A Foggy Autumn Day

Autumn is well and truly here. It is quite mild, on the temperature side, but there is a fog hanging over Milton Keynes this morning. Not particularly thick, but enough to mean we have to have the car lights on as we drive over to the Academy this morning. Carol has teacher training today. She tells me it is generally very boring. I can't believe that they can make training so miserable and boring. Well, perhaps, on second thoughts, I can, because I've had to endure some fairly boring days sitting in a room, usually with no natural light, listening to someone droning on ad nauseam about something or other.

Today it's hallowe'en. We don't indulge in this infatuation with witches, warlocks and things that go 'bump in the night.' I'm afraid it's just an excuse for commercial exploitation. When I was a child Guy Fawkes Night on November 5th was the 'big night.' Building bonfires and fireworks, baked potatoes 'In Their Jackets' and hot chocolate, Catherine Wheels, sparklers, rockets and so on. Hallow'een has been built up, no doubt by being imported mainly from America. Our dogs hate the noise and commotion outside the house. People letting of fireworks. So we'll have the the next two weeks or so of misery for the poor dogs. Every time there is a loud 'bang' outside as someone lets of a firework, he starts barking. Poppy, meanwhile, hides under the nearest piece of furniture.

Actually, poor Poppy is aging rapidly. She has really slowed down. Her eyesight is going very slowly.   Both dogs sleep on our bed at night. Alfie is no problem, as he can jump up easily and snuggles down beneath the duvet. But Poppy has a problem jumping up. We had put a stool at the side of the bed so she can jump up on that and then onto the bed. But, because her sight is failing, she never manages this. She spends the night laying on the floor, but doesn't always settle. She tip-taps around the room and just will not settle. If she needs to go outside she now has the rather annoying habit of coming round to my side of the bed and barking at me. It good that she does this, so I have to go downstairs and let her out through the sliding patio door from the kitchen into the garden. But this happens several times in the night. She goes downstairs, very gingerly and slowly. She sometimes stops half way down and needs encouraging. Once she's been out in the garden she comes back inside the house and I slide the door closed. Last night, at about 10.30, she insisted on being let out. She came round and barked at me. I was nodding off. We had the radio on, as we usually do. BBC Radio 4 Extra, which is a digital channel. I was reluctant to take her down and was half asleep. I'm afraid I wasn't in the best of moods. Poppy managed to get down the stairs and eventually I let her out through the sliding patio doors from the kitchen. She did what she had to, but she found something which took her attention away from going back into the house. I had to get a closer look. It was a hedgehog, rolled up into an extremely tight ball. I think we have hedgehogs as regular visitors and some while ago both dogs were fascinated by them. The poor thing did the natural thing to protect itself by rolling into the defensive ball as all hedgehogs do. But it wasn't budging and I was eager to get Poppy back into the house as I was, by now, really tired and barely able to stand up. Poppy refused to respond to my insisitance that she come back into the house. I had to find a method to get her inside, so I rUshed back into the kitchen and took the garden broom which leans agains the fridge and used it to coerce the stubborn dog back inside. It worked. She had no alternative, being pushed along by a broom. Somewhat unconventional as a form of dog-management, but it worked a treat!

Later

As I mentioned in the blog post about our trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon last Saturday for my birthday, where I described how, when we got to the park-and-ride and I wanted to use my bus pass and then discovered that it had expired- on the same day- and we had to pay for my bus ride instead of having to not pay, I went to Milton Keynes Civic Centre yesterday (Monday) to get it renewed. I was attempting to avoid having to return with any form of identity they were likely to ask me for (which seems a commonplace demand from most businesses nowadays.) so I had a bank statement and several other items with my name and address on it. On arriving at the Council office I had to queue for a while but soon reached someone on the reception desk. I was given a form to fill in (which I completed sitting at a table to one side in the reception area.) and when it was completed I was given a numbered slip and told to wait. I sat in the main waiting area (where you have to go if you have to apply for any sort of benefit, be it housing, rent etc.) You have to then wait until your number comes up on a digital screen (another piece of technology common with so many places nowadays, whether it's the Post Office, Job Centre or even Argos, the catalogue shopping service.) It was frankly quite complicated, because my number came up on the screen and then got confusing as I wasn't sure when I was expected to go to whichever numbered desk it was and, indeed, where. The number kept appearing and disappearing, but eventually I got called. My concern would be, it's all very well and good having this system, and it makes it fair, but what if someone had a sight problem and couldn't see their number appear on the screen? Does someone come and tell you? Does it speak? Who knows. Anyway, I eventually went to Desk Number 22 and it was all very efficient. I could have a new photo on my bus card, and I had some which I had kept from another card (I think it was probably for my Driving Licence, which has to have a photograph on it, and had to be renewed a few months ago at the Post Office.) but, if I wanted to have a new photograph on the new card I would have to pay £10 for the privilge.  I decided that it was unnecessary as the one already on the old card was sufficient. I don't think I have changed enough in the time since that one was taken to warrant a replacement. The lady had to have some sort of identity (odd, when my picture on the original card was presumably in front of her on the computer screen.) so I used my Driving Licence, which she took away to have photocopied, and the form I had filled in was handed over and signed and that was that done. The new card should be with me within a week or so.

