Howling mad?

By | | Family
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Yesterday Sam did her second Wolf Run of the year.

A Wolf Run is a 10k cross-country obstacle course.

To be clear, it’s not a race (there are no ‘places’), and it’s not really a competition (there are no timed sections, and nothing is against the clock).

The entrants are just competing against the course.

Which, to be fair, is no mean feat.

There are four Wolf Runs a year (one for each season), and entrants who complete all four in a year are entitled to call themselves ‘Alpha Wolfrunners’.

Wolfrunning is a popular pursuit.

In this weekend’s run there were >8,000 entrants (the run was spread over both days).

It’s a big weekend and, by and large, well organised.

There are food stalls, entertainments, amusements for non-entrant members of the family, evening activities and camping available.

There is a doctor and first-aid/medics on site, there are ambulances on the course, and there are swim-qualified helpers in the various water hazards.

I am immensely proud that Sam has completed two Wolf Runs this year.

I’m also very proud that Sam did a mini-Wolf Run today, one day after she did a full run, as she accompanied her daughters on their first 3k Junior Wolf Run.

These are stunning achievements.

But because I’ve got an enquiring mind, I thought I’d run some numbers (and some of these numbers are best/worst-guess) on this weekend’s Wolf Run event.

There are some estimates in here, and I’ve also left some number out (most noticeably Merch, which is probably hugely profitable), but there are also some hard numbers which would stand up to scrutiny.

ExpenditureIncomeBalance
Land£10,000Entries£400,000Profit£241,400
Security£10,000Merch
Toilets£10,000Pitches
Marquee x3£5,000Parking£25,000
Generators£1,500Bar
PA/sounds£1,500
Course design/build£14,400
Course breakdown£14,400
Staff/event crew£16,000
Tool/machine hire£800
Legal£10,000
Admin£10,000
Competitor goodies£80,000
Set up time8d
Break down time8d
Total:£183,600Total:£425,000

Multiply these number by four and you get an approximate average annual income from the four Wolf Runs.

Counting people

By | | Dogging
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(I am writing this post on my phone, so I’m a slave to autocorrect. Any errors are purely unintentional)

So.

Pupper and I do walkies.

We do big walking in the big big big open spaces.

And we do them off-lead, because pupper is a good girl, doing very well at pupper training classes, and is never more than 3m in front of me or 3m behind.

Pupper and I love our walkies.

What we don’t love so much are some of the people we meet on our walkies.

But not all of them, because some of them are lovely.

Like Sue, for example, who runs our pupper training classes.

Sue always stops for a chat, even though she’s wrangling three grown-up dogs of her own.

She says nice things like ‘I wouldn’t have believed this was the same puppy you had in class last week.’

At least I think that’s meant in a nice way.

But then there are the other people.

Some of them are real counts.

They can be rude. They can be obnoxious. And they can always be total counts.

This morning (it was 6am when the pupper and I encountered her, so perhaps she’s always a really grumpy teat with a face like a slapped arsenal) we turned a corner in the field and encountered one such count.

She said, ‘Don’t pick him up, you’re only teaching him to be frightened of other dogs.’

What a duck.

The reason I picked HER up was because the grumpy old teat had no control over her own off-lead dog, that was tracking pupper like a Rapier missile rangefinder.

If I wanted the pupper to socialise (which she does very well, with the other puppers, at pupper training class, I would have said ‘By jove, you’re right. I should just let your out of control dog do what it wants with our three-month old pupper. You are indeed a wise and wonderful woman!’

Except she certainly wasn’t wise, obvs.

But why would she even think that me protecting the pupper from a dog I hadn’t seen before, an off-lead dog, and an off-lead dog that was ignoring every single voice command from the woman, would be a bad thing?

Bad for whom?

Bad for the pupper? (if so, please explain in no less than 550 words and give an example of howso)

Then there was the other fat old count, a few days ago, who had an off-lead dog called Tess.

Tess was an expert at ignoring voice commands.

The fat old count’s ‘Oh leave it alone Tess’ (where ‘it’ is our pupper, who was the target of Tess, bearing down on her like a locked-on Exocet missile) was studiously ignored.

Until I stepped between Tess and the pupper.

At that point the fat old count said ‘Come on Tess’.

Tess decided, at that point, that continuing with the person she ignored rather than duke it out with me was the better of the two options.

