NotSheep

This week has just disappeared, and once again, I can barely remember what we’ve been up to.

The only thing I remember about Wednesday is that George had Cubs, and that’s because it’s a weekly event On Thursday we had a meeting at the Scout Hall about the Scout/Cub Camp that’s coming up at the end of May - usually the Scouts and Cubs have separate camps, but this year there’s a county-wide event because it’s the centenary of Scouting. I took Cassie to the meeting with me, despite Scratchy’s reservations, and she behaved wonderfully. I’ve been doing a little training each day with both Cassie and Andie, but am working more on taking Cassie out at the minute, because some things are difficult or impossible to simultaneously teach two dogs with one person - walking properly on a leash, for example. Once Cassie is really great at it, I can hand her over to one of the boys and I can take Andie. C is doing very well, though she still gets distracted too easily. And do you want to know how gorgeous she is? She is so gorgeous that this afternoon when we were walking, someone pulled up in their car on the other side of the road to ask about her and tell us how gorgeous she is. They also asked if she was a viszla - a breed I’d heard of but am not familiar with - so I googled for images, and in fact she is very viszla-like. She has the same copper colour, but a shorter muzzle (comes from being part-boxer) and I suspect she will be both heavier and stockier than a viszla when she’s fully-grown. She’s nearly 20 pounds now, at 10.5 weeks, which suggests she’ll be the size of a large labrador or boxer when she’s adult.

Scratchy had basketball this afternoon and the trainer really made them work out on their warm-up; he’s suffering as a result. Personally, I don’t see the attraction of all that pain

Toby has been very communicative this week; he now has a handful of sounds which are close enough to the words he means for us to recognise, though he doesn’t use them consistently - he’s much too independent for that He does fantastic job of getting his meaning across with intonation and gestures though. He has the best sense of humour I’ve ever seen in a child of his age.

Should I be worried that my children are excited that the Eurovision Song Contest is on tonight? They’re not watching it though - at least, not live - because Freddy’s birthday party is tomorrow, and somehow I don’t think that being up until midnight is really what they need the night before that… but I suppose watching it tomorrow morning will keep Freddy out of the way long enough for me to wrap his birthday present