It’s a Blog ! Not a Log !

Well we got the Princess home yesterday and spent last night getting her settled back in, though we’ve still not been able to entice her into the crate, even tried everything delightful morsel of food she likes but to no avail, this resulted in me spending a night on the living room floor with her sleeping, well I say sleeping, more like dozing for an hour and then being woken by her whining and then 1hr of rubbing/stroking her back/belly/side/ears until she fell asleep, then I could go to sleep, think I managed about 3 hrs sleep in total.

This will be repeated no doubt tonight and until we can persuade her to get into her crate as we cant leave her by her self with all the sofas around for her to try and climb onto, so wish us luck.

I’ve attached a few photos below of the Princess and I’m seriously considering painting sunflowers petals onto her Buster collar.

Just to update you all Blue was dropped off this morning at 8:00am at NorthWest Surgeons and had her surgery around lunch time, she came round shortly afterwards.

The TPLO surgery seems to have gone well, though there was an issue with a fused tibula (or fibula, always confuse the 2), due to arthritis the tibula was fused to the bone they were cutting and turning, this has resulted in them using a larger plate on Blue’s leg, the post-operative x-ray also showed a very small fracture in the tibula which was caused when they turned the cut section of bone, so she’ll need extra special care during her recovery period.

The vet informed us that the cruciate ligament was just literally hanging together by a thread, he also believes due to the amount of liquid on Blues other knee, that she will most likely need the same treatment done on that one sometime in the near future (we’re starting saving now), we’re going to enquire about hydrotherapy treatment with him tomorrow as well as alot of people we’ve spoke to via twitter, Facebook and a few veterinary folk we know have said that this can be beneficial in the recovery and strengthening of the remaining muscle and bone.

All being well we will be picking her up sometime tomorrow afternoon, presently were covering all the laminate flooring with carpets and getting her crate nice and comfy/homely, also been across to Yorkshire to pick my mum up, who has kindly voluntered to stay with us the first week so someone can keep an eye on her while we are at work.

Will post more tomorrow after we’ve seen the vet

at BMTEC this morning, informed them that the nice AA man said it was porbably the Crankshaft Sensor that had gone haywire.

After telling Andy this and describing what had been happening to the car i.e. drive for about 20 mins and then the engine cuts out, try to restart and it turns over, but the engine does’nt fire, wait 30 mins before trying again and it starts, he agreed that it was most likely the sensor.

So after leaving it and waiting most of the morning, he rang back and informed me that upon inspection it was the sensor and then telling me they had none spare in stock, I’ve had to leave it with them overnight and they’ll start on it when the part arrives tomorrow, feel quite naked without my car…..

The guestimate for the repairs are about £180, £30-40 for the sensor and then about £110 for 2 hrs labour, which is pretty cheap compared to if I’d taken it to a BMW Garage, if it had’nt been for a taxi driver telling me about BMTEC, i’d probably never have heard of them, thank you Mr Taxi driver

Yep if it is’nt one thing its another, on the way to work today my engine cut out on me, luckily I had enough speed built up to allow me to cruise to the curb, where I attempted to start the engine again, but alas nothing happend the starter motor turned, but the engine just would’nt fire up, something similar happened on Friday, which I’d put down to the engine being flooded, but with it happening a 2nd time, thought it best to give the AA a call.

After waiting about 20 mins the nice man from the AA turned up and got me to try and start the car again and yep it started first time, so after feeling like a complete tit for a few minutes I enquired if he had any idea’s, which thankfully he did, but before divulging his knowledge he attached a handy little wireless device to my car’s computer and ran a system diagnostics on his laptop.   After running a couple of tests and finding no faults he consulted what I can only call his online encyclopedia of car makes and their faults to confirm what he thought was the problem . .  I waited with baited breath while he gave his answer . . .

Its your crankshaft sensor he explained, apparently this is common amongst BMW’s as well as a few other car makes, so after following me to work to make sure that I got there safely he got me to fill in his paper work and suggested I contact my local BMW garage, which I have done and they’ve got me booked in for next Monday morning, when they’ll hopefully be able to fix it for me, though at a cost of course, at the moment its looking like £85 for the sensor and then 2 hrs labour at a cost of £55 an hr, so £200 of my wages are taken already . . .  just what I need when I have a vets bills amongst other things to pay for, not what I needed this month to be honest.

Am now sat here wondering what the 3rd thing this month to go wrong will be, cause as you know these things never happen in two’s . .

Those of you who read my blog will no doubt have come across posts about our Cane Corso (Italian Mastiff) Blue, well I’m sad to say Blue’s been a little bit under the weather these past few weeks due to damage to her cruciate ligament in one of her hind legs.

