Song of the day: “A-Team” by Ed Sheeran. Cute little song, if terribly sad, when you think about it.
So it’s been an incredibly busy week, which started for big brother and me on Wednesday, where, after normal work, we were hired to pick up seven dogs, three of which were sick to bring them to a new location where they would be cared for. It was going to be a long day (12 hours, yikes!) First there was the place to prepare. It was a rental so the fencing had to be improved, rooms needed to be emptied and instructions given to the young man who was going to be caring for them. Nice kid, but definitely feeling out of his league, which wasn’t surprising. He was terribly young, and he was not familiar with the intricacies of working with so many dogs (semi-wild ones to boot). Unprepared by the one who hired him, for sure, and sure enough, the next day we got to hear that he wasn’t going to manage and that we had one day to find a solution…well, not us, actually, luckily, in this regard we were just the grunt workers, so for us it was waiting to hear what we were expected to do.
Bad thing is, the day before we’d had a lunch appointment, which I rescheduled to a dinner, which I then had to reschedule to the next day. By the time we were done, I was so friggin’ tired I went home, ate (very little) and basically passed out for the night…since we were so late getting home, I still hardly had seven hours of sleep, which meant that we were still running a bit on fumes the next time when we had to start all over with the move to a new location.
This time it took a little less time (11 and a half hours in fact), and the dogs behaved perfectly, for as far as I was concerned. When I arrived, I was afraid that it was going to take hours to catch then, considering that the rental owner was all worried about them being uncatchable (apparently they’d been trying for quite a while) but the worry was unfounded. Within fifteen minutes I’d caught them, and we had them settled in the cars. Another fifteen minutes later everything was loaded up (or so we thought) and we were on our way.
It took some time to arrive at the new place. Way more comfortable this one, also the owner and agent were very helpful, not to mention crazy about the dogs that we let out the moment the gates were closed. I was so proud of the lot of them. They were real troopers…best thing is that I don’t think that they were overly traumatized by the whole thing, in fact within an hour of unloading they were lounging about in the shade as if they’d been there forever.
Did have to bathe two of the sick ones, the one who was sickest had been treated at the vet’s but the other three still needed their baths. Only had time for two, though, since it was getting late, but no matter, the two boys needed it most.
The next day we did work in record time, because afterward we had to drop over at the place with the dogs to bring some more supplies before heading out to Ronda for our dinner appointment.
Gawd did we need some relaxation…and we got it. Were welcomed by Chris and his girlfriend Valetine, and a friend of theirs who’d been staying there before traveling on to Tarifa where he was going to do some kite surfing. Played with the two dogs on site, talked and gossiped under a tarp while it rained, and then went out into the veggie yard to gather our food and anything that the two of them couldn’t use themselves for our doggies. More sitting and relaxing, and then, approaching twilight, dinner was ready to be eaten. Very nice, but regretfully the day was rapidly coming to an end and we still had a two hour drive home ahead of us.
Didn’t get home until after midnight either, with me having nodded off several times. Good thing big brother did have a good night’s rest.
Been under some stress lately, which showed the other morning when right after breakfast my stomach decided that it had enough of all the commotion (loads of work, hardly any sleep) and chucked it all up again. It’s been a while since that happened, so I am not really surprised. I just call it remnants of an unhealthy lifestyle.
Part of yesterday was spent taking care of certain obligations in town, along with some groceries and gassing up. Also stopped at Decathlon to get a couple of training pants. Mine are starting to fall apart, so it was getting to be necessary. Took longer than expected, meaning that a nap was short-lived (my head was too full with…gawd knows what) followed by a cooking session. Made Buckwheat burgers, which were splendid. And a hard vegetable (red beets, carrots, cauliflower, white cabbage, onion, leek, whole sugar peas and red bell pepper) salad with small cubes of feta in it. To finish that off a cottage cheese and yogurt dressing that made it downright yummy. The fact that the dish had olive oil and Sicilian herbs in it, also helped. Hah.
What followed was cleaning out the car. Considering we had transported infected dogs with it (these weren’t actually sick, but they’d been with the ones who have mange) there was quite a bit of it that needed doing. Took everything out, swept dirt from the corners, used the vacuum cleaner where we couldn’t reach and then mopped the who thing out with bleech.
That was when we had to leave for the airport to pick up Walter, who was coming in from the UK to take care of the sick dogs we’d transported. The plane was late, of course, which had me in a full-blown stress-out because I was afraid I might have missed him somehow, but then there he was, me squinting at him trying to match him up with the picture I had, and him seeing the sign in my hand and miming “Sam?”. Phew.
Within a few minutes we were on our way to the rental where we did a quick run through of the meds, handing him some salad and burgers to eat, and then off we were to arrive home after midnight again. He was a nice bloke, though, I think he and the dogs will get along well enough.
Labhana is not doing well, I fear. Her walking is getting worse by the day, and she’s hurting. I can see it in her expression, notice it in how she looks at me wanting to follow me around, while her joints won’t let her. Also, I think that her cancer is raging rampant, meaning that her time is running out.
And today…well, today is work-at-home day…after sleeping in for about an hour or so. Plenty to do, not to mention that I’ve been postponing computer work for way too long. Still that doesn’t mean that we can neglect our health, so after some cereal this morning, I went outside to my old terrace where I did a short workout, which was splendid, albeit not as long as it could have been. But okay, better a bit than nothing, all the joints are loose again, and the head has unwound a little…which brings us to the end of today’s blog.
