More Members of the Melody Household

In addition to Mr Melody and myself, and the two Melody children , we also have a doggie named Max. Or Max the Dog as the small Melodies call him. He's an old doggie, he's twelve and a half and quite doddery on his legs, and he's recently had an ulcer on his eye had his third veterinary appointment this afternoon to check on its progress. We saw a different vet than usual this afternoon, who also took a look at his back legs.

All is going well with the eye, so far so good. Max the Dog has had dodgy legs on all four corners since he was a young puppy and had osteochondrosis in both his elbows at eight months of age for which he had two big operations and months and months of physiotherapy; he also has hip dysplasia in both hips and has medication for arthritis in his hips. I said he was doddery didn't I? Today, the 'different' vet recommended glucosamine for his dicey legs.

"It only costs as much as the Metacam. It will make a vast improvement to his mobility" said the vet, so we agreed to take it to try. Bear in mind that Max the Dog will be taking glucosamine for the rest of his life.

John and the boys took Max back to the car while I went to reception to pay the vet bill for the ten minutes we were in the surgery - £78 odd... gulp!! I questioned the total, and was told the glucosamine tablets were almost £60 for just over a month's supply.

Did I take them? No. Sorry. Our dog has been doddery for several years now and no-one has ever suggested them before. To pay out £60 per month for tablets in addition to the medication he's already taking (At £30 a month) is ridiculous. The same vet also recommended that we take Max swimming in a doggy swimming pool to improve his legs and told us that there was a specialised doggy swimming pool in the next village. Errr - no, I don't think so either thank you.

I think next time we'll make an appointment to see the vet who has her feet firmly on the ground :?

And finally - the newest addition to the Melody Household - Matthew's plant that he has grown from seed at school during the science project this term. Matt has named his plant 'Speedy McJunior'. I know what this plant is, but do you??

Knitting from Stash

Anyone who knows me well will already know that I have far, far to much yarn to ever knit in a lifetime and recently a few of my friends on the Crafty Threads 'n' Yarns forum have decided to knit from their stashes for a while. I decided that I'd like to try to achieve the same thing, and so far have managed to resist buying yarn for three weeks. It is necessary though, as after the end of the last Stashalong, that lasted for four months, I went a bit bonkers and bought lots of yarn!

I've made my list of garments I want to knit over the next twelve months, and taken yarns out of my stash and stored them in the guest room wardrobe; I have already cleared the extra yarns from said wardrobe and it needs to be catalogued and stored this morning so I can do the ironing!!

One of my planned garments is the Central Park Hoodie that was popular with knitters last winter. I have the magazine and thought that I could knit the CPH from some Charisma Supreme Heather Aran from stash which I purchased from the Yorkshire Mohair Mill some *ahem* several years ago. It's a lovely cream pure wool yarn with little brown bits in it - perfect for a CPH hoodie I thought.

I dug the yarn out of stash yesterday to and it is a CPH failure already. I knitted a tension swatch and hand washed it as it is pure wool. On 5mm needles the tension is 15sts x 20 rows which is chunky if you ask me :evil: So I have to find a chunky pattern that I'll want to knit this yarn up into - not a problem in itself but in my mind it was destined to become a CPH. So now I have to find a substitute yarn.

I do have three 400g balls of Sirdar's long discontinued Highland Aran in a gorgeous Autumn Berry colour that was ordered specially to knit some garment or other - again more than several years ago, before Matthew was born - and it will make a superb CPH. It won't have those super little flecky bits that the Debbie Bliss Aran Tweed would have, but I'm knitting from stash. Right?

Deserted!

What a poor old lonely blog this is turning out to be - I neglect it so badly don't I? Probably due to the fact that I don't have much free time to knit, never mind blog!

The 'Tide' cardigan is now finished, but needs sewing up :? so it's residing in the 'needs sewing up' cupboard at the moment along with all the current WIPs, one of which is a fusion knit wrap cardigan that I started last Bank Holiday weekend and is now nearly finished. The plan was to start and finish over the three day break, but as usual, family life and blocked sewer drains got in the way and I only have a titchy bit to complete.

It's 11.25pm, I've just finished my weekly plans for preschool and it's time for a few rows on the wrap cardi ties before bedtime.

Night, night xx!