Sleepypete's Pillow

Ah, but you should sleep well knowing that the silly size spaces to write in are all in the name of “fairness”. [cough].

Thanks for your comment(s) on my blog. The narrow minded attitude is starting to turn but anyone who thinks we are there yet is very much deluding themselves I’m afraid. Of course, when it comes down to individuals you cna meansure that from the truly enlightened right through to the pig ignorant bigot as on the TV program.

Good luck with the report writing.

I’ve noticed my posts being a little long … Plus it’s staff reporting season and we’ve got some rather strict limits on what we can put on the forms.

Silly limits too … We have a section where we can write about what we’ve done through the year. This section has about 4-5 inches of gap to write in but we’re only allowed 1350 characters. That’s not words – it’s characters, including spaces, full stops and carriage returns*. Even sillier is the section later on where we say whether we agree with what Da Management have to say. This one has about 2-3 inches of gap but we’re allowed around 1600 characters. This section is usually a robotic “I agree with Da Management” comment anyway.

I’ve managed to put in the evidence that I wanted to put in, mainly by writing one draft and savagely compressing it. It still looks readable … It’s important cos there’s enough cash riding on the reports to buy a telly or a computer. Not planning to do either in the near future but it’s good to have extra cash around, especially when it’s wrestled from the cold, undead hands of the people who control the money for the place I work for.

I’m getting close to that staff reporting limit now, so it’s time to turn back to listening to iTunes while having my Baldur’s Gate 2 party storm through a keep clearing out the squatters so I can take it over as my stronghold.

*(to show how much that spaces counting against the limit hurts, before I added this footnote, this post was 251 words, 1,112 characters with another 243 characters coming from spaces. Bring out the Big Long Words !)

Just watched Jumper … described by RCA as being “better than I expected”. Be warned – ignore this film, a story is supposed to have a beginning, a middle and an end. This does the middle but only has a rudimentory beginning and completely skips the ending part.

Nuff said about Jumper.

Still, having a meal beforehand with the Crazies and OutofTownCrazie RCA was well worth it 🙂

A lovely dedicated post.

Michele sent me.

I bet your greyhound takes a lot of keeping up with 🙂

Our pooch after Scruff was Charlie (the dog). He was a short haired golden retriever. Whereas Scruff would lope along and eat up the ground without much apparent effort, Charlie was a true athlete of a dog. I’m quick but he could blow me away for speed.

It’s a shame I don’t have any earlier pictures of Scruff, the two I have date from my university days when Scruff was getting old. We have one somewhere from Scruff combining two of his favourite things :

Being on a long walk
Going SPLAT! in a muddy puddle

If a dog could grin, that’s what Scruff would be doing after finding a puddle and turning around to look at us before going SPLAT :-).

Oh, he was just beautiful. I loved reading about him, and he was lucky to have found a safe home with you. We have a rescued racing greyhound, so there’s special place in my heart for rescued dogs.

Here via michele, I think for the first time!

This post is dedicated to Charlie the cat. My thoughts are with Linda.

It’s cold, I’m hungry
My knight approaches,
She rides a pale horse.
Maybe she has some food ?

She reaches her home and soon
An angel leaves some scraps
It’s not much I know and they don’t want it
But to me, it’s more precious than gold.
They won’t let me in, that’s ok.
I’ll lie down by the doors,
I’m not in the way.
My coat will keep me warm.

The doors open and I’m still here,
They beckon me in. Have I found a home ?
I’ll do my best, I promise.
It’s nice and warm in here,
And a small thing is hugging me.
(author’s note – the small thing is me, aged 6)

What have I done wrong ?
The Big Walking Man is shouting.
I’m in trouble I know,
Sorry about the puddle on the floor.
More hugs, I’m not in trouble.
It was the small thing after all.

It’s late, dark outside.
Master watches the News.
I watch his glass,
When empty it means WALKWALKWALKWALKWALK

Where are they going ?
The doors on the metal box are open,
They want me to get in.
Not having that again, metal box leads to No-Home and hunger.
BARK, tricked – other door shuts before I can get out.
Rattle, rattle, shake, shake, metal box stops.
Oooo, paths, room to run. Better keep up.
BARK – back to the metal box. Not so nasty now.
Rattle, rattle, shake, shake, metal box rolls again.
It’s later, I’m home again.
My bowl is full of food, Scruff happy now.

What’s this ? A ball of fluff.
It has claws. Ow ! Hiding Scruff.
I feel silly. I’m big, patchy thing is titchy.
Hur-hur, can’t get me. I’m under the settee.

My legs hurt now
My back too.
I can barely see
walk’s don’t excite me.
Master carries me to the metal box,
He helps me when my legs will not.

The pain is gone now,
It will never catch me
Cos now I’m chasin’ wabbits
When not walking on the clouds.
I remember my people,
And the love they gave me.
I owed them my life
And repaid by being their friend.

A little bit of background information. Scruff was an Irish Wolfhound, Red Setter cross who found us when we were living out in the country in Northern Ireland. We think he was abandoned and was lucky enough to come across my sister when she was riding her horse, Taffy. He was almost dead from starvation when he plonked himself down on our back doorstep. My mum gave him a few of our scraps, not expecting him to live out the night. He did though and was our devoted friend and companion for the next 15 years. He was a very scared dog for a while though, if my mum and dad shouted at me, my brother or my sister then he’d quite likely have an accident. It took a while before he learned that shouting might not be his fault.

Scruff was a very smart dog, he even learned to connect the sound of the weather bulletin after the news with “WalkTime!”, he also knew to not get too worked up until my dad’s pint glass was empty. He couldn’t quite contain his excitement though – he always started to bounce around when there was about an inch left in that glass. We had a terrible time getting him to be happy in a car, travel meant a lot of hugs and a little trickery was required. But he loved being able to run around some of the country parks that Ireland enjoys.

I called him Scruff because when he appeared, he resembled a big black shaggy mess of a dog. Scruff fit him absolutely perfectly. His most memorable characteristic was his big hairy paws, when he gave you one of those, you knew he was saying please.

I can’t remember whether it was Scruff who hid from Patch the cat or whether it was Tufty the Beagle who hid under the sofa … When we were moving back to England from Ireland, my dad lost Scruff while walking him at my grandparents house. Proof of how smart Scruff was came when Scruff managed to get home, despite us not being at that house long, successfully negotiating several busy roads.

We had to say goodbye to Scruff while I was still at university (10 years ago). While in Ireland, we believe he had a disagreement with a truck driving down the lanes, which led to lots of problems around his back end. Towards the end, his energy was gone and he gave a “Do I have to ?” look when someone said “Walk”. Walk originally being a forbidden word because one mention of it would have led to Scruff bouncing off the ceiling in excitement. The contrast between that and the “Do I have to?” look of pain was heartbreaking.

My family remembers him with love. We will never forget the devotion he gave in return for those first few scraps of food.

You can always rely on friends to pick you up when you’re struggling and I have some of the best 🙂

“The craziecourt like to have me around.”

Of course we do – you’re one of the mad, bad, sad bunch…..

cq

Right – that’s enough of feeling sorry for myself. Whenever I get feeling that I’ve been hard done by or I feel like a cripple, I always try and remind myself :

I have 2 arms, 2 legs, 10 toes, 8 fingers and 2 thumbs.
I’m not an invalid.
I can still run extremely fast (over short distances!)
I’m one of the smartest people I know.
I look younger than I should or deserve to.
I have the respect of my peers for my technical knowledge.
I can make people laugh.
The craziecourt like to have me around.

Life’s not so bad – and I can live with a few aches and pains.