So far these are the only two examples of stupid teats, but both of them managed to take stupidity to a whole new level of countiness.

What a pair of duckheads

Good dogging in East Mids

By | | Dogging
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There has been a lot of dogging going on in these parts lately. And in different dogging formats too.

There’s been the freestyle dogging where we’ve been doing our own thing, like the bunch of dogging rebels that we are.

And then there’s been the more organised group dogging sessions where dogging instructors have been taking us through rewards-based dogging.

Having a puppy has meant lots of changes for us as a household and as individuals.

I can no longer pee standing up. Whenever I do, I get a pointy puppy beak poking between my legs as she tries to climb into the toilet bowl while I’m still peeing.

But when I have a safety wee the puppy comes in the bathroom and keeps guard, in her own way.

I have become adept at brushing my teeth while said puppy dangles from the belt of my bathrobe.

Having a shower has also become a hazardous activity. The first time I thought ‘that feels suspiciously like someone licking my shins’ as I struggled to get the burning Head and Shoulders out of my eyes, came as something of a shock.

That the puppy could climb up the side of the bath and, equally deftly, climb out again afterwards, came as a big surprise.

She has a great affinity with water, as we’re rapidly learning.

I’m becoming used to receiving a puppy wash at 5am, and equally used to having a puppy sit on my shoulder while watching TV in the evenings.

I can no longer go horizontal on the settee – doing so earns me a puppy sitting on my chest and I have to wear it like some kind of badge or honour.

Singing fascinates her. Specifically, me singing fascinates her, but me playing the guitar doesn’t affect her one way or another. That’s just bizarre.

Like proud parents we’ve gone past the ‘having to get up at 1.30am to take her outside for a wee’ stage. Yes, she now goes through the night.

*proud parent face*

Anyway.

The group dogging sessions… well… it’s early days. All we’re hoping for is some manners on the lead and a strongly-learned set of recall and ‘stop that’ rules.

We’re fortunate, there’s a canine training academy in the village, and it’s fair to say we have high hopes of a set of positive outcomes.

She’s got some rough puppy-edges, but every now and then we get a good long look at how we think she’s going to turn out, with some training and careful upbringing.

I think it’s going to be fun. I think she’s going to be fun.

New arrival

By | | Dogging
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Well, she’s here. And she’s been here for six days.

She’s only 9 weeks old, she’s very small (smaller than any of our cats), and she’s very, very cute.

As you can see:

It's a puppy!
It’s a puppy!
It’s a puppy with a ball!

Blogathon 28/19: The patter of little feet

By | | Blogathon
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Today there will be an addition to the family.

We’re all very excited about the arrival. Except for the cats, who haven’t quite grasped the concept of extending the family – despite having it explained to them all on several occasions.

Robyn (for that is her name) is a 9-week, 2-day old Sprocker Spaniel. She will be arriving about 4.30pm.

There will be some disruption to the household routines, a lot of ‘stuff’ will have to be moved from chewing range, and other ‘stuff’ will have to be moved around.

And there probably won’t be much sleep for the first few nights. This will be a heartbreaking time during which Robyn will be crying for her mummy and siblings. It’ll be equally heartbreaking for us humans too.

But we aim to give Robyn the very best home, full of doggy fun and walks and laughter and other things.

It’ll be interesting to see how the cats take to the new arrival…

Blogathon 27/19: Death and Taxes

By | | Blogathon
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(and the lies of politicians, obv)

Like it or not we all have to pay taxes. Unless we are millionaires who live in Belize, or the Isle of Man, or somewhere else that isn’t the United Kingdom.

Yesterday I reeived a Notification of Tax Rate from HMRC.

Hang on a minute, let me say that again.

Yesterday, exactly one month after the previous one landed on the mat, I received a new Notification of Tax Rate from HMRC.

What’s changed in my personal circumstances in the last month (I hear you cry)?

Well. Nothing.

Nothing has changed in my personal circumstances.

And yet the A5-sized envelope arrived automagically, one month after the last one.

Two months after the Notification of Tax Rate before last.

Three months after the one before the one before last.

What changed in my personal circumstances over the last two, three, and even four months?

Absolutely. Nothing. At. All.

And yet each one is different.

Oh, not big differences, just a couple of hundred quid different in my personal allowance section.

