Went out last night with the usual suspects...good night, far too much to drink but its Xmas! Started on a new tipple - Jagermeister. Absolutely beautiful and a close contender to Pernod & Black for my favourite drink.
Didn't do much else today, Indi was tired following her exertions over the previous few days so I've let her have a lazy day.
The neighbours party was quite good. I think everyone turned up who was invited. Nice to put a fewn names to faces. R gave me some Hungarian beer, really nice but deceptively strong! Spent most of the evening with head in hands trying not to be sick! Anyway, it did pass eventually so had a few more drinks. All in all, a good night!
Decided to go for a really long walk over the Chase with Indi today. Started off in our usual spot, Punch Bowl, then walked up to Stepping Stones, around Devils Dumble and then back through Brocton Coppice. Whole walk took around 2.5 hours. I reckon it must be around 5 miles perhaps? I'd like to get a pedometer just so I can verify how far we actually go...
Tonight I'm off round the neighbours house, they're having a pre-New Year Drinks evening!
Just returned from the walk up at Delamere. I have to say that Indi was very well behaved! There was a hell of a lot of people up there never mind Malamutes. I think Boxing Day is the one day of the year that everyone who owns a dog decides to take it for a walk regardless of what they do for the rest of the year. I reckon there was around 20-25 Malamutes in total. We went for a walk round the lake, about 2 miles in total and it took about an hour. All the Malamutes were pretty well behaved actually. It seemed everyone else's dogs were the badly behaved ones! I've never seen so many dogs off the lead! All of them running around between the Malamute's legs! Indi and I walked with Sarah and Mog (we've walked with them before) and Indi managed to break the new Walking Belt. Will have to get a stronger one methinks from Culpeppers. Coffee and Mince Pies afterwards, what more could you ask for!
Spent the day round my half-sisters Jackie. Had the usual turkey, ham, veg, etc. There was myself (and Indi of course), my mom, dad, Jackie, her husband Mike and there 2 children Alex & Nathan. There was also Sonia (Jackie's mother) and Vic, her partner...still with me so far?
Went for a walk in the dark afterwards around the lanes of Bishopswood. Was a good way of working off the Xmas excess...!
Had lots of nice pressies. Apart from the Kickbike, I had a Dog Walking Belt, Dog Backpacks, books, coat, cuff-links, wine, chocolate, etc...did very well really. Tomorrow I'm off to Delamere for a walk with other Malamutes. Looking forward to it...I think...hope Indi's on her best behaviour!
Good news is that my mom's out of hospital. Still don't know what was wrong but they've just said keep taking the tablets and see what happens...let's hope it's all OK...anyway, it's Xmas Eve and I'm on my own for the first time in years, well me and Indi I should say. Got loads of pressies for Indi, she'll be happy tomorrow morning if no-one else is! Going to my half -sisters for Xmas lunch with my mom, dad and Indi. That should be nice. Plans for the break are to go to Delamere Forest on Boxing Day, a load of Malamute owners are meeting up there so I thought I might go along. Then, that's about it so far, I'm sure something will turn up though.
On Friday, my mother got taken in to Burton Hospital. She had an operation a few weeks ago (I won't go into the details other than to say it wasn't life threatening). Everything seemed to be going fine but on Friday night she wasn't feeeling well so I fetched her home from work and then my Dad later took her to the hospital. Essentially, where she had her operation is now infected quite severely. They have put her on an IV with Anti-Biotics. Seems to be getting better but they reckon she'll probably be in for a week or so...great news, just in time for Christmas!
Hospital's are a depressing place. The Emergency Assessment ward is one step removed from God's waiting room. There were a couple of people dying/dead in the short period that my mother was in that ward. You would think that staff would be able to sort things out a bit better though. Common sense would tell you that a dying person's family would not appreciate having to walk to the bottom of the ward, passing all patients and their relatives to get to their own relative! Why not put that person by the entrance to the ward? That way, their family wouldn't have to run the gauntlet of stares from gawpers...
Anyway, the sooner my mom is out the better...just heard that 2 people in Staffordshire have died from a strain of MRSA...my mom is still waiting for her blood test results as the labs don't work at the weekend...!
A full 7 days since my last post so expect a long one...
Was the MTL Xmas Dinner on the 13th. I travelled down to Luton about dinnertime and spent some time in our offices. Basically just tidying stuff up before Xmas. Checked in to the hotel (Days Inn again...see post below...) then walked down for our meal at The Villa Ada.
