It’s a Blog ! Not a Log !

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

kennys party 071, originally uploaded by BagRat.

Kenny reached the grand old age of 50 last week along with Andy reaching the 40 mark, so they had a joint party to celebrate and used the oppurtunity to get everyone back togeather again.

It was good to see all the faces from the partys togeather again having a laugh and just generally getting on, party kicked off at of all places Stretford Cricket Club, then moved onto Lisa’s flat, where drinks flowed and people talked bollox (mainly due to what they’d had).

We left fairly early on in the morning 5:00am so maybe not so early, but the party carried on after we left, ending only when John, Ben and a few others decided to place most of Lisa food stuffs in the freezer . . . oh and after Ben had emptied a full bag of flour over the sleeping Lisa’s head (not nice Ben).

Gotta say Kenny was looking good for an old man and no doubt has many years left in him, all the best Kenny and Andy

Picture 095, originally uploaded by BagRat.

Did’nt really post to much over the weekend as I spent quite alot of it in bed, due to being called out to an alarm call at my workplace, was there from midnight Friday till 5:30am Saturday morning, so spent quite a while in bed recovering.

So seeing as most of Saturday was spent in bed thought we#d better do something on Sunday, was’nt sure what to do or where to go, but in the end we decided on Chelford Car boot.

Got there for about 12:30 and spent a good hour or so just wondering round looking for bargain’s but think we missed most of them, so just ended up buying lots of quaility cheeses instead, more about those in another post.

After leaving we thought we’d best take Blue for a walk and on the way back we chanced upon Styal Estate a rather good dog walking place, we’d heard about it before but never actually bothered to go look for it, really wish we had cause its definatly a dog friendly walk, lost of paths and fields for Blue to galavant in, I’ll stick some photo & videos up this weekend so you can see for yourselfs.

Anyway its close to 8:00am and I’d better start making my way to work, cyas laters
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2 Very Tired Passengers

Well actually got back Sunday night but just not been arsed to post about it . .

What happened then ? Well we arrived at Adam’s early Saturday morning, made ourselves welcome and just chilled for a couple of hours, the afternoon was spent wondering up and down the Thames near Hampton Court waiting for Blue to do her little bit before returning to the Braggs household where we were treated to Adam showing us his fine BBQ skills, these skills were greatly helped by the handy Butchers down the road which sold what I class as some of the finest sausages I’ve ever had, they also did a nice sideline in chive and onion cheese.

It was good to see Adam as not seen him in about 8-12 months I reckon, also got the opportunity to meet the latest edition to the household Francesca, gorgeous child, she’s definitely got Sam’s looks, it also gave Mel the chance to get acquitted with the kiddiwinks, seems Ava there eldest was hooked on Mel, spent most of the weekend latched onto her, which was kind of cute in a non broody way.

Other house guests for the weekend were Jenny, again someone I’d not seen in a long while, probably about 4yrs ago was the last time I saw her, she’s just returned from working in New Zealand and was crashing at there place until she found work/lodgings I’m guessing.

Anyway the evening was spent drinking and watching a movie or 2, then it was off to bed.

Sunday was another early start and we left Adam and co around 9:30am to make our way to Essex for the Cane Corso day, actually thought we’d get there fairly quickly, but due to that horrible road the M25 it took us about 2.5hrs to travel 100 odd miles, arriving about 1:00pm, the event started around about 1:30pm so we headed to the local pub for a few beers and some food, I went for the Plough-mans Bacon sarnie (Don’t ask), Mel decided she wasnt all that hungry.

Anyway after relaxing with a beer for about 1/2hr we headed to the event, it was held in an equestrian centre just outside Wix and when we got there it was fairly bustling with people and their Cane Corso, never have I seen so many dogs of one breed in one place at one time, it was a sight to behold, and the difference’s in sizes, colours and temperaments of all the gathered Corso’s was amazing, before this event we’d only ever met one other Cane Corso and that was a puppy called Koo in Cornwall and now we were faced with about 50+ of them, but even though I do say it myself Blue was indeed the prettiest princess on the block, she gotta few admiring glances I reckon from all the dogs there lol.