She developed some lameness in her leg in May which was prescribed anti-inflammatories for and this seemed to do the trick, however at the end of June, beginning of July her symptoms came back, so after 2 visits to the vets and a set of x-rays we were told that she’d most likely torn her cruciate ligament and were referred to a Consultant Vet at North West Surgeons nr Frodsham.

So along came the appointed consultation where we were told that from what could be seen from the x-rays it appears that Blues ligament has indeed been torn, this was apparently obvious from the x-rays (not a vet myself, so have had to take his word for it), the next step we’ve been told is surgery and at present Blue is booked in to have the operation on the 13th August 2010.

We’ve been told the operation has a 96% success rate, but this all depends on how her recovery is managed, so for the first 6 weeks, Blue will be crated confined and only allowed out for her constitutionals and that’s it, then after the 6 weeks its a case of very slow, gentle exercise, which will gradually build up to a manageable 20 minute walk, and then over time hopefully build up to longer walks and fingers crossed semi-normality.

I can honestly say I am very nervous about Blue going under anethisia, as thats probably the most dangerous part of the whole operation, don’t know what we’d do if anything every happened to Blue, so fingers crossed, wood touched everything will go smoothly.

Will endeavour to keep you all updated on how our little Princess is getting on

you discover one of you ancestors was a former Ukrainian Vodka Distillary owner….

Well if your Dan Edelstyn, you get the next flight to the Ukraine to learn more about how his great-grandfather’s vodka distillery seized during the  Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, you hunt down the village that is home to this long lost distillery and along the way film the adventure.

But suppose that’s not enough, suppose you find that the distillery is still there but on the verge of closing, thus rendering a large chunk of the villages populace out of work, most people might just get on the next flight home with there curiosity about their family history satisfied, but then again those people aren’t Dan, who decides that maybe just maybe he can turn around the fortune of the village and the family’s former distillery, so how does he do this, he decides to start producing Vodka again, a vodka that resonates with  history Zorokovich 1917 Vodka . . . and so the adventure begins . .

First Dan has to find companies that are willing to believe like he does that there is a market out there for a new vodka, one of the earliest to take an interest is Babelgumwhich has helped finance the film he’s making about the distillery and is hosting it on there website, he also meets with one of the biggest Ad Agency’s Saatchi and Saatchi to discuss ways to market this new Vodka . .

Dan’s also set up a Vodka club, whereby members invest £50, which helps pay towards the filming costs, this little donation also gets you a credit on the eventual theatrical release of the film he’s making of his adventures, but not only that you also get  a pair of tickets to one of the premiers, and an actual bottle of  vodka from the distillery. . .  might have to see about investing myself come payday

But instead of me telling you how he’s progressing in his adventure why not follow him yourself on Babelgum, to start you off I’ve posted the first part of his adventure

If you enjoyed this episode of his adventure more can be found here http://www.babelgum.com/vodkaempire , a new one is posted every couple of day’s so keep checking back to see how Dan and his Vodka’s getting one, eventually the whole series of episode will be combined as a documentary that will be appearing on More4 later this year, so this is a chance to see the whole thing as its being made.

You can also follow Dan’s adventures via his blog My Vodka Empire & also his Twitter account danedelstyn.

I’ve managed to acquire some of the early samples of this family vodka and I can say its not a bad little number, though I’d recommend chilling it first as this seems to enhance the overall feeling you get from drinking it, which is a smooth sweet taste with a slight burn to the back of the throat, which you’d expect from a vodka, all in all its a very smooth drink and I’ll be watching out for it when it hits the shelves.

Was in my opinion the shittest Giant Bradley Day I’ve been to . . .

This year they decided to hold it on the football field and charge everyone £1 to get in, so why was it shit ?, well apart from the 4 food stands, 1 beer tent (not even being run by a Market Weighton Pub), 6-7 tombola stands, a small funfair, the live music and Punch & Judy there was fcuk all else to keep you interested for the 5 – 10 minutes it took you to walk round the field, though we did hear that the birds of prey would be on again this year, but as I say after 5-10 minutes you’d seen everything, so you could either go away and come back later on just sit around twiddling your thumbs until the time came for them to come on.

There was’nt even a Fun Day Dog Show this year, which was a big disappointment for us and a few other dog owners . . .

I think we stayed for about 20 minutes which was more than enough time to see the “Sights” and then we drove back to Manchester, what a wasted journey that was, just thankful my mum still lives in Market Weighton, so at least the 160 mile round trip was’nt a total waste of petrol.

