So, I blew NaBloPoMo.

Really, really blew it. Thursday was my downfall. Work was pretty quiet in the morning/early afternoon and then just before I was going to leave, shit hit the fan and my 7.30am-6pm day was extended by an extra 4 and a half hours. I make that a 15 hour day and, trust me, it really felt like a 15 hour day. Friday was spent clearing up leftover crap (although not literally crap, that's how it felt) and I raced out of the door at 5.30pm with a splitting headache, amidst cries of "aren't you coming for a beer?" I forewent the beer and was home before 7 when I took the dogs out and then curled up in a very dark room and went to sleep.

On Saturday, I drove to Walthamstow. For those who don't know London, it has a post(zip) code of E17. That means, that it is east London, and pretty far out east London. I live in The South West, so getting to Walthamstow meant taking the M25 (nightmare) to junction 29 and then all these stupid little A roads that take you through roundabout city. I don't know what it is about roundabouts that the Brits love so much. You have huge ones connecting motorways with something like"Welcome to Essex!" written in pansies; you have the medium sized ones connecting A or large B roads which are covered in sign posts telling you just how very, very sharp this turn is, and you have mini ones, which look like someone has spilled a blob of white paint in the middle of a crossing. As if people are going to drive AROUND this blob of white paint. Ay, Dios mio. Anyhow, I drove to Walthamstow to pick up the latest member of the family:


His name is Sunny (no, I did not name him). He is an 8 month old Labrador Retriever with the most incredible green eyes. This picture is rather deceptive. Sunny has been spoiled rotten, and is ROTUND. His name should be Dyson, because he doesn't just eat, he inhales food. On Saturday night I put all 3 dogs' food down at the same time and Sunny, sneaky monster, decided he was going to try and eat both HRH's and Sam's food, before his own. HRH growled at him and he backed away, but Sam is such a pussy that when the baby pushed him out of the way, (which is not difficult - we're talking at least 30 kilos of puppy here) Sam just let him do it. Sunny needs to be physically restrained from eating Sam's food, and on Saturday I think that Sunny must have left some slobber in the bowl, because Sam just was not interested after that. Instead, I wound up feeding him raw chicken wings. On Sunday morning, Sunny was following me around, wagging his tail. I didn't have a clue what he was after - he'd already been out for a walk that morning, where he strained so much doing a poop that I thought he was going to give himself a hernia. When I went over to pick the poop up, I found the reason for such straining - at some stage in the last 3 days, he had managed to eat part of a leash. In the crap was a leather strap about 2cm wide and almost 15cm long. This dog will snarf down anything. ANYTHING. Look, you left your book on the floor for a second while you picked up your cup of coffee - let me eat it for you. And that sweater on the sofa with the arm dangling down? Let me eat that for you too. But he is a lovely dog and with some (a lot) of training, he will be even more so.

To top it all off, my brother made dinner on Sunday evening. That is twice in one week. I think there's something very, very wrong with him. But I'm not complaining.