere to be seen so I call it a day.  Besides my back is killing me.  I have never found a really comfortable position for washing dogs.  Which is probably why I don't do it as often as I should.  Though I sort of hold to the Geldof notion of natural oils, especially for dogs.  In fact, only for dogs.

It was two days later that I finally had an opening in my busy schedule; remember the gardening, home-improvements and legalisation of said home.  In addition I have also enrolled for the summer onto a language exchange programme.  It's very jolly actually and I am already getting to know a whole new swathe of people who inhabit these same few square miles as I do. 

But I digress, something I do regularly and with glee.

Two days later I finally got round to bathing Kerry.  It was high time as she has been even more prone to rolling in the yellow sand in the park than usual…it must be the heat.  So I had been walking two lovely sparkling white dogs and one bright yellow one.  She looked even more yellow because the other two were so clean.

I turned on the shower and organized towels and shampoo and then went on the hunt for Kerry.  She hid.  I managed to entice her upstairs eventually with a biscuit, but she craftily managed to get herself wedged under the bathroom shelves.  Not only was she wedged, but Candy, who one never thinks has any sort of feelings towards her sister as she is a rather self indulgent kind of creature, crept under the shelves with her and curled herself around Kerry so that I could not drag the two of them out.  She even put her little head over Kerry's back and looked at me as if to say "you're not pouring acid over my sister too".

I had to laugh of course, before I manfully told Candy to leave the room and then pretended I was not looking so that Kerry, thinking it was safe, crept out from her safe place too, only to be nabbed by me and  steered towards the water.  I managed to give her a lovely bath and could literally see the whole park streaming off her fur when I rinsed her.  Once washed she went through the whole drying ritual and then got her biscuit.

Mind you I don't really know why I bother as now they all have filthy, sticky moustaches again.  Really filthy!  I think they do it on purpose. They must wipe their little Westie faces in dark mud just to get that clean feel off them.  I wouldn't mind except for the fact that they all, given the chance, love to lick me full on the mouth!  I don’t give them opportunity very often, though Candy, who has the longest tongue you ever saw has got me right on the smacker once or twice. Mind you she usually has to pin me onto the couch first, something she is quite happy to do.

Fancy that, I got through a whole blog without mentioning that I finally managed to clear the back-log of shredding and produced 21 large buckets of mulch/compost.  Oh fancy that, I just managed to get it in after all.  Happy summer!

Lovely Looki, oblivious to his impending doom!