This is supposedly an Italian restaurant and to be fair the staff were authentic, unfortunately I didn't think the meal was. The "Greenland" prawns were more Iceland, than Greenland and I'm not talking of Iceland the country! The steak "Italian style" was about as Italian as I am...not much. Still, twas edible all the same, just don't think it was worth £21 a head. Anyway, we all got suitably lubricated then headed off to town. It's at this point that I should list the UK Sales Team, so here goes:
External Sales Team
Neil - Regional Sales Director
Went round to Jim & Lisa's on Friday night. It was Jim's birthday. Jim has bought 4 Nintendo Wii's. 2 he's currently selling on eBay to pay for the 2 he's keeping!! They're absolutely brilliant!! Totally new way of gaming and so addictive. My favourite has to be the bowling game, totally wicked. I have got to get me one of those!!
It's nearly Christmas and I've done most of my Xmas shopping. Even bought all my cards! Even more good news is that I still haven't had a cigarette. 5 weeks and counting. Next week is my last test at The Fort. My CO reading this week was 0 again so I'm doing well. Think I might try going to the 2mg Nictotine gum this week...we'll see how we go...
Indi didn't pass her obedience test.
To be fair I wasn't actually expecting her to pass anyway, she can do all the exercises...when she wants to anyway...but she tends to have problems doing them all together in one go. I really only entered her to get some experience of what the test is like and to give her (and me) something extra to aim at...
The exercises we had to do for her test were:
Walk to heel, right turn, about turns, left turns, halts, sits, etc
Same as above but off lead
Sit, wait, walk away, recall, sit
Sit, stay - 1 minute (3 other dogs in same room)
Down, stay - 1 minute (3 other dogs in same room)
She did quite well on the walk to heel (on lead), she's got this pretty much sorted now, but off the lead is a nightmare. She started off OK, then got distracted by the two nice judges that she hadn't met before and decided to investigate them instead! Of course, when I called her she then thought this was a great game! Recall was OK, passed that. Sit, stay she managed 45 seconds, down, stay about 15 seconds! Incidentally we were not alone in not passing. Out of the 30 dogs that took this test, only 6 passed. The club I go to does keep a pretty high standard and they won't officially let you enter the intermediate class until you've passed the test. Incidentally 2 out of the 5 Intermediates passed but none of the 2 Advanced did!!!
Oh well, next training starts in January, here's hoping better luck next time!
Not much planned for this weekend. Trying to keep it a bit low key as it's still two weeks till payday. I'll be off to The Fort for my weekly NRT and will probably do a spot of Xmas shopping. I haven't got a thing as yet so I need to start somewhere!! Still no smoking so I'm pleased about that, particularly as the Government has announced that from July 2007, smoking will be banned from all pubs in England - shouldn't affect me now...yippee! Reckon I've saved quite a bit of money too. £6 a day for at least 21 days is.......£126. Not bad so far!!!
Another day of brushing Indi. It's amazing how much hair comes out of a Malamute, even when they aren't blowing their coat. Malamutes have two coats, an undercoat and a coarse "guard" coat. The undercoat is traditionally "blown" twice a year and Indi is just finishing her "blowing" in preparation for a new winter coat. There must be a use for all this fur, perhaps I could start selling it to stuff cushions?
Anyway, Indi had her booster vaccination on Wednesday, also gave her wormer and Frontline (flea & tick treatment) so she should be all ready for 2007!
Test is on Sunday at 11:40.. She was quite good at training on Wednesday so I'm hoping the test will go well....hmmm...we'll see!!
Went up to Sherwood Forest to watch the Dog Rallying on Sunday. This rally was ran by ABSA. It was good fun. Some pics can be seen here. I met quite a few dogs, Noobie, North, Aluk, Tara, Jazz, Scooby and many, many more. I think I'll be going to another, not sure when the next one is but I think I'll make the effort to go to wherever the next one is...
Not sure that Indi is entirely up to racing as yet - the fastest dogs went round a 3 mile course in 13 minutes. I think Indi would go round in something more like 40 minutes! Still, we'll keep practicing and see how we get on. Dog training tomorrow night so haven't been on the bike for a while. Will leave that now till after the weekend (her test is on Sunday).
Well, Indi was absolutely exhausted on Wednesday night at Dog Training as I suspected. Note to self, don't go kickbiking when you have training on the same day. It was probably the worst she's been there for a long while...
I put her down for the test on December 10th, although I think this is more wishful thinking than anything...we'll see.
Been kickbiking again today. She still loves it, although the constant distractions of people/bikes/horses/dogs are a little annoying for Indi and we have to keep stopping and then going again...
Over the weekend, I'm off to the Fort again on Saturday for my supply of NRT...Day 18 and still no fags. Then it's back over the Chase again for a walk with another Malamute and their owner. Sunday, I think I'll go up to Sherwood Forest to spectate at a dog rally with Indi. Never been to one before so should be good fun.
Thought I would try Indi on the Kickbike today. She loved it! She took to it straightaway, no problems whatsoever. As soon as I hitched her up, said "Go", she shot off like a train. Even my Dad had a go!!
