Inside out

An awful lot of my blips are taken through this window, & so today I decided to show the view from the other side (the fact that the pieris is at its glorious best could have something to do with this decision); now that I can see how clearly the tree is reflected in the glass, I understand why so many birds fly into my window! And whilst I'm in observant mode, it looks to me as though there's room for at least another three solar panels up on that roof; I wonder why they weren't fitted?

We nipped into town this morning, & despite being dosed up with his magic drops, I'm sorry to say that Jack disgraced himself again .... perhaps he's becoming immune to Rescue Remedy? Still, he has now been exonerated from another crime for which he'd been blamed: he has a long training lead which clips on to both his collar & his harness (vital when walking an escapologist who will only come when he's called if it suits him!), & yesterday I noticed that one end of it was frayed to the extent that it was nearly detached; hubby recalled that the last time he'd taken him in the car he'd forgotten to take the lead off him after attaching his seat belt - this was also the day that he'd been at his quietest in the car, & so we surmised that his silence was due to him being engrossed in chewing through the lead. So today we took it with us to the pet stall in the market, & it wasn't until I took it out of my handbag to show the sales assistant what we wanted that I noticed the damage was confined to one spot, & was far too 'neat' to have been inflicted by a set of gnashers - even Jack's razor sharp set; we all three then examined the lead & concluded that it had been cut. But how, where, or when, we have no idea..... let's hope that we haven't overlooked a sharp protusion somewhere that Jack frequents, as not only would we hate it to cut Jack, but these leads are far too expensive to have to keep replacing too often. Anyway, they didn't have a lead exactly like the old one, but could offer us three different ones to choose from; poor hubby had not a leg to stand on, so despite being the one who'll be seen pounding the streets clutching said lead, he didn't even try to argue with my colour choice: the obvious choice was the sturdiest-looking one, which just happened to be .... purple!

I had a stroke of luck whilst we were in the market. As mentioned previously, we came here on our wedding anniversary last year, & in the market I'd spotted a wonderful purple hat - a Stetson style, no less; I dropped so many hints drooled over it so much that hubby bought it for me. Having a nice wide brim, it protects my eyes from sun far more effectively than the baseball caps I used to wear, & so has become my very favourite hat - I wear it everywhere: in the town, on the moor, & in the garden; on really-cold-but-sunny days I've even worn it in preference to my woolly hat, but with a scarf tied under my chin to cover my ears (I think I got that idea from a Clint Eastwood movie). I've never worn a hat to extinction before, but this one has been put through so much that it was becoming decidedly tatty; but I loved it like I've loved no other hat, & so I decided to buy another one - which I promised myself would be kept for 'best' (i.e. gadding about town), whilst the old one would become my gardening hat; imagine my disappointment therefore, when I went to the hat stall a few weeks ago & they had only one of these hats left (& that in the wrong size), & I was told that they couldn't get them any more! I wasn't downhearted though, as I was convinced that I would find one online, but I didn't have any luck .... & when I went to the Kakadu website I discovered that this particular style/colour had been discontinued. Oh rats, it looked like I was going to have to fall in love with another hat. And so with this aim in mind, I went to the hat stall in the market this morning; and was astonished to see a great pile of hats exactly the same as mine (well, not 'exactly' the same: these were all a lot cleaner-looking than the one upon my head). Turns out that they'd got hold of a job lot of discontinued/damaged stock: all the hats were slightly battered, but still in far better condition than my old one, & a lot cheaper; in fact, they were so cheap that I almost wish I'd bought more than one. But I'm not sure where I could have stored a lifetime's supply of them!

Ooh, I feel a hat blip coming one .... perhaps I'll save the idea to my emergency blip list.