:Insert dramatic photo here:

Woof.

Woof woof.

Woof woof woof.

Ruby isn't a yappy kind of dog. One of the good traits of Boxer dogs is that they only bark when there is something to bark at - they bark almost exclusively to alert. Ok, sometimes they are alerting you to a dangerous carrier bag blowing in the wind, but better safe than sorry hey :)

So, when I heard Ruby's very definite "Mum! Mum! Something is wrong!" bark down in the bottom of the quarry, I pricked up my ears. It continued for a little while, so I went to the door and shouted to her.

Woof.

Woof woof.

Woof woof woof.

(I didn't shout the woofs, I shouted words, she barked back. Just incase you were confused).

I had a friend over at the time, and as I pulled on my shoes I said "Sorry, it's just that it definitely sounds like there's something wrong - I'd better go and check ... " I felt like a bit of an idiot saying it to be honest. Ruby isn't known for her Lassie-esque heroic exploits.

Woof.

Woof woof.

Woof woof woof.

I was calling reassurance to Ruby as I walked down to the area of long grass, and each time I called, she barked back, the same urgent bark.

And then I saw it.

Ruby was circling the biggest snake I have seen outside of a zoo.

It was coiled, head raised a good six or eight inches above the ground, hissing and spitting at her as she barked at it. Instant adrenaline. Ruby has a heart condition and I knew that if it was an adder then her chances of surviving a bite were pretty much none. I couldn't get near enough to her to grab her collar without risking both of us being bitten, and the snake was looking even more pissed off about the arrival of a human ... eek!

For the first time since I moved here I was grateful that the place is half paradise / half junkyard. There is a derelict cottage not far from where we were standing and the rubble and rubbish from the building collapse and subsequent fly tipping has created a sprawl of junk that spreads in the wind and had conspired to leave a piece of some sort of rubbery roofing stuff about a foot and a half square just a couple of meters from where I was standing.

As I went to grab it I found my right hand patting my pocket where my phone/camera lives, and I actually contemplated taking a photo so that I could blog it. Taking a photo so that I could identify it might have been a good idea - especially as the current environmental survey here is counting snakes and the lovely ecologists who visit would have been absolutely thrilled ... but no, my only thought was that it was very very bloggable! More adrenaline fuelled a quick decision to abandon the photo idea.

I chucked the black square over the top of the snake from behind, and instantly Ruby was calm and controllable and we walked back up to the house, where I promptly got the shakes, cried a bit and drank quite a lot of tea.

It wasn't the snake itself - if it had just been me I would definitely have taken photos and enjoyed the adventure. It was the fact that my baby nearly got bitten by a snake!. It reminded me of a moment the previous day when had seen a man burst into tears on the tube after his little boy pressed the "Open doors" button as we were hurtling down the tunnel. I had watched the boy doing it, knowing full well that the doors would not open, but clearly his father had not had this confidence. The boy couldn't understand why his dad was holding him so tightly afterwards, and I'm sure Ruby was similarly bemused at my squeezes.

At over 2 ft long, the snake was almost certainly a grass snake, we'd have been very unlucky to be bitten at all and the consequences probably wouldn't have been that serious. It had a distinct cucumber shaped bulge half way along it's body(which luckily, was not one of Badger's cucumbers, she'd have been very cross!) so it obviously did present a danger to some of the local inhabitants, just not us.

Phew.

A variation on Murphy's law

My house is approximately 1 part carpet (and grass matting) to 19 parts wipe-clean floor surfaces (marble, lino, stone).

And yet, when faced with a major failure of their digestive system, the animals never fail to vomit (or worse) on to a non-wipe-clean area.

There is even an exception to prove the rule. On Friday I went to a one hour lunch meeting in London which lasted almost five hours. As a result Ruby was at home, un-emptied, for far longer than I would normally leave her. Dr But Why? was first through the door, to discover that Ruby had rather cleverly gone to the toilet inside a partially filled bin-liner which contained various bits of plastic rejected by our recycling collection. Bless her.

I promise to post something less disgusting tomorrow.

What's in a name?

... that which we call a nose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

I talk a lot of nonsense to my dog. Soppy stuff. Were you this cute last night? I'm not sure you were - did you just wake up cuter this morning?

Don't worry, I cringe too.

It's true though. In spite of regularly updating her 'The naughtiest things I have ever done' list, Ruby draws more affection from me with every passing day. And yet that seems impossible, because I'm sure that right now I already love her as much as it is possible to love a dog.

I have been wondering. Is it that, like pain, we cannot hold love in mind completely? Do we experience it with freshness even when it is a repetition of a previous experience? Is this, like our fast fading memories of agony, because if we did not forget then we would stop still; completed by love just as we would be consumed by pain?

Or, is it more like my gmail account? Today I am using a proportion of my 2457 MB, and tomorrow, by magic, I will have available 2582 MB. Is my heart expanding - forever slowly growing like my hair and nails?

Snack attack ...

Clickety click. I am busy tapping away at my keyboard, hammering out flash code with my back to the rest of the room.

Crunch crunch crunch. The sound of Ruby's teeth working on something brittle slowly percolates into my consciousness.

Clickety click. I try to identify, from the sound, what exactly Ruby is eating ...

Crunch crunch crunch. It doesn't sound like anything she should be chomping on.

Clickety click. Maybe it's a biro? Ug, don't want ink all over the sofa ...

So, I spin around, jump out of my chair, and lean over the sofa to investigate more closely ... and then wish I hadn't.

Of all the things I had imagined it might be, it never occurred to me that it was a fully formed skull.

I'm trying to persuade myself that it was that of a fox, or a badger ... and definitely not anything to do with the fact that the previous occupant kept Jack Russells.

Sympathy please

We have a very sore paw.

Luckily I have a full first aid kit and a strong stomach. And a great vet. I was thinking of leaving the NHS and joining pet doctors instead. And insurance. Phew.



It was all a little stressful as Ruby has that classic boxer genetic weakness - Aortic Stenosis ... a type of heart murmur which makes any general anaesthetic procedure a lot more risky. However, I decided that if she was still capable of bounding up mountains then she'd probably be ok ... and she pulled through just fine. The vets said she was the nicest, best behaved boxed they'd ever had in ... apparently she was sitting on the receptionist's lap, which is something she does whilst I work at my desk. At 28kg though it's not something I encourage for long periods!

So, we are 3 days into 10 days of being confined to the house except for very brief on-lead excursions into the garden to do the required business. She has perfected the art of hopping, and insists on showing her bandaged paw to anybody who passes her.

So, it's been a while. I'm not certain why ... busy with work, christmas, assorted annoying health problems ... and then of course there is the point at which something has been on my 'to do' list for so long that it becomes almost impossible to actually do it. What is that about? Thanks to all who have noticed my absence - it's nice to be missed!

I think actually it's also about pictures. I've not been taking them ... hence I have nothing to say. Or at least no external conversations to be had. More pictures is the plan!