The main reason you've all had a nice respite from my senseless yabbering is that in addition to my living quarters now being like hell's kitchen but more humid (and becoz this is obviously armageddon week but no one warned me) to add to my inconveniences - my blerdy laptop froze up. Thought it was the wireless mouse, tried another, then resorted to keyboard commands. Zilch. All back on now but lost details of almost a whole day's working (well hell nowt much else to do when imprisoned in my bedroom!) No matter - I can be quite quickly inventive when it comes to 'making up' details for a timesheet!

JOEDEEUK
You first! I am SO glad your mutt's OK. I really like your pragmatic attitude and approach to all this (it's obviously rubbed off on your dog as they seem to be taking it all in their stride) I need someone like you around when I go into 'headless chicken' mode! Big cuddles to your darling cyclops. That's both you and Eileen got one eyed dogs now - how lucky those mutts are to have such caring owners. I did chuckle when you told how he managed to remove the stitches with the collar on and all that! Smart dog!

LYNN
Erring on the side of caution gets my vote every time. It's just sod's law that things go wrong if you 'gamble' - I don't gamble at all. And debt - well I have a BIG morbid fear of debt. You are making the right decision for you right NOW (IMHO) - whatever transpires in the future.

JENNY.G
How stoic you are not mentioning your chronic sinus probs! I'm guessing you've had quite a lot of pain with that. Wise to avoid the 'germy people'. Here in Cyprus it is often commented that when someone gets a cold 'the whole village gets a cold'. Well, I'm not surprised with the mediterranean habit of everyone kissing everyone (twice - on both cheeks) every blerdy time they meet! I hate that custom and only last week in the Taverna at the farewell meal for Dan n Em I stood at the entrance when leaving and they were all rushing up and blurted out 'DON'T KISS ME! lol!' Don't even TRY to kiss me! Shake my hand or kiss my @rse but DON'T kiss me! I really don't like it. I hug and kiss my kids but ain't about to take up the custom of hugging and kissing all and sundry. Insane.

I too hope your son doesn't have whatever it was that I contracted in my week in the UK. It was when you mentioned the headaches I thought it might be the same. To be honest, I'd almost forgotten those as various other symptoms followed on! At the time I was too scared to take v. strong painkillers because of that awful reaction I had to the cocodamol a while back. I do hope he improves soon. Awful when you've just started a new job but what can he do? Wouldn't be right to turn up at work and give it to everyone else.

NIPPY
Exercise?
My idea of exercise - put the kettle on!

Breaking off to take the Ayatollah out before she deafens me. She usually just goes to the door but of course we are in the bedroom so she is doing the VOCAL version!

Oh heck Tang - don't you just hate it when computers throw a wobbly. You seem to have sorted it out without resorting to the tried and tested method of chucking the whole lot out of the window and buying a new one Monday is the day when mine hunts for germs and things in it's system, but for some reason it wasn't on for long enough to complete the searches this week, so it pleaded with me to do it again today - I have given in, because it knows best surely Trouble is it makes everything soooooooooooo slowwwwwwww.

Never fall into the trap of thinking these infernal machines 'know best' Bitkin! They are supposed to be our TOOLS. They have to do what we say and if they misbehave we have to kick them up the backside until they comply!

I phoned Martin! He did mutter something about having 'bigger' problems than my computer 'freezing up'. How on earth could he have a bigger problem than that? Silly boy!

Anyway he did convince me that there was NOTHING FOR IT if it was 'frozen' that it does happen and he could not even take it over remotely and to hold down the button 'til it died. I wailed 'wot about my timesheet?' Then got a lecture reminding me how many times he'd told me to keep stuff I needed 'online' amazon cloud, google docs, blah blah blah nag nag nag.

He is right of course. Just that I don't have to worry about 'important' data coz everything I do - whether on website or amazon is immediately uploaded to the web. I'm not even working on my own laptop while working - I am connected remotely to the one in the UK via a dedicated VPN. (It's just occurred to me I should save my notepad file of hours on there lol! And all XL files sent to me to work on are sent via googlemail so I can always access them again from any computer.

My laptop is just full of photos and other nonsense. Last time I had one die on me it was end of month (of course) and it was then only the Notepad file with my works hours details on it I was bothered about and paid to have it recovered rather than try to recall a whole month's work! Today would have been just a few hours detail lost. All sorted now but am more determined to get a new lappy - this one is now about 3yrs old. Running Win7. Business class and cost about 800 but weighs a whopping 5kg. I want a lighter, smaller one now. I will use this to hook up to the TV and be clever and watch stuff via my laptop! (My youngest son will be impressed with that - he is always nagging too)

Mutt ??? Pirate Prince Roodee is certainly not a mutt, no mutt would be so silly as to have the accident in the first place

Should have added that he managed to "knee cap"the gorgeous Pablo(spanish vet)on Tuesday !! Good job Pablo adores all dogs(well All animals TBH) he is very yummy LOL as can be seen on this link he's the vet on the left & the one in the middle is John

I am still puzzling over what on earth could be more dramatic than a computer freezing up

I have had to do that thing where you hold down the button until it all switches off, and it is ALWAYS when I have just written up a load of stuff and not saved it

This laptop is six years old now, and I am talking very nicely indeed to it - no booting it up the bottom, or shouting at it. No indeedy

*shows due reverence to Pirate Prince Roodee!

Lovely vets are worth cultivating and hanging on to.........Roodee take note, this does NOT mean with ones teeth. Nor does it mean head butting in any shape or form

So ... now to continue with the important stuff - my catching up on here. Muttley's been out to pee and is now outside chewing on a bone.

BEV
Hope you get SOME sleep between now and moving day!

EILEEN
Lucky you - living it up. Riverdance is a cert for a 'feel good' evening.

LUCKYSTAR
Your day out sounds like just my kind of day out - lovely.
I'm in with the 'out crowd' too and know just how to NOT have a jetset time!

TW
I have got lost in the techie detail of all the season and mating time stuff but I hope things pan out as you want them to.

BITKIN
Just to say - every time you mention your 'lord and master' you make me laugh!

One more thing for JOEDEE - I love that new title 'Pirate Prince'. Wonderful! Much better than my 'Cyclops' and apologies to your dog from me for saying that!

Ctrl+Alt+Del wouldn't work - nothing worked. It was suspended in time! You are falling into the trap of letting that laptop get you JUST WHERE IT WANTS YOU!

I really hate computers sometimes. I reckon I could reach the pool down below with mine if I slung it from the verandah outside my prison cell bedroom today! See if it's so clever it can SWIM!

I'm thinking that because Keshi is working herself up into a frenzy with regard to her first season, Mabs has decided to 'get hers in first' no doubt Lona will be in hot pursuit any day now. So I will more than likely have 3 girls in season, all ripping each others throats out, the hormones flying round are at boiling point, bones being collected and defended against all comers have been a staple for a few days now, it will no doubt escalate into outright war

Pat, do what they tell you NOT TO. Press the off button and count to 20 and it will switch itself off. You can then give it 5 minutes to realise it can't always have its own way, and when you switch back on it will be a lot more amenable.