It is now a month since the quake and a sort of new normality has settled in. All my colleagues in Chch now work from home as the office is in the 'Red Zone' that is still completely out of bounds. The CBD looks like a war zone, the devastation is pretty wide spread. I'm heading down that way early in May, it will be very interesting to see it first hand (although we will be heading to Lake Tekapo for the weekend).
I have been SICK!!!! I had a gastro bug last week and was just revolting!!! I think I may have picked it up at the BMD Garden Party (Pics to follow - Garden Party, not illness). I ended up having four days off work and the weekend to recover. It was HORRIBLE!!! I also had a lesion on my face checked out and it turns out it is a melanoma but it has been caught in time so that comes out later in the week. Quite nervous about that really, it seems quite a lot of face to lose. Oh well, better off without it. Doc reckons I will lose a few wrinkles though :-)
Enough about me. Brina is doing well. I have changed her on to a new dog food and she is doing really well on it. She is bouncy and happy and full of beans. The only trouble is she seems to vomit more when she is on it so I have changed her to half and half with her old food. She weighed in last week at 42kg which is just great!!! A couple more kgs and I will be happy. She still continues to get herself in trouble. I have been giving her some vet tinned food to help get the weight on. After I bought the last lot I popped into the supermarket to grab a couple of items and came out to find that she had chewed through the tin and had eaten half of it!!!! I had visions of the vet wanting to operate to get bits of tin out of her and me having to put her down 'cos I couldn't afford it. Fortunately I gave her a huge dinner that she promptly threw up which brought up a few bits of tin with it and she doesn't seem to have had any after effects. She also turned 6 yesterday. There have been a number fo times when I thought she wouldn't make it to 6 but that milestone has been accomplished so now I need to work on 7.
Last weekend was the Bernese Mountain Dog Garden Party in Rotorua. It was first weekend away with the dogs since Brina's 'troubles' started and it was really, REALLY nice to get out of Auckland. The girls were really good but got a bit anxious at night so I ended up sleeping in the car with them so that Brina wouldn't do one of her 'anxiety chews' on something highly unsuitable.
It was great to catch up with lots of bernese people and dogs and a good was had by all. Sammie was funny. She 'tolerated' the weekend really. She just doesn't 'do' showing but once the cart came out she was as happy as a wee sand boy. She loves to put her cart. :-) Brina was great in it too.
Spyke is still on holiday, I just keep getting waylaid from riding him so now I am just going to leave it till my face is healed up again. I am hoping we will be able to do some winter show hunter this year. Tai is looking fabulous for a nearly thirty year old and is still full of life.
I have a new flatmate, Sarah, which is really nice and my friend Kerri and her LOVELY little Walter have been staying for a couple of weeks, which was really, really nice.
I think that's everything that has happened in my world recently.We are moving into Autumn now and it is just BLISS to have cooler temperatures. The evenings and mornings are really starting to close in though, which I am a bit LESS keen on......
I will post photos soon. I am having 'technical difficulties' :-/
