bunn

 We have had a bizarre leak in our house,  which sent water trickling down both sides of the kitchen window & through the wall.  It started last night, and we could not work out where it was coming from. First we thought it was rainwater coming in through the roof, then we thought it might be the loo, then the radiator, then the loo again: plumber was just about to start taking the floor up & knocking holes in the wall - when he finally worked out that it was being caused by a knackered old washer on the tap in the basin which had been standing innocently to one side pretending not to be involved.

"I feel like Columbo sometimes in this job' he told me, with enormous satisfaction.

Why do plumbers always SHOW you the knackered washer? Is one supposed to go round checking them every week or something?  What are you supposed to say?  (I always nod sagely but I have no idea if there is an expected response...)

According to QI just now, the nostril you breathe through affects how your brain works.   A couple of years ago, I filled in a bunch of quizzes that all told me I was rightbrainified and this mystified me a bit. 

Finally, I have an explanation!  I have a small nasal polyp (Fred the Polyp) living in my left nostril, where he obstructs the breeze.  Clearly the quizzes have detected that the right hand side of my head is better ventilated! 

Saffy collie has a new home lined up.  She's here for one more week, then she's moving down the river to a new home in the middle of the woods.  Having her here has been a lot of fun, (Sooo much walking!  soooooo much!) but has confirmed my view that three dogs is Just Too Many, at least with  6 cats as well, and particularly when one of them is a needy walk-obsessed collie! Though to be fair, as collies go, Saffy is fairly laid back and relaxed in the house.

Very pleased with how well Mollydog has coped with extra-long collie walks.  That previcox she is on for her bad leg is good stuff!   Pix of yesterday's (two hour) walk are here: http://pix.clareassoc.co.uk/pix/thumbnails.php?album=22

Still no news of my car: I've rung a few times and get the impression they haven't even looked at the damn thing yet. I think this may be a consequence of all the major insurance companies only having about 3 'registered garages' in the region, plus an unexpectedly busy Easter weekend. Irritating: if they'd let me go to my local specialist garage I'd probably have it back by now. I'd definitely at least know what it was going to cost!

I'm regretting not using better compost for my pepper and aubergine seedlings. Even with plenty of liquid seaweed feed, they are growing far too slowly.

Bought some more solar lights for the garden.  I find the most reliable sort seem to be the ones that are designed to float on ponds, so are completely sealed: otherwise the water gets in after a while and they stop working.   They have a loop on the top so you can stick a bit of garden wire through and hang them on trees.

We have started the cats on 'senior' cat food.  Of course, the Bungles are not 'senior' (though I was surprised to discover that the vet considered the Hairy Bears at 8-9 to fall into that category) but Perl and Footie are (I can't remember their exact ages without looking them up.  This makes me feel guilty!).  Anyway, we have one bag of each, and are supplying one bowl of each.  I was expecting them to eat the normal stuff and ignore the 'senior', which has fewer calories, but in fact the reverse has been the case: the 'senior' has been scrobbled up with great enthusiasm.  Cats are odd.

Things are still quiet, so:  http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

On Monday, my personality was that of an ENTJ Fieldmarshal with the stats introverted: 1, intuitive: 50, feeling: 1, judgement: 1 (who hires a Fieldmarshal with judgement 1? Shades of Haig...)

Today I am an INFJ Counselor with 11, 75, 25, 22

As my Judgement is better today, does that mean this is more accurate? Maybe not:

Apparently, I " have an exceptionally strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others, and find great personal fulfillment interacting with people,"

I am particularly offended by "Not that Counselors are flighty or scattered" as I like to pride myself on my flighty scatteredness.

In the mist hanging over the thick conifer forest opposite my window at the moment, I can quite clearly see a very large, scary looking face. It has big heavy features and a grumpy expression. If I look straight at it, it vanishes, but I can see it looking at me very clearly out of the corner of my eye over the top of my screen as I type this.

And this morning I took the dog to a place where we go probably about 3 times a week, and I swear that there were twice as many little paths through the gorse as usual, and I kept feeling as though a door was just open behind me, which is a very odd sensation to have in the open air, I can tell you. I am tempted to go back next week in sunlight and make a map: those paths *must* have been there all along. Surely. I went along one of them, and it just stopped. Half way through a gorse bush. No more path. And I'm really not going to write down the stuff that came into my head at that point, because it would sound like fiction, and as fiction it would have been entertaining and rather fun, but there and then it was not fun at all somehow.

For the first time since moving here, I really do feel as though I'm living on top of an ancient battlefield. Which I am, though I don't suppose that has anything to do with it. Mist is always creepy stuff, but I don't remember it being so disturbing in other places I've lived.

Tonight I'm going to watch american telly and eat cheesy chips and be extremely prosaic and sensible.

A silent war has raged in our house for about a year now. I believe that the number of naked toilet roll inners that the normal house needs is in single figures (and even that is only if you have rabbits that enjoy ripping them up). Polo, however, considers that the disposal of the inners is a royal waste of his valuable time, and sticks to this view against all opposition. As a result, 'his' loo has become gradually populated with little grey figures standing on their ends, vaguely reminiscent of some small toiletty Easter Island. Obviously I cannot remove them, as having voiced my opposition to them this would be, in some obscure way, giving in.

The war moved on to a new stage about six months ago when I tested a new theory: apparently people have an inbuilt predisposition to see faces. This posed a challenge: perhaps if the toilet roll inners had faces, Polo would notice and remove them? There was only one thing to do: give the toilet rolls faces.

Well, the theory worked up to a point. Polo did notice the faces. However, noticing them was not the same as wanting to get rid of them. The rolls multiplied, until a mighty army of toilet roll inners stood filling the windowsill to capacity. I began to feel that they were watching us with the eyes I gave them. Sometimes they moved about and rearranged themselves.

And then yesterday, for no reason I can fathom, he declared that the time had come, and packed the whole bunch of them off to be recycled. Some of them have been here so long I felt quite mean about it. Still, Yay! The Toilet Roll People have gone at last!