Some may think we’ve all gone mad
Celebration time please don’t feel sad
The life and times of Uncle Tony
To rest forever in a place so homely

So here we are at Keepers Cott
This place for Tony just hit the spot
In the garden that he loved to tend
Mown grass, turned soil, each bird a friend

He started like in Prince Albert Cotts
But now will rest at Auntie Dot’s
His final wish sweet home from home
Tranquil, at rest, no more to roam.

Fondly remembered with love
 Eunice, Ralph and all the Family.

—

A poem Eunice wrote us for the Memorial Gathering for Uncle Tony last weekend. Sunday, May 3rd 2009.

Yesterday I had a headache, tension from my neck I think – getting worse during the day.
Eventually warded it off, then just felt the weird ‘I should have a headache, but the pain is pretty much blocked’ felling.
Then, once again, fell asleep early-ish. For a few weeks I couldn’t get to sleep until the morning hours. Now I’m getting to 10pm and can’t stay awake.
What gives? Maybe it’s the hayfever. Or something…

So, anyway, I woke up, from my bed – where I fell asleep [well, it's still a blanket on a matress at the moment] and went downstairs to my ‘bed’.
Couldn’t get to sleep for ages. But eventually did.
Then woke up at like half 4, after having a really cool dream [about friends coming over, 80 puppies, Jess cautiousplay of Youtube (eh?), a strange bathroom that wasn't mine, etc].

Anyway, I woke up from the dream, hot and sweating, with a soaked shirt? Wtf? It wasn’t a scary dream, or a dodgy dream, neither of which I really have. It was just a cool hanging out, normal dream, mainly about dogs [never had 80 puppies before!] which I would have liked to continue.
I have been waking up hot alot under my new duvet. Even more so with the new linen cover… but never sweating.
But I was really tired, so I guess I could have been sleeping too deeply to realise I was so hot.

Who knows… so anyway, once again, couldn’t get back to sleep.
And was freezing when I got out and shivering – because I’d been sweating and the night was actually pretty cold, 1degree I think my laptop said when I put it on.

So today I feel kinda… tired, and a little drained.
Hmm, we’ll see.

Pretty objective

About, pretty much people

Maybe you ha’nt seen it,

Haven’t lived enough?

Pretty defenceless,

Cos you don’t need a fence, when

There’s nothing to fence in,

I’m nothing, a lot.

And I’m stuck

Tripping but trying

Well, cos I’ve stuck my heart in

Whether you see it or not

Now I’m fed up of trying

Cos receipts are just lying

Haven’t seen more than one [thing],

That I think I trust

Pretty,

And oh so, pretty

For weeks bare me pity

Then not so much

Scoundrel?

No, just stacked on the back shelf

And keeping my head down

To save you from it

Regret it?

Oh, I’m still regretting

Don’t find me there, find me fretting,

And kicking myself

Forget it?

There’s no forgetting

I wish that I left it

But I just can’t

Why am I not hungry, at all, and why can’t I sleep!
It’s been about a week.

I’m just not hungry, at all – I only eat because I ‘eat anyway’.
And as proven here… since it’ll be 12am in a couple of minutes… that I just can’t get to sleep for ages.
I’m not even really tired… Well I sort of am – I’m done for the day… just seems like I don’t wana sleep.

Urh! Something, go right? Starting flowing the right way again?

Oh well… Maybe I’ll read some of ‘How To Talk So Kids Can Learn’…
After that shall I read ::
Siblings without Rivalry… or Huckleberry Finn… Hmm.

Watched Jack Holborn Today… [yesterday...]
Took dogs for their first bike ride, obviously they ran following.
Chilling with chickens.
More paint ordered.

Etc…

Just literally nothing, is going well.
I feel like I’m just getting through one day of annoyance and anger to get to the next, and it doesn’t get better.

I need more sleep, and I can’t get it, I have to stay up to let the dogs out and put them away. Then I have to get up in the night to let the cat out or in at least once… no one else does any of those things.
Ben doesn’t do a thing, not one thing to help, or with, the dogs. In fact, he does nothing at all, except play Xbox, and go to get logs when he’s asked 10times and we’ve run out.
You’d think at nearly 17 he could do something for himself… but he doesn’t have to, because it’s all done for him, and nothing is expected of him. You’d think at 17, he’d be able to see, with his eyes, that there weren’t many logs left, and to get some, but no… And when he does get them, he hardly puts any in the barrow.
For years I did it all the time, all seasons, even with no energy, and feeling crap, and got loads in, for everyone else to use.
And I still have to get them in, because he doesn’t do it soon enough.