We entered Blue in a few of the competitions, but alas she didn’t walk away with any prizes this time, which was a shame as it would have made up for the 700 miles we must have put in over the weekend just to get there and back, but all in all it was a fun day, though Mel was a little put off it all due to another Cane Corso wanting to take a bite out of Blue, but that’s to be expected when you have over 50+ of these magnificent beasts in one place. So after bidding our farewells we set off home around about 3:30pm, eventually arriving home about 8:30pm, I got myself off to bed and Mel did the same a couple of hours later and that was the end of a very hectic driving weekend.

Picture 067, originally uploaded by BagRat.

Well this is all that remains of Bernie’s caravan and her daughters boyfriend Johnny’s car after somebody decided to torch it in the early hours of Sunday morning.

No idea who’s done it and the Police don’t appear to be all that interested in the situation, they’ve just told her that it’s her responsibility to have the remains removed as there a health hazard due to all the toxin’s that were released when the caravan was alight, so as well as losing the caravan, Bernie’s then got to find £150 to get the thing removed, don’t know what Johnny’s going to do with his car as yet, guessing his insurrance company will come and take that away at some point, the only good thing to come out of the whole incident is that thankfully no one was hurt.

Well after spending a lot of last night awake due to Blue making the most pitiful whining and mewing noises and rubbing her stomach to soothe her I think I’ve finally figured out what’s wrong with Blue !

Its one of 2 things, she’s either pregnant or she’s having a phantom pregnancy, at the moment its looking like a phantom one as she’s not been anywhere near any other dogs while she was in season, well I’m sure she hasn’t.

The symptoms she has that brought me to this conclusion are :

Lactating breasts
Treating her toys as if there puppies (carrying them where ever she goes, whining when she cant find them)
Loss of appetite
Nesting instincts

All of these point to possible pregnancy or phantom pregnancy, so either way we’ll know soon enough.

In the meantime here’s Blue showing her Nesting instinct, I kept on seeing her disappearing into a bush in the garden and went to investigate and this is what I found

Its been well over a month since I last updated the blog, mainly due to just being to busy really, but hey that�s no excuse, how will my adoring public feel if I don�t update ! �They�ll feel betrayed thats what�
So I�d better update you all on the past months events.
To start I suppose I�d better tell you how the Big Chill went, it went extremely well indeed, we arrive on Thursday afternoon to a wonderful sunny scence, the place we normally camp had already been grabbed by someone else so we had to camp a bit more downhill this year(still camped at the quiet camping area though), once we�d set up we headed over to the Fat Tuesday bar for a few beers and to meet up with the Vickeron who was there working in the Body and Soul area(that was the only drink we managed to have with Chris as we kept missing each other due to no mobiles working at all there (good thing/bad thing).�� We also met up with Marc Everette who was VJ�ing for Buzz Rockwell and Laura B, both very good artists, whose set was defiantely enhanced by Marc�s set, he ended up crashing at ours at about 5am Saturday morning, we finally stirred about 11am and just spent the day wondering the site and eating adn drinking, headed over to the comedy sent on Sat night and watched Marcus Broadbent (I think) anyway he was well funny and would recommend him to anyone, after we�d pissed ourselves laughing at him we headed over to the media tent to watch Leggo Beast (Carl Hogarth was playing keyboards-he�s a mate as well). Anyway don�t want to ramble on to much, but to say the least we had a very very good time and are already saving for next year, so see you there.Other things that have been/have happened:
1. We�ve been to a wedding
2. One of my computers blew up
3. I�ve seen all of Lost (Series 1)and am in the process d/ling Series 2
4. I had a tooth removed(Ohhh the pain)
5. I�m now the proud owner of a Apple Mac (G4 Powerbook)
6. I�ve visited me my mum.
7. I�ve been sailing on Lake Coniston.
8. I�ve eaten mussels with Marni & Paul.
9. I�ve admired Carls special edition Paul Newman Scalectrix car.
10. I�m in the process of converting some analogue movies to DVD�And thats about it really for the past couple of months, oh except soon you�ll see an Elgey Family tree on this site produced by a gentleman call Chris Glass from Ruislip, will let you know when it�s finally up and running.