Wow, I can’t believe that here I am at the end of my leave and I haven’t put anything in my journal yet. I have, however, come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as “normal”, or at least, my conception of normal bears no relationship to what the real world regards as “normal”! I say this as I haven’t had what I would regard as a normal leave (again!).. but then, I can’t remember the last leave that I had that I did regarded as “normal”, therefore, “abnormal” IS normal… Am I making sense yet ❓ ❓ ❓ , no ❓ , didn’t think so ❗ 😆 Anyhoo, it’s now coming round to the last weekend of my leave. I’ve received my travel details for going back to the boat, and I’m now sitting here, late in the evening, with my glass of wine, having my usual “what the heck have I achieved this leave?” thoughts. The short answer would on the surface appear to be “not a great deal”, (well, there is actually a shorter version than that, but it’s best left out!) Dazzle keeps reminding me that I have helped her achieve things, in that my being here has allowed her to get on with things and stuff that she needed to do.. but, although I’m glad that I’ve been a help, it still rings a bit hollow on my own “personal goal” front. I have managed one or two (very) little jobs on the DIY list (In fact, most of them were all done on the same day!). I did another painting, which I made, as we would say, “a complete pig’s ear” of. I may be able to salvage it later, if not, I guess I can always over-paint it. I think it’s best to let it dry for the moment, then, next leave, see if I can re-work sections of it to try to make it a little more presentable (even to myself!) Considering how pleased I had been with my previous painting, this one brought me down to earth again with a considerable bump! To try to get back a bit of confidence, I’ve started a little painting tonight, which I hope to finish tomorrow, which (I’m hoping!) although should look very effective when it’s finished, should be fairly easy to accomplish. (here’s hoping, anyway!) We have started selling things on ebay. As we’re building up quite a collection of DVD’s and starting to replace a lot of our old videos with discs, we’ve been auctioning the old tapes off. I have to say that selling on ebay is even more fun than buying! (at least on our small scale! Sad, or what ❓ 🙄 ) Dazzle has been under the weather this last week or so, with what has turned out to be a rather nasty strain of food poisoning, so I have been trying to lend as much help and moral support as I can there. She hasn’t been the only invalid in the family (or house for that matter) as my mother has been ill with shingles. As I have had shingles twice before and probably have a susceptibility to it, we haven’t been out to visit the folks this leave just in case. Sassy, our blue-eyed dog, has managed to injure her right eye. Needless to say there was a bit of a panic in the house when we noticed the damage on Monday morning. The local vet was at a bit of a loss to explain or diagnose exactly what was wrong, but he knew of a specialist that visits the area on occasion. Investigation came up with the lucky coincidence that the specialist was actually in the area that day, and was able to fit us in as an emergency case. After freezing Sassy’s eye and applying a drop of dye, we could see the damage to the lens of her eye where she had obviously been in collision with something sharp. Some painkillers and eye-drops later and she was a much calmer puppy dog. The vets prognosis is good, in that Sassy’s eyesight should be un-affected, though he thinks that there is a chance that the iris, which has gone a milky white instead of it’s original blue, may not ever regain it’s original colour. He did also say that without the treatment she would probably have lost the sight of her eye, and possibly lost the eye itself. So, all in all, a great deal of drama in the last week or so.. Hopefully this last weekend will be a little less exciting!
