Category: Home

Homecoming

Well after 6 weeks in Dunedin I’m finally going home today. It’s going to be very odd going from Dunedin, where the daily high might reach 18, to Cairns where the daily low might reach 18.

And my cat is going to demand many many compensatory belly scratches. And Jack’s demands are going to be *nothing* when compared to my ever so demanding (:-)) wife’s expectations for snuggles and pampering after I left her alone and up the duff to go traipsing off to another country for 6 weeks…

And then I’ve got to get used to going to work again. Ah well. Suppose I can’t expect to be paid to do nothing forever… (although sometimes I think it would be nice).

And baby makes Three

Well actually it’s four, given that Jack is such an integral part of the family.

Today Simone had her first (12 week) ultrasound of our first attempted child. Apparently all is well to date with bones being where they should be and the like. Another 2 months before we get to the good scan (with fingers and brains and heartbeats etc) but it’s still a significant milestone. According to or reckonings it should be cooked and ready on about the 20th of April next year, although for those inquisitive souls out there you may have to wait until then to find out a sex, as we think we’re going to let it be a surprise.

In other related news Simone is planning on taking next year off work, and since Cairns have offered me a non-training job doing Orthopaedics we’re going to be staying in Cairns for another year, which obviously wasn’t the initial plan when we decided to come up, but as they say, life is what happens when you’re making other plans.

Jack the mighty hunter

The other night Jack managed to drag in a bird.

Given that he was wearing what I swear is the loudest bell on his collar that you can get without earplugs and a permit (it really is very intrusive, and makes jack jingle like santa’s sleigh whenever he walks) I can only assume that either Jack was very very cautious, slow and clever about his hunting, or that his prey was the dumbest (and possibly deafest) bird in existence.

Construction zone

We currently live in a recently constructed new subdivision, and as such there is still a fair bit of construction of new houses nearby, however mostly it has been far enough away that the worst you get of it is going on is seeing the concrete trucks rumbling past along the road.

In the last few weeks however both the vacant block immediately behind us, and the one across the road have begun having new houses built on them.

Jack loves it of course, as there’s always something to see out the window during the day, and new things to explore each evening, but for us it’s a bit wierd, as they’re kind of boxing us in, and the builders do sometimes seem to start their banging, hammering, sawing and the like at some disconcertingly early hours. Twenty past six in the morning a few weekends ago…

Swinging from the chandaliers

In a nice illustration of our familial eccentricity, our standard routine when Simone and I are going out is to say to Jack, “Now you behave yourself while we’re gone. No loud parties and no swinging off the ceiling”.

It stems from a piece of silliness early last year where I suggested that while we were out Jack and my childhood stuffed toy “Teddy” were throwning some kick-ass parties together.

Now the other day I noticed that the leading edges of the ceiling fans were looking a little grubby, so I got a cloth and wiped them down, and guess what! The “grime” was in fact a uniform thin coating of Jack hair. Now a logical person would suggest that his hair is sufficiently light to loft up and get caught on the front of the fan, but I can’t help wondering whether it’s up there as a result of Jack ignoring our parental edicts, and swinging off the ceiling fans while we’ve been out.

The next question is of course whether he’s doing this in relation to a party or as practice for his try out for circus school…

It followed me home, can I keep it?

The above is a perenial favorite quote in the ramsay family, which was apparently uttered by my father as a child, after he had managed to coax and bribe one of the local stray cats to follow home back to his house one day.

He of course denies this is how it happened (but we don’t believe him for an instant).

Anyway. The point of this post is..

Today I got up and opened the door onto the patio (if you can call it that) to let Jack have a run around outside, which he duly did. About half an hour later I went into the kitchen to make myself a cuppa, and while I was there I heard this strange snuffling sound coming from behind me in the lounge, and turned around in time to be startled by a little black-with-grey-speckling puppy trotting into the kitchen.

He was little. He was friendly. He was boisterous. He was sooooo cute!!!

I wanted to keep him.

Instead however I lead him out to the front of the house and he trotted off down the street (I can only assume either to continue his adventuring, or to return home and tell his family about me).

He was very cute however. I could easily have been convinced to keep him if out situation was different. Jack wouldn’t mind. He’d be sure to let that dog know who’e boss. 🙂

Jack the Xenophobe

The house we are currently renting has been put on the market to be sold, and so we are in the ever so fun situation of having the land agent bring people through to see the house every two or three days, and Jack doesn’t like it one bit.

Having just lived with Simone and I, Jack is something of a ‘fraidy-cat when it comes to other people. If it’s friends of ours coming over for dinner he’s usually happy to watch them for a little while and then sidle over for some belly scratches and head pats, but when people just come into his home and stomp around and ignore him he’s not pleased at all.

In fact I’ve been told that he tends to tear into the spare bedroom and hide under the bed, or under the duvet on the bed, only to emerge after the strangers are gone and everything is quiet again.

Goodness knows how he’ll cope if we ever have kids…

Jack the academic

As I have mentioned perviously, I have begun studying for the surgical part 1 exam in october, and so it would seem has Jack.

Whenever I sit down at my desk to study he plonks himself down behind my textbook to supervise.

Sometimes he sleeps. Sometimes he swishes his tail across my textbook or my computer, and sometimes he decides that I’ve been studying long enough and steals my highlighter and bats it around on the floor until I come and take it back/play with him.

Below, for the pleasure of the jury, is photographic evidence.

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Today, given the page Jack was trying to knock my physiology text book open to, I think he wants to learn about Excitatory postsynaptic potentials and neuron membrane physiology. I can certainly see why that would be an issue of some interest to him…