Sunshine yellow

Thank you for the lovely comments and hearts on yesterday's stag.

I had a really bad night, for some unknown reason Xena was unsettled and started barking after I ‘put her to bed’ and then again at 4.30am. I got up, checked she was not ill, let her out, and she seemed fine. She never does this so it was a bit strange. Needless to say I felt shattered this morning after only 4.5 hours sleep.

Today in addition to her outing with P the dog walker, after her walk he took her directly to the groomer (part of the same small business) for a spa day - I joke, but she had her nails cut (Gavin usually does them but lately has lost his nerve to cut them as dogs have a vein that runs under the nail and if you cut the nail too short and nick the vein it’s a bit of a blood bath!) I also booked her in for a proper teeth cleaning session. When we had Murdoch we were quite ignorant about the necessity of cleaning a dog’s teeth and when he was very old he had to have them cleaned under anaesthetic by the vet, which was traumatic and he never recovered from that - it was straight after this procedure that he got ill, they found the large abscess on his pancreas and he died. I know the two things were not connected but I now have a thing about ensuring a dog's teeth never get into that state. Xena’s teeth are still pearly white but there was some build up starting in her canines that need scraping - he also threw in a wash and dry after her muddy dog walk too, so as I said, a spa day!! Haha, I don't treat myself to such pampering, only for my dog! An extra photo taken by the dog groomer!

While she was out I had chores to do - including going to the post office depot to collect a missed delivery. Last time I went I was very surprised (and annoyed) to find out that they were only open from 8am to 11am, so before I went I checked the opening times and they had not changed. So I was very frustrated on getting there to discover they are now only open from 8am to 10am! How can working only 2 hours a day be providing a service to their customers? I will have to go back next week, before 10am!

I am a massive fan of the 30 year old literary sensation Sally Rooney, having read her first two books and now having just finished her latest book ‘Beautiful World, where are you?’ It seems her writing is either much admired or dismissed as being pretentious - her books are not plot driven, they are usually about the relationships between the protagonists which I think she explores very well so that you have a good sense of what the characters are like. I absolutely loved this book, I think she is one of the best young writers of her generation. Her second book Normal People was made into a TV series - not sure why they did that, it is hard to transfer excellent writing about relationships into a TV series where not much happens. 

I also downloaded the new updates to Photoshop/Camera Raw, there are some exciting new changes, although I do need to spend a bit of time learning how to use them as they are not straight forward.

Some bright yellow swirls for Flower Friday - the weather was horrible and blustery today with some rain, so an indoor image was the best option.