Time to Think

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Wednesday likes to chew things. I've watched enough puppies grow up to know this is normal, but I'm a bit stuck on how to stop her nipping me. It's not painful, but when she's bigger a habit of playfully biting people may just be a problem.

The traditional way of training is to give a sharp "No!" and snatch your hand away whenever the dog tries to bite - but she just seems to think it's a game, tail merrily wagging as she snaps her teeth at my arm or ear. She is a hunting dog I suppose, but hunting dogs are supposed to be highly trainable.

Unless anyone's got any better ideas, I'll just have to hope she cottons on. And get her a stick of something chewable.

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There are periods in my life when things which make me happy - like getting another email from the fellow I knew slightly at school - make me very happy. Until something happens to make me unhappy, which makes me very unhappy.

It's always around this time of year, and I really wish it would stop. Because, with life in general being the way it always is, there's lots of little depressing things around that, magnified, make me think I can't cope. And there's a few bright sharp points where something nice happens and I'm all sunny and optimistic.

Five years ago at this time I managed to fall in love - and that was a real rollercoaster from hell. Nightly floods of tears and ecstatic laughing in the street. People must have thought I was mad - which, I suppose, I was.

After recovering - more or less - I set up this blog.

I especially do not need this kind of see-sawing now. A stranger in a strange land, doing a demanding job (at least, it will be when it starts), for a company run by a fantasist.

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I wrote all that last night, then was overcome with the feeling that what I really, really needed to do was talk to someone. About being lonely, not knowing what to do, and just generally not feeling able to cope. So, at 2300 I left the apartment, walked to the office (which has skype and a net connection), and spent an hour talking to my parents.

I can't remember the last time I've cried down the phone to anyone, especially them, but we had a good, sensible, supportive discussion, and today I feel a lot better.

The weather is sunny, there's lakes and mountains to visit half an hour's walk away, there's a camera in the post, a letter to C going the other way, a small glut of emails from friends in my inbox this morning...and I've been given advice on housetraining puppies.

Instead of snatching your hand away, shout "No!" and give her something else to chew. And sit her on some newspaper after each meal.

The secondary school vacation is about to end, which means there should be lots of students soon, which means if there aren't, there never will be, which means if this school doesn't take of in six weeks, I can walk away.

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