Why they ever decided to take the celebrations off the High St I’ll never know, but if they want it to be a success they really need to be doing a bit more to make the new site of the event a little bit more than a Tombola meet or bring it back to the High St

We won’t be going next year

Only a couple more hours left of our holiday in Whitby, wishing we were here for another week to be honest, its been a good time at Squirrel Acres Cottage, had enjoyable evenings just sat on the sun terrace/veranda listening to the sounds of the wood and its many inhabitants, I’ve even shared my breakfast with a few of them.

I think I can say me, Mel and Blue have enjoyed the cottage more than the days out, its been so relaxing here, definatly helped recharge our batteries and destress from work, I’ll take home some nice memories, even the ones that involve being awoken every morning by the dawn chorus at 4:30-5:30am.

We spent our last full day here exploring the coast to the North of Whitby and found a very dog friendly beach at Sandsend and an even dog friendly pub the Hart Inn, which by the way serves the nicest piece of Gammon I’ve had the pleasure to consume in a very very long time, well presented as well.

After Sandsend we spent the last few hours of yesterday wondering round the shops of Whitby once more to see if we could pick up any last minute bargains, which I’m happy to say I did, and once again they were all from the local charity shops, I managed to get hold of a few graphic novels, some DVD’s and a couple more computer games, all of which were priced between £1.99 to £2.50.  In total I’ve come back from my hols with 3 graphic novels, 2 DVD’s and 6 computer games and I’ve spent a sum total of about £12, whicch aint bad considering most of these games were originally £20 odd pounds each, and they are’nt even that old, maybe a year and half at the most.

Think my mum has the right idea about charity shop bargains and I will now be sure to check them out more often

Anyway where do we go from here, well were heading to my mums in Market Weighton for Sunday’s Giant Bradley day celebrations, where we’ll be entering Blue in the Fun Dog Show and hoping that she gets another top 3 place like she has for the past 2 years, then on Sunday night we’ll probably head back across to Manchester for one last day of chilling and then alas on Tuesday its back to work, but less thinking of that and more thinking about booking this place again next summerb

P1060571, originally uploaded by BagRat.

Well were now into the 4th day of our holiday and we’ve managed to cram in visits to :

Whitby Abbey, which was a pleasant couple of hours spent walking round the remains of what at one time must have been a very imposing structure (still is I suppose) for such a small coastal town of the times, the views from the hill its built on give you some very good panoramic views over Whitby and the surrounding area.

Filey which once you’ve seen it you’ve seen it

Goathland, again a pleasant little village which seems to be making a living off the back of Heartbeat, just about every shop there is a gift shop, which is a shame, as I’m sure it would be nicer/quainter if it actually had some proper shops.

Becks Hole, home of what must be Britains smallest Pub, The Birch Hall Inn, nice place to stop off in for a beer and one of their hearty sandwichs and home made Pork Pies, dogs are welcome as well.

Grosmont, the place where the steam engine line starts and home of the steam engine workshops, you can go for a ride on one of the locally restored Steam Engines and experience a time gone by, theres also a nice little pub there just by the railway crossings that serves a very nice Beer battered Cod and Chips.

Pickering, which is a quaint little Market Town and also the end of the line for Grosmonts Steam Railway, theres a rather nice little bakery there that does lots of home made sweet and savoury pies.
The day we went there was a flea market on which had quite a few nice antique stalls for those who like that sort of thing, you’ve also got the remains of Pickering Castle, which sadly we did’nt get to explore as it not open on a Monday or Tuesday.

Probably going to have a drive to Scarborough today as it looks like its gonna be a sunny day indeed . .

P1060619, originally uploaded by BagRat.

One of the real nice things about the cottage we are staying at in Ruswarp is the birdfeeder attached to the Sun Terrace outside our veranda doors, every morning we’ve been here we’ve sat outside to have breakfast and without fail every morning we’ve been joined for breakfast by various woodland birds, along with the odd squirrel or two.

Its so quiet and peaceful here, a really great place to recharge our batteries, Blue likes it to as theres a nice little woodland path nearby which we explore every morning with her.

While we’ve been here we’ve managed to visit Goathland, home of the 60′s themed Heartbeat TV show, Filey and Whitby itself, where we wondered up to the old Abbey above the town, you find photos of our journeys on my flickr page, the link to which is listed on this blog.

Today where heading to a place called the Birch Hall Inn, a little pub that a twitter friend @shiveringgoat recommended to us, looks a rather quaint place and is apparently very dog friendly, will report back later on how it held up to his recommendations.