And now we are back down to one day a week in the office. I like this, two I think would be ideal though. 

Mrs Collie attended her second starter comp and ran well helping her team to another 1st place. She has another one weekend after this. I have entered her into an obedience competition (HAHAHA!)

If only we could get over the chasing! I really want her out running properly in time for the outdoor season next year.

The Mothership is coming into land tomorrow for 10 days. I wish I was more pleased about her visit. The Brat is posibly ill with covid - 1 positive test but two either side of that negative? 

He is leaving for the Lakes for the 10 days she will be here. So tired of being in the middle of them all.

Money is tight as it always is, but come January I will be rid of the loans and be in a better position than I am now. Just gotta struggle on through!

I'm in a better mental place than this time last year where I was lonely and spiralling and struggling. I might feel differently once winter really kicks in but for now we will appreciate life as it is. 

 We have now been back in the office two weeks. I hate it. Back to 16 hours work days, struggling to find time to eat after work. The trains are super busy as well - pre-covid levels. I'm not that keen on being crushed in at best of times, let alone with it still floating about! I mask and gel where I can.

 I like the job and I like the people but its time to find something else, something that offers more in the way of remote working or is closer to home to cut down on that two wasted hours commuting each day.

Mrs Collie has done fab lately. She made a debut in flyball last weekend, coming away with a hattrick of rosettes, 1st, 2nd, 3rd. Agility debut next week and then off to be spayed.

We are battling a flea infestation indoors. They just dont seem to be going, no matter how much I wash the bedding, treat the dogs, hoover. I think its where the weather has just been awful this year! 

Wet and warm and my attempts last year at tackling the garden have proved to be fruitless.

I lost the last of my birds recently, when I had the hen it bought rats into the garden and they hunted and killed them. I got my first cockatiel to celebrate my 11th birthday and have had them ever since. 26 years of birdkeeping!

 If someone ten years ago said that this blog and I would be around in the middle of a pandemic and England in the final of a proper competition. I think I would have pissed myself laughing, not sure what was the most unbelievable! But its happening!

Flyball is back tomorrow! And then the final this Sunday. 11 more days before I go back to the office. 

 Well the supposed back to work date is now July. I went to see TP last weekend which was lovely, we went to Bakewell, Chatsworth House and Hardwick Hall. So good to get away from work which has been manic and horrible.

My role is coming to an end and i'm being pushed into something else a bit more basic and lower pay but we will see how we go and keep eyes and ears open for another job if needed.

The collie has finally come into season I originally booked her into be spayed for August but now am thinking of having it done in September as gives me that little bit longer to save up for it.

Less than two weeks now until we go to our first flyball comp, hopes are not high as was a disastrous training session yesterday but with one more to go who knows and will be so so good to be out and about again!

Share Mare still off work with laminitis and I have been to the pub for the first time since possibly Dec 2019 to watch the England games!

I had my other jab last Thursday so that's good although again I had groggy side effects from it. 

 Another month has passed in the land of the lockdown. Restrictions are loosening again, so I took the dogs down to Devon for a training week. It was full of drama, Cocoa got loose, I backed into a van. Cocoa got caught in electric fencing. I met CL and UDOBF! How fucking long ago was it that we lived together? Madness!

Flyball training has restarted. Hero is fab as ever, Cocoa is slowly getting her head around it. Share Mare has laminitis and is on box rest.

I had my jab yesterday! Pfizer. I was/am sceptical about how quickly it got pushed through and passed for the public but I always said I'd have it when my time came but I was in no rush to push it forward. Let everyone find the blood clots and side effects first. I feel ok this morning, a bit tired and headachey, kinda like a super mild hangover and my arm is sore around the injection site, like i've been punched but Brat was out cold for 3 days with the AZ vaccine so i'm doing well so far!

Work is so full on with lots and lots of training. We have a back to work date of 22nd June, but two days a week working from home, I am disappointed it cant be more. But its still a lot better than all 5 days in the office. I'm hoping that when I do the early starts for the training I can work from home those days too.

I will be going to see The Twins in June and flyball comps start back in July. I need to start sorting out agility classes for the pair. Is this another false dawn for the end of the pandemic? With the Indian strain and the utter uselessness of the Government I'd not put it past them! 

 So fed up - April showers seem to be April snow showers! Cold, more like Jan than April! I'm feeling guilty. I woke the tortoise up, put him in the garden as I was tricked by the two nice days we had had where it was 20 degrees, now its snowing -2 at night and can I find the fucker to bring him into the warm?

Hopefully he's dug a wee hole somewhere to shelter in.

Pandemic life continues. I did a 6 week, 4 day stint of not talking to anyone who wasn't on Zoom!

Then over Easter I met a friend for flyball training and then E on the Monday. 

The most exciting thing so far to happen to me this year was nearly getting stopped for shoplifting. I got beeped when leaving the store and I didn't get a receipt from the self serve machine and then while talking to them, the mars bar I put in my hoody pocket to eat on way home fell out and I got marched to customer services to have everything re-scanned and then had to open up my bank app to check it matched with what I paid for!

Haha! So much paranoia in case I hadn't paid for something properly! 

Still waiting for restrictions to ease. I've rather foolishly booked a training holiday for a week for the dogs at the start of May. Work say we're at home now until 21st June and then flexible working, with us in the office Tues/Weds/Thurs. Not sure how that would work for me. I have international training that starts at 7.30 BST and the office doesn't open until 9.... 

Hoping I can get them to agree that I can stay at home on the training days! We will see. 

 Oooh Controversial post on Facebook led me to getting a ban for 48 hours and caused an uproar!

So Major Tom died, very sad etc. But I posted questioning why in the middle of a pandemic that preys on elderly people did a 100 year old man think it would be ok to go a 14 hour round trip to Barbados?

He did all that fund raising for the NHS, (i'm sceptical about whether that money actually went where it was supposed to or if it was diverted to the fancy big billboards they put up to get us all to stay home, but you know, probably best not to question!) 

Anyway point is, this has been going on for just short of a year. He's done all that work, everyone knows you stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives. 

Its not like he was going to Tesco's for his weekly shop! He went to frigging Barbados! Not really essential was it? 

But anyway daring to question that led to uproar and a Facebook ban and snide secret messages from people who don't have the balls to discuss it directly. 

HE's A WAR HERO! You can't say things like that. (eye roll emoji) Not really sure what his war work has to do with this. 

Princess Diana all over again and i'm getting convinced i'm actually living in Nineteen Eighty-Nine!