Bad Blogger Award

I've been really slack about writing, the last couple of months. It's the restructure at the office: I come home and don't want to go anywhere near a computer in case more work leaps out of it.

I've also been busy reading Sandra Steingraber's "Living Downstream", about the environmental causes of cancer. It's a great read, if not a little depressing, but it makes it quite clear how many potential carcinogens are out there, and the rise in lymphoma cases both in humans and dogs may well be directly related to the rise in environmental toxins. The author developed bladder cancer at a young age, as did some of the older members of her family - but she's adopted. It meant she could discount genetics or an accumulation of poor lifestyle choices, and looked to the environment. Sometimes you read a book that completely changes the way you think about things, and for me this is one of them.

Herbie is still here, but beginning to look a little frail. I'm having to work to keep the weight on him. It's a problem with elderly sighthounds, they turn scrawny. Holly, on the other hand, needs work to keep her waistline trim. She's always had barrel-shaped ribs that look wide on a small greyhound. I suppose once she's Herbie's age I can stop worrying.

Hommage a Kandinsky

... or anyone else who used a lot of blue. I painted the front door. Herbie decided to kick the paint can against the wall, and then walk in the paint, then run through the house to his bed. As Queen Victoria so famously said, "We are not amused". We now have a new doormat until I can hire something that will sand off Dulux Weathershield 10-year guarantee outdoor gloss.