This morning I woke up, after not enough sleeping enough still. Mom always gets up around 7 and then the dogs can hear her and whine until I get up to let them out.
Anyway, when I woke up later, they’d weed and pooed everywhere, they’d ripped up a packet that mom had given them… They’d pooed right behind my shoe, so as I put it on before I’d seen it, it was now trodden everywhere.
So I had to spend like 20minutes cleaning all that up, and de-strenching the room.

Then they’ve been really naughty all day, they are just doing stuff on purpose. And keep going out in the lane. And totally disappeared earlier for ages.

Also last night I had a big argument with a friend, because it pisses me off her whole family smokes in a house where there’s a 2 year old, and I can’t believe how selfish that is, and how all the people around me that are sick, dying or dead from smoking, none of that makes anyone think, ‘well actually, why am I doing this weak, stupid thing that only costs me, harms me and anyone and everyone around me?’

I got a hoody through today that I ordered, and it’s too small, and shite quality and was £16.99 and postage on top of that.
And if I send it back, it’ll be soting me money, and I won’t have anything to show for it.

And seed potatoes that mom asked me to buy came while I was out walking with the dogs… and need to be laid out asap… but mom is out tonight, out tomorrow, out all day Saturday… there’s going to be no time to help…

No one ever spends any time together… what is the point.

And on top of all that… I’m already pissed off, and sitting down to eat some lunch, when Granny comes home with my auntie Nicky and Nicky’s granddaughter Ellie [my cousin Greg's daughter, another Ellie to my friend Em's newborn baby]…
And she scares the dogs, because she chanses them, and picks them up and shakes them, and pats them really hard… even though she’s been told she doesn’t ever listen.
And they ALWAYS just go through, and leave her with me… and no matter how many times I say about not doing things that hurt them, or to be careful, or to let them sleep, or not to KEEP picking them up every second, cos they don’t want to be…
She just keeps doing it, and ignores you.
And I’m so fed up of it.
I love kids, and sure, if you say ‘Louise, will you look after ____’ or whatever… that’s fine… But don’t just leave me with her, without asking, when I’m already doing things, when you know, she just does stuff she’s not meant.
And they all just let her!
The dogs are so scared they try to hide behind me, and they cower and wee everywhere. And then it makes them scared of other kids that are nice to them, and it’s teaching them behaviours that I can’t stop unless someone stops her doing it… and she just ignores it.
I’m just gona have to make her not like me, because I’m the only one who ever tells her not to… she already is only just warming to me, because she’s never known us growing up… but I can’t deal with the dogs having nowhere to hide every time she invades and won’t leave them alone…
And I have to stay right next to them and her all the time, because they’re too scared and she’s worse with them when she thinks no one can see.

I’m so fed up of all this.
Just one good thing?
Will just some nice thing happen?

I ended up saying it all to my gran, and I was very annoyed at the time… and no it’s not her fault, but she’s the one who lets it happen.
She always says it’ll be fine and just expects me to entertain or look after someone she brings in to the house… well it’s not my company, I haven’t expected those people, and if it’s someone that’s then causing problems on top of it, it’s not fair.

She’s just been through to say sorry about it. And I have explained it’s not her fault, but why it’s a problem.

Urh. Now I feel bad for having to be angry at Ellie and annoyed at Granny, when I haven’t even done anything!

URH. I need to break something. I want my boxing bag up to hit until I hurt myself, but there’s no where it can go…
What can I do…
If I smash anything I’ll just feel bad afterwards…

I can’t win…

Maybe I’ll try to do my photo for today.

I’ve just started reading the Introduction about the author mostly.
And have just decided, there must be a solution, and I’m going to dedicate a lot of my life to finding out how, and hopefully passing it on, writing about it, whatever. No one else is, so I’ll try to.

I refuse to give up hope, and I will find out how to make it better.
And explore every inch of my experience, however I can… perhaps bar drugs. I still think they’re unnecessary and a pointless cover.

One day…

About a dog, Alfie, a 2 1/2 year old, Parson Russell Terrier.

