just testing

seems you can send a blog from an e-mail address. just trying this
out to see if it works. you can't send pictures though which is
half of the fun..

sacha

sacha
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

herself is sad. she came back from work yesterday very down in the dumps. sacha, who has been getting her out of the chaos that surrounds her at work for the last three and a half years, has had enough and gone off to spend his time with locusts.

knowing how chaotic herself is i would say that locusts would definitely be more organised. she is bad enough at home but put her among a load of bits of paper and interrupt her a few times with phone calls and you would not believe how much confusion she can cause.

i know because i used to go to work with her until someone put a stop to it. not sure if it was when i put my nose up the skirt of the lady from the bbc who was interviewing herself about asbos or what but i now spend my days guarding the house.

anyway, from now on she will have no-one to share a morning cuppa with while describing the fun and games my boy has caused. she will also be stuck when she needs advice on how to rescue frogs from the jaws of snakes (sacha is a zoologist so in theory has this sort of knowledge at his fingertips). and she will have to work various devilish machines in the office which up to now have defeated her.

i always had a soft spot for sacha myself as he grew up with an irish wolfhound so was very partial to a lurcher. irish wolfhounds, for those who are not aware of the dog world, are like very large lurchers.

just as well merry and ray (otherwise known as the prof and mrs prof) are staying to keep her mind off being gloomy. merry has somehow been talked into unblocking our gutters. they have been blocked for a very long time so this job is one which only the very truest of friends would undertake. herself is terrified of heights so cannot go up the ladder to do it and himself has been too poorly for ages so every time it rains we have waterfalls all round the house, which in the recent monsoon season has been quite spectactular. anyway, merry has had to have a second shower as she was looking like the creature from the black lagoon but we now have empty gutters.

might even get her to take me for a walk at some point...

a new friend in the world of blogging

Alfie at 8 weeks
Originally uploaded by Goose.goose.

seems i'm not the only member of the canine fraternity to have his own blog. herself came home yesterday full of news about a young chap called alfie with the same literary ambitions as my good self. he appears to have the same problem operating the keyboard with his paws as i do so he relies on his dad to do the typing (as in his human dad - obviously his canine dad would have the same limitations in the paw department).

my boy and i had a look last night and he seems to be rather an entertaining little chap. my boy even went so far as to say that this was the sweetest puppy he had ever seen. now that's going a bit far, in my opinion. i was quite a cutie myself. i suppose my boy didn't meet me until middle age spread was well and truly setting in so he wasn't to know, when all's said and done.

anyway, alfie gets up to all the usual things that you would expect from a youngster. gives an old dog quite a lump in the throat to remember what fun it all was...

for inspector gadget

do not silence us
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

well, listeners, you may wonder why i have got my eyes covered up in this picture. its one taken by herself a while ago when some nasty folks tried to stop photographers putting their pictures on the net. this sent her into a bit of a strop. as usual i was asked to step up to the line and be her model for this little number. i don't even take photos myself. and i've had quite enough of dressing up to look like a leopard but she can be very persuasive. she has this nice stuff called "bit of cheese" which gets waved around whenever there is a modelling job in the offing. well, a chap has to eat...

anyway, herself is very keen on blogs. she likes to read what people are writing about life in their neck of the woods. one blog she follows is by a copper called inspector gadget . herself is descended from a copper or two and works alongside a bunch of them so she has always been very interested to see what the good inspector has to say.

however, it seems that where inspector gadget works they are all too aware of the power of the internet. they seem to have the heebie jeebies about him having a blog. he seems to be getting grief from a dog with ginger eyebrows who is hounding him (pardon the pun but you get my drift). i used to share the house with a dog with ginger eyebrows called maisie the airedale and she was damned scary, i can tell you. however she got her come uppance in the end and was exiled to clacton on sea, leaving yours truly in charge of things here.

so anyway, i disgress. i do far too much digressing i know but that's lurchers for you.

the point of her putting this photo on my blog is to make a point. i'll leave you to work out what the point is. suffice to say its nothing to do with either leopards or lurchers...

wreck

wreck
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

here is a photo from our hols in romney marsh. we went there camping at the end of the school holidays. this former building is at dungeness which is an amazing beach with all sorts of wonderful things on it. had a great time there. felt just like home with all the wooden houses painted black just like ours.

why this pic? well, herself is still feeling a wreck so it seemed the obvious choice. hope she is better soon. place sounds like a tb ward. and the wingeing is driving us mad...

frog in the throat

moss
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

herself has been malingering in bed for several days with a poorly throat and sore ears. lots of winging and groaning and making everyone say "poor lovey" and drinking endless cups of tea.

you don't see yours truly moaning like that over a little ailment. what's a frog in the throat between friends? she just needs to pull herself together and go out for a run...

a rival

eyes bigger than belly...
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

my boy seems to have acquired a new pet. he has named it "bront". not sure if this is short for brontosaurus or what. it is a name he has used before for things, for example his toothbrush was at one time called bront. but that was a brontosaurus toothbrush now i come to think of it...

not sure if i'm too happy about the new neighbour. one gets used to being the sole member of the animal kingdom in the house. there are plenty of creatures in the garden - frogs, birds, slow worms, grass snakes, slugs and snails, all sorts of creepy crawlies. but not in the house.

herself resisted for a long time on the grounds that these fellas are creepy but my boy in the end won over through sheer persistence and logic. he seems to have sold her the idea on the basis that it will eat mosquitoes. as she gets eaten alive by the little beggars she finally relented. however, as this picture demonstrates, bront has other ideas. here it can be seen making swift work of a daddy long legs.

i'm keeping well out of its way...

good health

a small figure running towards mike's ear
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

regular readers (of whom i am sure there are many, although none that leave any trace) will have noticed that i mentioned that herself has been off work with stress. herself being a rather tough old duck who has coped with more than most people during her life, has been finally laid low by worrying about himself.

it seems that himself has had trouble with his kidneys for quite a few years. before i joined the family. its not something they thought to mention or i could have suggested a nice recipe for steak and kidney pud.

anyway, it seems that the old kidneys have finally given up the ghost and are now reaching the end of their natural. himself will have to deal with hoovering his blood by some weird and wonderful process called dialysis. they don't know when but as it will involve him having a tube fixed in his belly (the details of which i really don't want to know) they have decided i can no longer jump up when i get excited in case it gets pulled out. not that i get excited that often but i don't fancy the idea of being covered in gunk anyway so its fine by me and there's no time like the present for getting into good habits.

just hoping they can sort the poor old fella out soon as he is so tired he has to go to bed for a kip as soon as he gets home from work which means herself has to take me for walks. and she's just not much fun at the moment...

helping bernie with her sewing

joker helping bernie with her sewing
Originally uploaded by Joker the Lurcher.

well listeners, here i am again. not been in touch for a while what with one thing and another. herself has been off work with stress for the last couple of weeks and popped over to see bap bap, her stepmum. here you can see me helping aunty bernie with sewing a wing on bap bap's floor.

when this project was first discussed it appeared that auntie bernie (who is a theatre person) was planning on flying round the stage but it now turns out its a wing to get changed behind which makes much more sense. had visions of all the actors getting bashed in the face.

the wing is needed because auntie bernie performs plays all over the place including village halls and places without anywhere to get changed. big jim, who is auntie bernie's other half, has to transform himself from big jim to a troll and back and of course he doesn't want the audience to see him doing this otherwise they will realise that the troll is not a real troll but is in fact big jim.

the wing has to be very high as big jim is quite, well, big. at least tall - much along the lines of yours truly - a sort of human lurcher. anyway, i thought i would show willing and give her a hand...