A VALENTINE'S DAY MILKSHAKE...

Pity the man whose wife's birthday is just beforeValentine's Day.

He doesn't want to be buying more chocolates and/or cards and/or flowers.  And I don't blame him.

No really I don't.

I'm lucky enough to be married to a man who does (is that the right word?) romantic gestures all year round (on reflection I think perhaps makes romantic gestures is better) . . . Things like putting air in my car tyres; not making me feel a big ninny for being too much of a pussy to drive anywhere other than very, very local; encouraging me to do the crafty and writingy things I enjoy even though I feel guilty because I don't go out to work ...
I could go on.
(I won't, don't worry).

DECORATING...

...Or, The Sometimes Interesting Effects of Paint Fumes

Yep, recently I have been 'decorating'.  I use the inverted commas purely to highlight the fact that it might not be everyone's idea of decorating.  No carefully selected ornaments, accent colours or wall art here.  Just everything out of the room, a couple of coats of paint on walls and woodwork, and everything back in the room. Sometimes even before the paint's dry.

It works for us.  Luckily our house is old and rustic and so can take this wanton approach.

The reasons for this re-decoration spurt ... (I say 'spurt' -  again, might not be everyone's idea of a spurt.  But two rooms in the space of a couple of months is a spurt as far as I'm concerned) ... Yes, the reasons for this spurt are manyfold.
And here (in No Particular Order, as the lovely Dermot O'Leary would have you believe) they are...

THE DOG WITH IMPA...

Or...the continuing tale of the DoNotBreakTheDog dog

I finally got round to updating Witch's story on The Dog(Don't Break It) page.   So now we are fully up to date, up to speed and the dog is probably up to no good as I type.

This instalment starts at the sub-heading 'Get it on film..' - to save you the trauma of re-reading the first bit :)

**I'm almost entirely sure there must be a way to add a link to a heading, but I'm darned if I can work it out.  Any advice would be greeted with an almost embarrassing display of gratitude**

DOG DAY AFTERNOON (must look up what that means...)

A post about the Dog after whom this Blog is named. 
I know.  Wild.

The casual passer-by might well wonder why the blazes this blog is called 'Do Not Break the Dog' -  since it doesn't seem to be about dogs at all, apart from my shamefully neglected 'The Dog' page. 

Well today all that changes. 
For one day, at least.

Just a brief bit of background to get you up to speed:

Our dog, Witch,  was diagnosed with IMPA (Immune-Mediated Poly-Arthritis) when she was just about 1 year old.  She has been having treatment ever since - LOADS of drugs - and is so far not responding as well as we all might have hoped.  She is a lot better than she was, thankfully, but she certainly doesn't move in the way you'd expect for a dog of her age, and she tends to react badly when her drug dosage is decreased. 
Her condition, and the treatment for it, have led to muscle wastage - and exercise can cause her pain and discomfort.

A-n-y-w-a-y...that's enough background, on to the . . . front ground?