Tuesday 26 July 2011

Losing The Dog

It’s been a week since we lost the dog and I can just about bring myself to write about it now.

It was the shock more than anything. Fidget was due in at the vet for a fairly routine op on his gums (he had an unerupted tooth). In the pre-op check-up the vet felt his stomach and said immediately ‘there’s something not right here’. Next thing, Fidget’s in theatre and the vet is asking us for permission to put him to sleep as he’s discovered an aggressive cancerous tumor attached to the dog’s intestines which can’t be removed... and that was that. Gone. He was only four years old.

Devastated.

Telling the children was very hard. I’ve never seen them so upset. Also, I can’t believe just how distraught I was. Fidget was my first dog and, whilst I’ve loved and lost other pets along the way, nothing has affected me in quite the same way as sharing life with a dog.

So whilst we, as a family, are still grieving... whilst we’re still seeing him out of the corners of our eyes... whilst we still hear him eating his dinner... we’re already putting plans together for a new dog to join our little pack sometime over the next couple of months.

I don’t mean to be maudlin or melodramatic. I just wanted to write this and thank those of you who sent kind messages via Twitter.

Monday 11 July 2011

Europe Endless - My Data Date...

... or The Traveller's Fear of the Roaming Charge



If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I spent the weekend flying out to Geneva and then on a road trip to Milan to see John Mellencamp before driving back to Geneva via France and the incredible Mont Blanc tunnel to catch my flight back to Manchester.

Nervous about my data use and as part of my regular travelling ultra-light policy I decided to take just one device with me... the iPhone.  It was a bit of a wrench leaving the BB, the Android, the laptop, the iPad and the Kindle... but boy doesn't that list sound insanely excessive anyway... no wonder my back hurts ;)