Indi's Kickbike arrived today. Phone call from TNT asking where I lived at 7:00 in the morning...nice... Anyway, huge parcel arrived at 8:00 and after some faffing around I managed to get the thing assembled. It comes part-assembled, you have to put the handlebars and wheels on basically. Not too much trouble. Had a quick blast around the block and it's good fun. Have not tried Indi on it yet though, although she did have a chew of the tyres...
Decided to go to The Nordic Show in the end. I went for a couple of hours, some some people I knew and I also saw Sue (Indi's breeder). Watched the Malamute, Husky and Elkhound classes. Louie won the Malamute Best of Breed and to my untrained eye, I thought he deserved it. Meant to take the camera but totally forgot...
Going out in Cannock tonight with a few friends and hopefully will be a good night.
Oh, almost forgot - 2 weeks and counting for the non-smoking, I went and got my latest round of nicotine gum today after the show. My CO2 levels are still at 0...
Not too sure what I'll be doing over the weekend. Might go to the Nordic Dog Show on Saturday in Coventry. I have only ever been to Crufts so it'll be interesting to go to a "normal" show. I won't be taking Indi though...too many dogs...too many distractions...
Dog training went pretty well on Wednesday night. Indi is slowly but surely getting better with other dogs, she even likes to play with them now as opposed to eating them!
Had a Sales meeting yesterday at the Days Inn Hotel on Luton. It's not a bad place, the hotel is relatively new so it's all quite clean at the moment.
Just been to Sainsbury's with Indi, I take her there every so often to keep up her socialisation with strangers. As usual, she attracted quite a crowd of onlookers. Most say the usual things like "He's a nice Husky..." or "my mate used to have an Akita...". Today though was unusual. A girl got out of a Porsche, came running up to Indi, and the first question was "Wow, how much did he cost?", quickly followed by "I want one..." Now, Malamutes are not the easiest dogs in the world to own and you can tell which people will get on with them and which won't pretty much instantly...I leave it up to you to decide if I thought this was a likely Malamute owner.
OK, so I'm officially fed up with Autumn. At the bottom of the garden are a Poplar and a Sycamore tree, both are huge. At this time of year, they are dropping leaves constantly, but now they are dropping seed pods which Indi is taking great delight in eating. Not sure if they're poisonous (haven't seemed to have affected her so far) but I'm sure they're not good for her - especially the quantities she's eating! Will have to get the Garden Vac out tomorrow...again...
Went to meet Dan in Borders in Stockport today as they have a good Starbucks! Nice Cappuccino's...especially as they were free (long story about forgotten panini's). Discussed the MOST strategy for 2007. Seemed to get most things sorted out, just a couple of issues to address. I should add at this point that my job is a Business Development Manager. This basically involves me selling the MOST system across the UK. Typical customers are chemical plants, oil & gas, pharmaceutical...basically anything that can go bang!
Almost forgot to mention this before...this is Day 7 of "Not Smoking". I joined a Drop-In No Smoking Group in Boots at The Fort Shopping Centre. They take your carbon monoxide reading, you pay a one-off prescription charge and you get seven weeks of NRT (gum or patches). You have to go back every week for your carbon monoxide levels to be measured. You also get some counselling as well whilst you're there. The first time I went, my Carbon Monoxide levels (I must find out the chemical name for that) was 30. Apparently that's really high and not good. Last Saturday it was at 0. Very good!! Anyway, Day 7 and all is well...
Well, went to see the new James Bond film with my mom today. Was pretty good I thought. Daniel Craig is more than believable as Bond and it had all the requisite tricks, toys and turns. Have to say though that the best bit was the Aston Martin, that car is fab! My recommendation would be go and see it. Won't be everyone's cup of tea but I thought it was good entertainment.
The Malamute Calendar arrived this morning. Indi wasn't too fussed about the calendar, just more interested in the envelope...
Well, it's back to work tomorrow. This week I'll be travelling around the UK selling the MTL MOST system.
I haven't really got many plans for this week, I'm going to see Casino Royale tomorrow though so I'll post a review of it when I've seen it. Wednesday will be dog training...hmmm...that'll be interesting although Indi is getting better with other dogs and stuff.
Might be going to the Nordic Show in Coventry on Saturday...
Took Indi for a walk over Cannock Chase today. She's got a new harness in preparation for her Xmas present - a Kickbike! Red suits her I think...
Bought the harness from Phil Dixon at Culpeppers. I've bought her lead and collar from Phil too. He's brilliant at all sorts of dog stuff...
My god, such a hangover this morning!! Too much to drink last night...I went round to Kate & Lucy's with Adam and Simon. Had a chinese and way too much to drink...paying for it now though...
Well, finally got round to documenting my life on the web...I've been trying to do this for a while but never really had any time to do it. Been faffing around with iWeb for ages to use their blog but it's not very versatile so I thought I would try blogger. So far...so good...
