...Xmas, comes and goes!

...So we kept Harry quiet and decided to start on the lounge! So the gas fire came out and real multi fuel woodburner went in, bought from wonderful Trago (everything seems so reasonable from there.) Then we had to build the fireplace....Sorry, I mean Ian did.

I named it "Thomas", beacuse it looks like a black tunnel with Thomas coming out of it! - do we have a mantle over the top? Yes, so when we found one and put it on the wall, you have to decorate - dont you? ........to decorate meant taking off the wall paper (if you can call it that!), that took nearly 4 days (I did it) It came off quite well, a few pain in the butt bits! Then what colour? in our last house the lounge we had a purple! so for a change we have done it brown and dark brown - still not sure, its not finished yet, another coat needs to go on. I think the galaxy bit needs to be darker, not sure what to do with the colour of the brick around the fireplace now either. What was good is that my Brother Adrian gave us some DIY vochures for our Christmas present - so in affect he has paid for it so far (paint), we are going to paint the skirting boards and door frames a creamy colour too as they where a horrid teak colour.
When the lounge is finished, we will have done the bathroom and hallway too, so only the bedroom, kitchen, utility and sunroom to do!


But we will stop there until next winter.
Stage 2 is outside - We had a big storm begining of December when Lisa and I where on a Massage day with Devon Dogs, which lifted the roofs of the 7 sheds so we need to build some more! Just so we have some waterproof sheds to house all outside stuff. The Bungalow has a very shallow roof, so doesnt have a loft and all our Xmas decoation and camping stuff etc. was kept in one of the sheds! so you can imagine the mess.

Nearly there!

Harry at 5 months old - his first beach walk!


.....October 2007 - Harry's training was coming on in leaps and bounds, he loves working with me and was excited to run, he loves meeting both dogs and people. We where training at our own club "Redruth Agility Club", where he had started in the puppy class and was also training with "Roseland AC". What a star.

I was training at home with him concentrating on the contacts, A frame and seesaw as we hadn't finished making the dogwalk, we did both these pieces of equipment twice and finshed with a tug game, walked back up to the house, 10 mins later he was lame! .....well this lameness went on and on after loads of anti-infammatries and x-rays/chiropractor and massageing, we where sent off to Exeter to see Peter Attenbourgh (bering in mind all of this time Harry was only lame after rest and would walk it out after 20 paces). The Thursday before Christmas we met with Peter who touched the place that he felt was the trouble - Harry jumped into my arms and said "stay away from me", he x-rayed him and gave him a steriod injection into his shoulder and said 6 weeks on the lead walks for ten mins a day, no playing, no running - great! you folks think its hard keeping a collie quiet - you try a chinese crested powder puff! He has "Bicipital Tenosynovitis" similar to Tennis elbow but in his shoulder. over the next 6 weeks we spent time researching it and asking question, thank god for the "Agility Forum", I came away with lots of question answered and Harry isn't the only dog in the world to have it (even thou I felt like it!) The prognosis is/was that if the steriod injection dosent work then he could have another one, and then an operation to move the tendon over and staple it to the Humus or put the tendon in a sleeve as Sandra Adams dog Flo has just gone through, so the vet was emailed this option as he had not mentioned this one to me - Thanks Sandra....In the mean time I had had an email from Jenny willis who said she and another friend had had the same thing with their dogs and they had Laser treatment and one of the two dogs was fine and other had to have it retreated (another option-that sounded nicer than any operation.)

...any way here we are at week 6! for 4 weeks he was sound with a few blips in the middle but the last two weeks he had been lame, so we are just organising for him to have Laser treatment of which, I should know within 4/5 session whether this will work, he is also having ttouch ( wwwttouchteam.co.uk ) and distant Reiki. So we will see, as sandra said "I have or rather Harry has age on his side, so I am going down this route first.

...Things I forgot to say!

...Over the summer, I made 8 pairs of jumps!

Instead of my stick in the ground sheep fencing stakes! hopefully will get around to making some more. Lisa lent me one of her jumps and I copied it from that - Thanks Lisa.

Ian made an A frame, 2 seesaws and 2 dogwalks, one for me and one for our new club that Lisa and I have set up along with Aly Rapo (we use Aly's field in Redruth)

The other big thing we did was, buy a large plastic round cattle water trough! well it's Harry new hot tub! and Red and Buzz get to swim in it too....I will have to find a photo of it!

