September round up

There goes another month, Autumn is well and truly here. It's been a really nice Summer but I'm ready for evenings in front of the fire and getting wrapped up in boots, scarves and jumpers. We celebrated the arrival of Autumn by heading out for a Sunday roast at the pub in our village. It was incredible, we really must do that more often.

We've been taking Barney to puppy school since he was about ten weeks old. We started with puppy playgroup, which was mainly socialisation, with a bit of obedience thrown in. After that we moved onto the next level which was the Kennel Club's Puppy Foundation course. It was based more on training (sitting, staying, walking on a lead etc.) and after four weeks, Barney passed. Hurrah! We've now moved onto the intermediate class at school which may lead to us achieving the bronze level, we'll see how that goes though!

I passed, Mum!

We've also started going on dog walks organised by the puppy school. I have to admit I was massively fed up after the first walk, Barney was jumping up at all the other dogs and was pulling so hard to get to them that he couldn't breathe and was making himself sick. Just a few weeks on (thanks in the main to bribery by sausage) he's much better. He still jumps all over the other dogs given half a chance, but he's not pulling as much and will focus on us rather than his four legged companions if we persuade him enough.

Walkies!

We try not to walk Barney too far whilst he's young, but we took a trip out to Barbury Castle and walked around the site of the Iron Age hill fort. It helped blow the cobwebs away and we'll be back in a few months to do a longer geocaching walk around the area. 

I'm feeling a little windswept

Andrew used to work at Aardman (animators, best known for Wallace and Gromit and their other claymation work) and as a result we were invited to their 40th birthday party. It was held at Colston Hall in Bristol and soon filled up with hundreds of employees, former employees and friends of Aardman. Tim Vine did a slot and there was an incredible live version of Sledgehammer accompanied by the video, animated all those years ago by Nick Park. It was really good to catch up with familiar faces and Aardman always put on a good party.

Happy birthday, Aardman

I've been having physio on my ankle over the last couple of months as it's never really recovered from me spraining it about nine years ago. The physio has been useful but they referred me to a podiatrist which has really helped. They've given me inserts to put into my shoes to make me walk with proper form and exercises to work the muscles which haven't been working together as they should. I can already feel the difference and I'm hoping it'll make walking (and running in due course) much less painful. Hurrah!

I'm still really busy at work, but starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. We've managed to find time for a few interviews to bolster the team. It's been a full on but we've found one really good candidate, hopefully we'll find another to bring on board soon. 

We're still doing jobs around the house, we had a wasps nest destroyed and have ordered a new cooker. Our current one is dying a ring at a time, so hopefully the replacement will arrive whilst it's still partially working. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Now onto my progress against my plans for the year...

Read sixteen books
I had a day off work in the middle of the month with a streaming cold and fancied curling up on the sofa with a book. I picked Raven Black by Ann Cleeves which had been on my Kindle for a few months. It felt a bit like relevant work reading as Shetland comes up a lot at work, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It was just what I needed at the time, enough plot to keep me interested, but nothing complicated.

Find one hundred geocaches
We're still at 534 finds, 46 for the year to date. We normally do a lot when we're on holiday but as this year's holiday was peternity leave it's thrown our numbers out a bit. Hopefully we'll make up a little ground over the remainder of the year. 

Try three gym classes
No progress on this, with the physio and podiatrist I think this will need shelving until next year.

Meet up with an old friend
We saw a few old friends at the Aardman party which was really nice. I've also exchanged emails with a couple of other friends, hopefully we'll be able to coordinate diaries and catch up over the next few months.

Blog once a month
September was a bit of a bad month, with my only blog being my August catch up post. I've got a couple of blogs planned for this month, so hopefully I'll do better in October.

Watch a new film once a month
After watching Divergent last month, we watched Insurgent next which again I really enjoyed. We also watched Super 8, I wasn't sure what to make of it, I didn't even know it was sci fi when it started, but it was better than I expected once it got going. 

Take six day trips
No progress on this one, I think this may need to wait until next year, but you never know!


October has been busy so far (as you can tell by the fact I didn't get around to posting this in the first week of the month...) but I'm hoping things will settle down. I'm looking forward to a few movie nights in front of the fire and walks kicking fallen Autumnal leaves.