I'm tough I am

This is another cute dog blip, for which I make no apologies. However, it's also a bit of a laugh at the dog blip, which is another fact of life in my family, if you're not laughing at someone else, they are laughing at you, and the dog is very much a full member of the family. Ranza is a Golden Retriever, and they are gun dogs, bred to retrieve game shot by their owners (perhaps I should get a gun, or a bow and arrows, though the cleaning of the animals rather puts me off, as much as I'm sure they'd taste great).

Now, if you look up the breed on Wikipedia, the entry includes this phrase: 'Golden Retrievers have an instinctive love of water'. Hmm, I suppose she's not the typical specimen! What you can see in this shot is Ranza standing unusually close to the edge of the sea, and thinking 'what is Jill doing, she's actually standing in all that horrible water???' at the same time as 'that small wave just got my paws wet, I'd better get out of here'. She has always hated the sea, which I frankly find funny. I am trying to train her out of it, and I think we have had some success with the burn, where she will now happily not just drink, but also walk across it if required, being even (sometimes) prepared to go up her stomach in the water, to be fair on Ranza I should say that as long as it has mud in it, she's happy to go into water, it's the clear, clean looking stuff she doesn't like! The scariest of all is the waves in the sea, and she runs away from them in a very entertaining way. Now please don't think I'm cruel to her, I'd never chuck her in or anything like that, and when she's scared I'm very reassuring, but it really can be very funny indeed just to stand on the beach and watch her when the tide is coming in towards her. And be assured, she has a whole variety of ways to make me look completely ridiculous too, and very much enjoys doing so - I'm just glad she can't work the camera!

Apologies for the lack of commenting yesterday and today, I spent most of yesterday evening reading a LogFrame for the Bangladesh project for which we will be submitting an application to the Scottish Goverment for funding, and then this morning my best laid plans were scuppered by a complete lack of internet, which I understand at various points affected the whole of Arran (until lunchtime), Bute, and some bits of Ayrshire. Bet someone had fun fixing that! Been trying to get organised today for a manic week or so at work, my next day off will probably be the 24th of November. If I become incoherent at any point, just ignore me!