Hedgehogs and Dogs

Our dogs keep running in in and out of the garden through the patio doors. When it's really cold they go out to do what they have to do (do I have to describe everything? Use your imagination) and generally shoot back in when they've finished. I have a plastic box with doggy treats in, and if I shake it they know that if they come in they'll both get a treat. Poppy can do her standing-on-her- backlegs and-begging trick, looking very cute and so on and so forth. Alfie is a little more crafty and doesn't do tricks to get a treat. Last evening Poppy went out and in the long grass near the shed there was a sort of scuffling. She had found a hedgehog which had wandered into the garden. She was growling at it and tried to pick it up, but hedgehogs won't be beaten by anything and it did the old rolling into  ball trick and I had to get her away from the poor thing and a good deal of shouting at her got her to leave it alone. She came in the house and I went back about five minutes later and the hedgehog had gone, no doubt vanished through one of the holes in the fence and presumably found a safe and warm place to sleep underneath the trees that line the Medway behind the house or one of our neighbours' gardens. I think Poppy got a face full of hedgehog prickles as a result. But I really didn't want her to hurt the poor thing which was only trying to find somewhere to sleep the night.

Lucky Squirrel

This is a few days late, but I forgot all about it until today. We were on the way to church on Sunday. We usually drive to the carpark near Milton Keynes college and walk the rest of the way along the Redway or take one of the Plus Buses which are specially laid on to take people. We decided to go via Chaffron Way and park in the M.K.C.C. car park because when we started the car it was being somewhat stubborn starting. Actually, since it's been MoT'd and had work done on it, it makes very little sound when it's being started hence Carol not being able to hear it running, and then over-starting it and it not starting, if that makes any sort of sense. Anyway, as we drove along Chaffron Way near the college, a squirrel ran out into the road from the verge. Carol saw it in time and slowed down, but the stupid creature seemed to do a sort of double-take in the middle of the road, seemed to reverse it's direction of travel and ran under the car, and ran out and back onto the verge, without coming to any harm. Carol squealed, as she didn't want to run it over. But it was a lucky escape for the crazy little thing. We have a running gag about pheasants because we see so many of the stupid birds when we're driving around, most of them looking totally stupid, with no road sense whatsoever, ambling along on the side of the road, generally looking stunned as the traffic roars by, and when they do actually attempt to cross the road, it's so you have to slow down in the car, they seem to stare at you as if they expect you, the driver, to stop just to let them amble across. Then, generally on some winding, open country lane, you see a dead pheasant laying on the side of the road, one bird which hasn't been taught the dangers on the modern highway, how cars a fast and dangerous and it's been squished by a large heavy goods vehicle or some high-speed speed freak who doesn't slow down for the wildlife. As for rabbits, you see quite a few of them hopping around on the side of the road or in the long grass of the verges along the grid roads around Milton Keynes. They do have a habit of running into the path of your vehicle as you run along and when they see you coming, probably at night when you have to use your headlights, they do the old 'staring at the headlights and freezing' when they see you coming, a rather perilous form of self-defence, and as a result being run over and killed. The same way that hedgehogs roll up into a spiky ball when they sense danger and most likely in the middle of the road and also being run over by passing traffic.