(Thursday, 9 April 2020)
There are many, many things that I love about boxers, their enthusiasm for life, their loving spirits and the fact that they make you laugh out loud – at least once – every single day are just a few of them. They are known to be eternal puppies in spirit and generally only calm down in their really senior years… sometimes not even then. Consequently, they are often referred to as the ‘clowns’ of the dog world. I’m sure you already know this is true of our two loons.
It can be too much for some people, as 35kgs of solid muscle coming straight at you at Mach 10 in excited enthusiastic (and sustained) greeting can be a little disconcerting. 😬 I often joke that Boxers are made up of 99% enthusiasm and 1% brain cells. But in reality, it’s not true, they are bright dogs, but like anything that is a veritable powder keg of enthusiasm, it is sometimes that part that overwhelms the brain cells screaming for common sense… even if most of that screaming is coming from me. 🙄
Today, however is one of the days when I am most appreciative of their beautiful happy spirits, as I need to take Jack to the vets for a check up. A month or so ago, Jack needed a little op to sort out some dental and gum issues (a bad tooth and infection) as he was having some difficulty eating and let’s face it, it is one of his favourite pastimes. 😜
There are a lot of dogs that hate going to the vets, having to be dragged there, shaking, wimpering etc. Not Boxers! In all the years I’ve had the breed (which rather frighteningly also added up to 33 years, since it coincided with the year of my first mortgage), I’ve never had a boxer that didn’t love going to the vet.
Jack is no exception and he is thrilled to have a trip there and as a result he is always a popular visitor. In our vet in the UK, they all knew him by name, probably partly courtesy of his rather memorable visits in his younger years (anyone remember the squeaky toy episode?!). He used to rush into the waiting room, straight up to the reception desk and stand up on his back legs to greet the receptionist… who promptly gave him the cuddles and treats that he expected when he arrived!
We have been lucky to find a wonderful vet here too and today’s visit was no exception. Jack enjoyed his trip, doing everything that was asked of him, standing still, allowing us all to poke around in his mouth, sitting beautifully (if slightly heavily 😬) on the scales when requested and not at all phased by the masks everyone was wearing.
I don’t think I mentioned it but this is now required when going to any premises, shops etc. I didn’t see many people in the town when I drove through, but a lot of them were wearing masks just walking around too. It was a slightly odd sight, but not as odd as wearing one felt. It turns out trying to communicate in German is even harder when the words are a bit muffled, it made for some challenging and quite amusing attempts to check in when we arrived! 😳
Since the vets is located very close to the river and Sisi park, I took Jack for a short walk afterwards. He loved having a bit of an adventure and let off a bit of steam after having to concentrate so hard on standing still! The temperature was starting to climb a bit too, so he very enthusiastically had his first dip of the year. Cursing the short lead I’d brought with me and balanced precariously on the bank, I very nearly joined him! 😂
Returning home, we took a deep breath and began work on the much procrastinated job that we had first started in November 3.5 years ago – replacing the wood of the balcony that runs to the side of our house. The worst of the wood had been on the highest section of balcony outside out of Room 4. It had been covered by one of those green outside carpets for balconies that was nothing short of grungy. Ripping it up to replace it in the October of our first year, we discovered that the wood was rotten and downright dangerous. Yikes. 😱 Predictably, the wood has to be cut to order as it is an odd size and so we ended up learning to repair balconies in -5 and snow. That was fun! The next year we did the middle section but put off the top section that, whilst it was closest to the ground, there was a load of accumulated shite in there, including an old rabbit hutch, bits of wood, loads of cobwebs and dust and just general crap.
It’s taken us this long to get around to doing the last section, but hadn’t prioritised it as it was on our end of the balcony and reasonably safe. It’s also a shit job, difficult to access and fiddly. Today was the day! 😇
Cosmetically, it would be nice to replace the whole thing but financially, and of course, because it simply isn’t possible to access any more materials at the moment, we must work with what we have. As it was, we needed one more board than we had planned for (the perils of leaving a job for so many years) but luckily Mark was able to make one out of the wood that we had here for another purpose and it will do the job perfectly well for now.
We managed to get half of the boards fitted in the afternoon and whilst Mark was making the new board, I managed to get the last section of the fence covering fitted, so all in all, a very productive day. To be continued tomorrow…
Stay safe everyone xxx