He apparently had behavioural problems and couldn’t be rehomed with cats… but I couldn’t get him out of my head once I’d seen him and emailed to make sure about the cat thing.
No one replied, so we kept trying places with Puppies from the Friday-Ad.
About an hour or so, before we were just to leave for an ‘appointment’ with this guy Matt, I got an email saying the lady had had to check with previous foster carers of Alfie, and they said ‘no problem with Alfie and cats’.
But we had to go… and I’d wanted Gyp since I saw the advert, long before we rang up… but fearing he’d be the one that was gone, or a girl, we set off. I also wanted Bruno, seeing him online… but though he might also be a female.
We got there… and they were both there, along with another… and both boys…
Obviously, all the many nobody that reads this, would know I have those two puppies mentioned.

Now, I’m 20… We have had a dog, since I was about 6/7… first was our Jack Russell, Berkeley, then was Oaki… all these years, 14 years, I’ve wanted two dogs… and mom has always said no.
I almost bought one of Oaki’s brothers when I got him [he would have been called Indi, and I still think about him, and hope he''s okay, and still want him...], but something told me not to, that someone else would want him/need him.
Sure enough, he was the last one, [I had said if he was still the only one left when we went to get Oaks I'd have him, probably... and he was...], but the lady put his picture up in the vet and a lady who had just lost her dog, was looking for exactly him.
So it felt right…

So mom, finally properly gave in with these, and she wasn’t wild about me getting two from Oaki’s litter – they would have been all on me, and ‘we wouldn’t be allowed to take two on holiday’. But these are much smaller… and calmer.

But still, I can’t get Alfie out of my head, I think about him all the time, I go to check up on the website to see of any updates, or news, or adoption… but none. And this month he has been dog of the month.
I still really want him, and now Gyp and Bruno have settled and calmed, it wouldn’t be unfair… but I know mom would never let me…

I want him to be adopted, but at the same time, I don’t because I want it to be me, I think I could train him well.
I’ve even mentioned him to other people I know, they could adopt him, and I’ll train him and look after him when they need it.
But I doubt it will ever happen.
I’d love to foster him, but I don’t know if I’d be allowed and I fear I wouldn’t want to let him go… and then suddenly, we’d have 3 dogs, a cat and 3 chickens… plus looking after the garden, the wild birds, and possibly getting some more pond fish [though not totally decided against an aquarium]. I’d also like ducks, a cockatiel, and anything else I can get my hands on.

This is Alfie.

I have started reading “How to talk so kids will listen, and listen so kids will talk” – which is good, though I don’t have a child to test all the assignments out on… I just have an interest in child psychology etc. and am hoping this will all help with my Stonebridge home learning diploma, and my general knowledge.

I’m already part way through ‘Vegetables in a Small Garden’, reading while waiting and to prepare me for the coming seasons.

And I’m pretty sure I started something else…

I’m also tempted to start Food For Free, now I’ve got it, plus a few others… Pace yourself Louise…

This all works in theory, but half the time my attention span just stops. Hence not getting through that many…
And not reading much.
And joyus grin ran through me when I opened the box to a pile of brand new books though.
Spose the idea of reading is a lot easier than doing it.

Anyway, I’ll have more to add when my brain has a minute to think.
I’ve had ‘brain/head fog for’ about 2 weeks and it’s starting to grate on me, cos there’s loads I want to do and it’s just making me feel tired and crap, or maybe that’s why I have it.

More about:
The Chickens today, to come.

- Ray Wiley Hubbard.

So yeh, I just made some grits…
That I got through the post from American Sweets, or whatever it’s called.

I duno if I made it right… but it was weird. Not unpleasant, just weird.
Easy to eat thought.

Got some other stuff too, but yeh.
Mainly ordered cos Ben wanted Jolly Ranchers, why the hell don’t they sell them here any more? We always used to have them when we were young.
Pizza goldfish crackers.
Jones soda. Grape. And Natural Peach and Tangelo.

Also took the dogs for a run through the stream and mud up to the style.

IKEA delivery came this morning, with some idiots… who I’m sure were fine, but apparently the person I spoke to hadn’t communicated to anyone that we lived down a small lane and would need a small lorry… so obviously they blamed us, even though it was fine… and they apparently couldn’t turn round, which must be due to their poor driving skills, as much bigger lorries have managed to turn round.
And this like 6″4′ bloke was all warey of the dogs… who are probably less than a foot high, and probably couldn’t hurt you if they tried.

And have emailed Sarah Wilson re: Singing Lessons, and Margaret Walsh re: Hypno.
Just to open the lines of communication.

‘Bout it for now I think.