Weather-wise, it’s déjà vu all over again here; wet and windy and keeping me awake at night. It was forecast, so it’s not a surprise, but I’m sick of it none the less. Thankfully, after last weeks storm, nobody has left out rubbish, so the street is relatively clear of debris. On that note, I was more than a little irritated by a neighbour. Her bin had fallen over as mentioned before, and her rubbish was spewing all over the street and included an orange bag of rubbish. Sunday evening, I could hear a lot of noise, and Monday morning noted her bin was upright, and so was mine. I don’t know if she’d up-righted my bin because she assumed hers had knocked mine over, or because she was using my bin to keep hers from falling over again. I got out some gloves, and a bin bag, and proceeded to collect ‘her’ rubbish from outside my house. Disgusting, in that it included ‘puppy papers’ used for house training young dogs. Her bin was full, so I placed them in mine only to discover her orange bag of rubbish already in my bin. Normally, I wouldn’t mind too much however this is the woman who I have spoken to, twice, only to have her blank me out completely. And now she’s using my bin? I’d leave it out the back, out of her reach, however I use my bin to block my car space when I go out. It’s the only way I have a remote chance of parking in my own street if I go out…

I spoke to my sister last week and she told me she was ‘shocked’ that one of her dogs, who is 7 years old, gave birth to a small litter. She has 2 small bitches, neither is young, a very large bitch who is totally untrained and a royal pain, and to this mix she introduced a small dog and didn’t get him neutered. Now, she’s had 3 children, so she knows what’s what, and she’s shocked? LMAO. I love my kid sister, I like her too which isn’t the same thing at all, but sometimes I do wonder about her. Luckily, she’s had a lot of interest in the puppies, and hopefully, when the time is right, she will let them go to new homes. She already has 4 dogs, so to keep any of them will be plain irresponsible IMO.

Food-wise, my son and I are diverging at an increasing rate and we’re often having different meals now. I enjoy meat, love fish, and love vegetables. In fact, I think I have a very varied diet with some vegan/vegetarian meals thrown in for good measure. My son eats few vegetables though makes up for it in fruit, hates fish with a passion, and often doesn’t want meat. He’s also heavy-handed with the chilli, and garlic too sometimes. Saturday night he made dinner; pasta with a tomato-based sauce, mushrooms, olives, and sliced haloumi – dry fried. Very nice, except that he had to add chillies! He can’t seem to accept that they adversely affect my rosacea, and in the night, I’m invariably woken with stomach pains where they aggravate my ulcer. Next time, I’m making my own sauce. I love that he’ll cook for us, I just wish he’d respect that I don’t like/can’t tolerate some items.

Today, Sunday, I’m making a shepherd’s pie with a sweet potato and vegetable-mix mash on top. I’m going to make the meat sauce early so he can taste it, and if he doesn’t like it, I’ll make a different version for him using green lentils instead of lamb. The good thing about him eating less meat is that it’s cheaper on the grocery bill as the meat goes further, and we end up freezing half of what we each have, so that’s a quick meal for another time. It does add to the washing-up though lol. Swings and roundabouts…

A wow moment – each night, before I go to bed, I look out of the bedroom window and check on my car. Checking it’s still there for one thing. One night recently I espied what I thought was a small brown dog. It walked strangely for a dog, so I quietly opened the window to get a better look, and noted it was an urban fox trotting along our street as if it was the most natural thing in the world for it to do. How exciting! I called my son to come and look but he was totally unfazed and even a little grumpy at how excited I was. I haven’t seen a fox, except on TV, in decades and I’ve never seen an urban fox before. I guess the rubbish in the street recently was too good to pass up. Although it’s very built-up here, there are several places, including one quite close by, where it could be holed up to keep safe during the day. It made my week! Each night I check my car, I’ll now be checking the street to see if I see it again. So, we have birds aplenty, squirrels, too, and now a fox! There are some benefits to urban living it seems.

Enjoy what’s left of the weekend, take care if going out, and have a good week.