December round up

How can it be 10th January already? I'm sure Christmas can't have been that long ago. 

December was a nice month, not just because of the long break at the end of the month, but that helps! Maybe everyone is just in a much better mood in December.

We caught up with a couple of friends who we hadn't seen for a few years at the start of the month. They've recently moved back to the UK from the Falkland Islands so we thought we should make the most of being half an hour apart, not 13,000 miles! We went out for lunch at their local, the food was good as was the company. I'm looking forward to doing it again.

Barney had a trip to the vet, he was neutered and had a couple of retained puppy canine teeth out at the same time. I felt awful putting him through it but he bounced back (literally!) really quickly. He was sent home with a cone of shame, but he couldn't cope with his head being so much wider that usual and kept clouting things, and my shins were starting to suffer, so we got him a recovery suit. He was much happier!

Sad puppy

Happy puppy!

I left Andrew and the recovering Barney alone for a couple of hours to meet a friend for lunch. She had a baby just over a year ago, but this was about the second time she's had some time to herself apart from to work. We spoiled ourselves with a trip to Pizza Express and have resolved to do it more often. 

Work was fairly quiet, which makes it a good time to catch up with admin. We had our Christmas lunch which was really nice. We always exchange Secret Santa presents over lunch, they varied from the useful to outrageous. Mine was a, "Leave me alone, I'm only talking to my dog today" top. How well they know me.

We had to miss one week of puppy school after Barney's op. He had been making good progress, but after being under virtual house arrest whilst he was recovering, he was like a thing possessed when we took him back. We're taking a month off in January as we're so busy and hopefully he'll calm down a little with being a month older!

On the whole, I really enjoyed Christmas this year. We spent Christmas Day at home, much as Andrew rolled his eyes at me buying presents for Barney, he enjoyed unwrapping them and adopted each of his toys in turn as his new favourite. We had a nice lazy day, got up late, did presents with a few snacks, threw some balls for Barney and then a mid afternoon Christmas lunch. What's not to like?!

Barney's Christmas robin already looking a little worse for wear

I'll only wear these antlers if I can have a biscuit, okay?

I can't even see now, my price has gone up to two biscuits

We went to see Andrew's family the following day. Barney got to meet Andrew's aunt and his sister and brother in law the first time. He's still not getting on brilliantly with Andrew's parents' dog, but things went slightly better than last time. He was very excited to meet all the new people, but at least he didn't disgrace himself. Andrew's father managed to wind him up by shaking a biscuit tin at him for longer than was strictly necessary, but we're trying to forget about that! We all had plenty of presents and were thoroughly spoiled and well fed.

By the 27th, it was time to see my family. Barney had met my parents and brother before, there were no other dogs and no-one shook a tin at him, so it all went very well. He injected just the right amount of fun into the day and he's been invited back, so he must have done well.

Can you tell I helped Mum unwrap her presents?

Now onto my final summary of progress against my plans for the year...

Read sixteen books
No progress in December, I'm afraid. I have almost finished my audio book I've been listening to for six months though. That gives me a final count of 6/16. Whoops.

Find one hundred geocaches
We're still at 534 finds, which leaves us at 46/100. Whoops again.

Meet up with an old friend
I met up with a number of friends over the year, it's been great and can just hope to find the time to do the same next year. 

Blog once a month
I published a couple of posts penned by Andrew about his cataract surgery saga. If you are interested, you can find them here and here.

Watch a new film once a month
We've been rubbish with films, but I can recommend a couple of good XBox One games! We watched 12 over the year though, so on average we hit target.

Take six day trips
No progress on this one, it's fair to say that Barney has changed how we spend our spare time quite significantly!


I'm already thoroughly enjoying January, so I'll keep up with my monthly updates. If nothing else, I quite enjoy looking back at what I've done over the month. I've not set any resolutions or the like for 2017, but am already hitting the gym with a vengeance and enjoying it. Fingers crossed that continues!