House stuff

It became apparent soon after we moved in last year, that the bathroom was going to need a complete overhaul. Not only had the previous owners left us with a cracked shower tray, but had for some reason put pine cladding up on one side of the shower cubicle (untiled) which is now showing increasing signs off rot development .... bonkers! The white tiles that they had put on the other two walls had also not been properly grouted so we have a job on our hands. Fortunately, Mr Bricolage currently has bathroom equipment on offer at reduced prices, so we have acquired a nice new shower tray, a glass shower door (at last we can get rid of that shower curtain!) a new washbasin and some rather nice tiles. So the million dollar question is, when will we have time to get the work done .... hmmmm!

We have also had Taff down to the vets this week as he has developed a skin condition which is clearly irritating him - his chewing has resulted in hair loss at the top of his tail and down his back legs. Fortunately, a skin scraping ruled out a parasitic infection but the vet concluded that he has developed some form of allergy which has resulted in the dry, flaky skin. The advice is to reduce the protein content of his diet (sorry, no more raw meat, Taff!) and to feed him on only good quality kibble (do those two words really go together??!). In the meantime, the cortisone injection has calmed the irritation although he has been very subdued for the past 36 hrs and hasn't eaten since Sunday evening. Hopefully he will pick up again soon.

I was hankering after some exercise this afternoon after having a pretty sedentary couple of days, so I took myself up to the Col de Port on the bike, electing to ride in as hard a gear as I could muster, without completely knackering myself! I felt like I had worked my legs when I returned, which was good.

Rain this evening ... the first for some 5 weeks! It may not amount to much, but at least it is wetting the soil. There is a whisper of snow early next week......it's only a whisper, mind, so we are not holding our breathe!