Here is the reason - well, one of them, why I haven't been around too much. This is the latest edition to our family - Bonnie, a two year old labrador bitch. We got her at the end from a private sale. I wasn't too sure if I would keep her at the beginning. She wasn't used to walking on the lead and pulled me right - left - centre when I took her out. But she is perfectly housetrained and is as good as gold when we leave her alone in the house. And I guess everyone sort of fell in love with her quickly, she is very good-natured. I got rid of the choke chain and now bought one of those 'Halti' leads which goes around the mouth - so much better, and she doesn't pull half as much. I take her out every day after work for 1 hour, and for 2 hours at the weekend. Yes, I am dead-tired at the end of the evening, but believe it or not, it is actually quite relaxing after a day's work just to walk with her and forget about all those little annoying things in live.

What didn't help as well was that my laptop broke. I still haven't found out exactly what happened , but Imran was on the laptop (which he is not allowed anyway) and closed it with a bang. the cats were in the same room as well. When I came back and opened the laptop, half of the screen was gone. No physical damage on the outside, but all the pixels are completly messed up. as the laptop is less than 1 year old, we took it straight back were we bought it (Curry's), but they refused to help, saying that this sort of damage is not a material fault, but always accidental damage which is not covered under the warranty. To cut the long story short, my home insurance accepted the claim and I just have to see now whether it will be repaired or replaced. In the meantime, I work on half the screen only ;-))

I hardly did any cross stitch recently. There is plenty to do, but I'm just always too tired at the end of the evening. I went to the Cross Stitch Fair end of March in Olympia which was great as usual. Well, I'm a great fan of those type of Fairs. I haven't finished Rachel's poodle, of course not. So far, 1 1/2 pages done (of 6 all together). Sara's wedding is coming up in June, and I still did only, well, less than 5% I'd guess.

The Open University is keeping me busy as well... I think I have said before that I really really don't enjoy this year's course (Social Psychology). I just don't get a lot of it, because it is based not on Cognitive (experiments etc), but more on qualitative approaches such as discursive and influenced by philosophy - which is absolutely not my thing, sorry all philosophers out there. Anyway, I just try to get through with it. 2 assignments done so far - only 4 to go, and the examn in October of course. The next assignment is a preparation for a project, and the literature research for this kept me busy, and I hope I can at least write up parts of it tomorrow.'

Reading wise - currently I am reading two books, which is very unlike me, as I would normally always finish one before going on to the next. Reason is that 'A suitable boy' from Vikram Seth is over 1400 pages and not always easy to read. The other book is a German book from Johannes Mario Simmel 'Wir heissen euch hoffen'. This is an Austrian author, and I quite like his style of writing. I first read this book as a teenager, and now re-reading, I find that I understand many things much better. for example, he descripes a mental illnes and psychosis.

The weather has been awful so far here this year - no sign really of spring. Rain almost every day. I finally had my garden fence done, but didn't manage so far to do any planting.