April 2007- December 2007

...I will try and cram it all in! The Sad news was Cassie died in April, she had 5 weeks at Queens Pit, Ian and I are grateful for that, the sun shone the whole of her time there with us - Just for her, she loved to sun bath.

...Such a special dog, she taught us so much about life. RIP Cass our love .

The rest of the summer was spent dog proofing the garden, clearing the jungle bits and painting all the sheds-doesn't sound a lot! .......here's some photos.

picket fencing took ages, as we did it all our selves and we had to make sure the gaps weren't wide enough for Harry to get through!

.....Whilst still trying to get back on track with a bit of agility too, it was hard trying to do it all. Ian had started a new job and was commuting to Plymouth each day approx 1 hour, maybe longer depending on the traffic.

....This picture shows our other bit of garden which hopefully will be leveled with a digger to make more "lawn" (agility area!)

....It has been hard getting someone in to do the digger work as, to date this hasn't been done and we've been asking people since last august! they say Yes will be with you next weekend, etc etc.

Harry at 12 months old

...still playing around ......adding and taking away things! dont quite know how you put one of those counter things on your blog page.

Well I did it!

28th Jan 2008 - (my Mums birthday) I managed to sort off set this blog thingy up, after a fasion. It could take weeks of chatting to Lisa to help me import all the photos and do a nice heading of "The Pit". I will tell you why it is called this, at some point - if I remember!

Introducing the Dogs

Here is Handsome Harry, Chinese crested powder puff!, Harry is yet to compete at agility, but if he does he will be a grade 3

And Big Bad Buzz, who is far too large for a collie standing at 25 inches! and he knows it. (That's as tall as Belgium dog!) .....He plays around at agility and is a grade 5

This is Cassie - who carried the whole world on her shoulders, Bless her, she hated agility-unless she was training with her toy and dogs she knew, bring a different dog into the class, she would put her tail between her legs and not want to enjoy herself! She would love to Que and chat any entire male up.!

......and lastly Red, who is just scrumptious first and a grade 7 (advanced)agility dog next!

...So I have to now try and sum up a year worth of gossip in a few posts........just so you don't switch off!

...It was a bit cramped in the caravan, but it did us well, it didn't leak, we didn't get blown away (too many times!) The awning did end up with a few running repairs.......We where told it had been the wettest, windest winter that Cornwall had had over the past 30 years! ....But it was worth it, we found our new home just after Xmas and moved in at the beginning of March 2007, What a weekend that was filled with so many emotions, on the Friday we where to move, Cassie had a turn and collapsed whilst out walking in the morning, Ian had started a new job so it was left to me pick Cass up and carry her home and get her into the car and too the nearest vets, (we hadn't registered anywhere, as we didn't know where in Cornwall we would end up!) So Cornwall Animal Hospital it was in Redruth, Cass was not a well dog at all, after doses of this and that, we where sent home to see what happened, she made it through the night, but collapsed again the following morning, Ian had put the moving off (as everything was all stored at my Mums so a few more days didn't matter, he managed to rearranged the truck for the Monday), We where sent to the emergency vets with our xrays - which showed a mass/blockaged, they operated straight away and phoned just after we left her to say she had a tumour and they felt it was worth 'having a go' and see if they could remove it! we okaye'd this and went to see her after the operation, she wasn't allowed home until the following day, but she was alive. So, Ian took Harry and Buzz with him and moved all our stuff on his own into our new home around trip of 6 hours, not including loading and unloading. Cass recovered very quickly and had the stitches out 10 days later.

March and April - where hectic, but we had glorious weather to help, we all enjoyed our new home, 3/4 acre garden/jungle!....Home, I used to call it the shed!

But Ian got up set! so it has kept its name "Queens Pit" therefore this blog is called "The Pit"

There is a Methodist's pit at the end of the garden!

which is where the "Pit" comes from and the village is called Indian Queens and that is where the "Queens" bit comes from.

The pit is where you can all sit out on the grass steps and have picnic and preach your stuff!, I must take a photo of it.

We moved November 2006

...So you can see how long it has taken me to get this up and running!

We have been down in Cornwall for over a year now, how time flies! we moved from a "on the main road with concrete garden" bungalow to a 2 berth touring caravan with awning (which stayed up most of the time!) and our 4 dogs, Cassie - a 10 year old black tri collie bitch, Red - a red/white tri collie bitch who is now 8 and a half, Buzz (Red's repeat mating , brother) who is nearly 6, Harry - who is a Chinese crested black/white tri powder puff! who will be 2 in June, and Ian my Husband and best friend.