I realise the generation and posting of the A5-sized envelopes, and the inclusion of the three double-sided pieces of A4 inside it, are system events but this is ridiculous.

Note I didn’t say ‘this is starting to get ridiculous’ and the reason I didn’t say ‘starting’ is because in 2018 I received 15 Notification of Tax Rate letters from HMRC.

Now that’s ridiculous!

Blogathon 26/19: Death By Pot Noodle

By | | Blogathon
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Last night I needed to put something on top of the Welsh Dresser (Boyo) and something got in the way.

I had a rummage around and found, on its side, an unopened pot of Pot Noodle. King Sized.

When I was single I used to eat a lot of regularly eat Pot Noodleses.

The expiry date for this King Amongst Snacks is April 2018.

I’m tempted to eat it now, but a part of my brain says I should wait two ore months, so I can eat it exactly two years past its expiry date.

It’ll be an interesting biological experiment. I mean it’s only freeze-dried food so it isn’t going to have any latent germs. I’m only going to add boiling water to it and, when it has cooled, inhale it.

Nothing could go wrong, right?

Blogathon 25/19: Upstairs

By | | Blogathon
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I have been upstairs all evening, almost like one of the many punishments my mother used to dole out in my younger days.

Except this time there was no punishment involved.

*pauses for thought*

It occurs that when I was younger a punishment was being sent to bed early. These days I’d consider that a reward.

Anyway…

I read a book whilst watching a film on Netflix.

Because multitasking comes easily.

During a brief break, I did a small amount of googling that informed me the reason the ZX10R has been so frisky.

You remember I had a new battery fitted recently?

Well it seems that all computers switch back to their default, and the engine management system default is full thrust.

What does this have to do with being upstairs?

No, me neither.

Blogathon 24/19: Nothing On

By | | Blogathon
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I do surveys for money. I love it when the £50 bank credits drop in to my account. Three so far this year.

The surveys are random; they can be about anything. Topical news stories, music tastes, radio or television viewing, shopping. Anything.

I got one yesterday afternoon that went in to great detail about adverts (as seen on every kind of platform imaginable).

The survey asked if I’d seen adverts for XYZ product in the last 30 days. And so on.

XYZ product manufacturing company has obviously spent a significant amount of money on developing, testing, manufacturing, shipping and, of course, advertising the XYZ product.

And advertising the XYZ product across a range of digital, print, and broadcast media (judging by the questions I was asked).

But unfortunately I have a blind spot for adverts (across the entire range of digital, print, and broadcast media).

Because of this blindspot I was unable to name a single time, place, or method of advertising when I saw the XYZ product.

All my life, it seems, I have been carefully developing an immunity to commercials.

Unfortunately, of late, this carefully constructed skill has been wasted.

Wasted because I have ‘consumed’ (as the media folk have it) almost no mainstream media at all.

Because there is actually nothing on.

With all the many Freeview channels available you would think I’d be able to find *something* to watch?

Something that all the family can watch?

Well, that’s just not the case.

Apart from The Chase, which we will all watch, but (wo)man cannot live on The Chase alone.

It’s ridiculous, though; so many channels of nothing to watch.

If it wasn’t for Netflix and Amazon, the television would hardly ever be on. I’m just trying to work out if that’s a good or a bad thing.

Blogathon 23/19: The ULEZ Tax

By | | Blogathon
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Driving in London (though why anyone would want to do such a thing is beyond me) is about to get much more expensive.

On top of the Congestion Charge (a tax for driving in London), the ULEZ (ultra low emission zone) Charge (it’s just another tax) will be dropped on London’s motorists on 8th April 2019.

The ULEZ Tax will be in operation 24/7*365 and will cost £12.50/day. And that’s on top of the Congestion Charge Tax.

One thing about the ULEZ Tax is it will apply – across the board – to ‘older vehicles’. But it won’t take any note of whether those vehicles have been scrupulously maintained or not.

This is plainly bonkers and so far beyond any kind of logical comprehension it actually sounds like a Marx Brothers plot.

Another thing about the ULEZ Tax is it’s a flat-rate tax. The £12.50/day taxation rate applies equally to small cars, large cars, 4x4s and (wait for it) motorbikes.

I can’t roll my eyes hard enough to match the idiocy in that ridiculous scenario.

Seriously. If you want proof of people in power being hard of understanding, you have it right there.

The lunatics really have taken over the asylum.