It turns out that JJ likes to cry. A lot. All night, it seems.

This obviously translates into me struggling harder than usual to stay awake at work when being ranted at by delusional people.

However, one sure fire way to shut him up is to give him a bath. He’s like his daddy in that way, except that he doesn’t seem to read Clive Cussler books, or watch iPlayer. Pop him in the water, and the world is a better place.

As you know, we are the proud owners of two rather inquisitive dogs. Generally, we have been trying to keep dogs and baby apart, since they are rather big fans of sharing their germ ridden saliva with anyone within licking distance.

However, just as my parents gave up sterilising my bottles when they found me french kissing the dog age >1, today I was in the bathroom, and decided to take photos of the interaction of smelly canine and naked baby.

Some nice photos ensued. See them below.

Feel free to leave a comment below on my appalling failure as a parent, a doctor and a human.

I have decided that the time has come to remove my answerphone message.

It is a bit ridiculous, rather annoying, and completely unprofessional. It is also so long that most of my friends refuse to leave me messages. The time has come for a change. However, before it goes, I am going to tell you how it arrived.

About 3 years ago, whilst on a Psychiatry placement as a medical student, I had an opportunity to go hiking to an MDT meeting in Bakewell. I decided to camp overnight in Calver, then walk to Bakewell for the meeting. Obviously, I took Heze with me.

Around 9:30pm that evening, Katherine dropped me off in Calver, a place I had never been to before. I went over a stile, wandered up a hill and looked for flat land. After a fairly strenuous search, and, I believe, a barbed wire fence, I found a flattish bit of land, and took out my tent.

I’ve put up many tents before, but I’ve rarely done it on my own, in the dark, with a tent I am completely unfamiliar with. After about 30 minutes, I finally got the tiny thing up, and crawled inside.

It was my first trip out in my shiny new (secondhand) Coleman 1 man tent, and it was a bit of a squeeze inside with a dog, a bulky rucksack and me. What with the sweating, the dog poking me in the ribs, the cows that I discovered were sharing the field with me and the strong wind making every rustle of the tent sound like an angry farmer just itching to start up his tractor; I did not sleep well.

It was at this point, about 2am, that I decided it would be a brilliant idea to zip up my tent, and record a new answerphone message. Listen to it below:

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Who would have known that “a long time ago” would stretch so far. Guys, feel free to ring me – I have a new answerphone message now!

Dear Mum and Dad,

It was lovely having you guys to stay.

However, it turns out your straggly little fox-coyote has infiltrated our house with a small plague of fleas.

Our dogs sent their thanks, and request you shave the little minx, and dip her, by her tail, into a vat of sulphuric acid.

We have meanwhile burnt all the soft furnishings of our home, along with all clothing and bedding, and are currently lying naked in front of the fire, scratching ourselves furiously.

Much love,
Chris and Katherine

We have a new housemate. She is called Pudding. And she’s an 8 month old lab/collie cross. On the right is a picture of her with the chickens.

We are also (potentially) getting a new housemate. Not going to say what she is called, but she is moving in for a week as a trial run.

Prayers, as ever, appreciated!

As you are hearing, I had a bad week, this week. Today we had a meeting with a woman from the Health Department. We wanted to say to her; if you could have money in any area what would it be. This was so that we could prepare a proposal that addresses the areas that need work in our district.

We did ask her that question. Unfortunately, she didn’t listen. After 20 minutes of her telling us that the Health Department will never give us money to employ staff, despite the fact that we just had a briefing meeting with them, where they explained what they want to do is give us money to employ staff. And she just wouldn’t listen.

It was annoying, but welcome to officialdom within Africa. We actually found out the next day that the compulsory meeting regarding the proposal had been moved, without anyone telling us, from the 23rd to Friday! So the woman, instead of lecturing us on rubbish, could actually have shared the information that she definitely knew.

This afternoon, Grant came round to play Splash, which I won very narrowly. First game I failed at, but the next two were fine, taking me to a great victory. Unfortunately the weather here has not been very sunny, so the pool is freezing. It needs three or four warm days to become warm. On the plus side, if you have have 4 hot days, then the next is cold, all day the water is still warm.

In the evening I went to cell group. Rather than any program, tonight a woman shared her pain. Her husband has been an alcoholic for 12 years, and her life is misery. It was a hard evening, but everyone shared her pain, with prayer for the both of them, with advice and with love.

I spent at least an hour afterwards just lifting up the husband to God, going over and over the qualities of an elder from Titus, asking God to bring those qualities forward.

This is the verse the lady shared, feeling that God was using them to allow her to go away for a month, to have a break:

“As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”
Titus 3:10-11

On the way home, wearing no shoes, I got trapped by a Bull Mastiff standing in the middle of the road growling. My only option was to walk an extra 2 blocks in order to avoid the dog. Still, I got home with all the skin on my legs and face still intact.

Much love,

Poopoo-le-pee

Last night was a tiring, long, unsatisfying night, after we got halfway up the mountain, carrying tents, blankets, food, saucepans, etc, etc; when Mohau got called by his angry girlfriend, and we came back down. On the long walk home, I was feeling a bit depressed, as you might understand.

So this morning, I decided to have a massive lie-in. Sleep as long as I want, write off the whole day if necessary. 8:30. That was it. The latest my body could stay asleep for. To my internal clock, still adjusting from the 2 hour difference, I would still say that is around 7:30 in equivalence. Rubbish – I’m clearly getting far too mature for all this lazing around and doing nothing. I blame all the cups of tea I’m drinking out here.

I decided it was time to lay in bed, and read a book. I was gripped, so gripped that, realising I needed a shower, I walked to the bathroom and undressed, but then stood in the bathroom for half an hour reading the end of the book, naked. It was a weird thing, called “We need to talk about Kevin”. Very spooky, very frightening. I enjoyed it a lot, or rather, it deeply intrigued me. I don’t even know if I liked it. Look it up on Amazon.

I also tried to train the dogs. First I tried with Baby, who is basically a large, irritating equivalent of Heze. “Sit”, went well, as long as by “Sit”, I actually meant “Fling yourself onto your back, kicking my legs with your back feet, and try to propel yourself along through the gap between my legs in a frantic shuffling motion that, if arisen in the fifties, would have been called something like ‘The Fanny Thrust’. And then try to chew my toes”. Giving up on this, I tried “Stay”. This was a lot more successful, or it would have been, if Baby hadn’t thought I’d just said “Sit” again; running after me as I backed away, almost launching herself at my knees in order to land on her back and dutifully fulfil her interpretation of my command. At this point, I felt the day’s training had been very effective, and it was time to try Erica.

She is a lot more shy, and I was hopeful that without the endless enthusiasm that Baby displays, she might be easier to train. “Sit”, was ignored, although when I bent down near her, she did jump up at me repeatedly, snapping at my face. When forcing her down onto her back legs, to explain what the sitting position entailed, she went completely limp, lying on the back with her feet in the air. Every single time. Leaving that for another day, I moved onto “Stay”. Unlike Baby, she did this perfectly, staying exactly where she was. Proud of this victory, I called her. She completely ignored me. I called again, which felicitated a large yawn on her part. She still didn’t move though. At this point, I tied large rocks to the two of them, and threw them both in the pool.

Anyway, my day today has been very restful (Ian who I am staying with, has like 100 Clive Cussler books!!), and should be more exciting, since hopefully we will get to go up the mountain around 4. I don’t know when I will get a chance to upload this, but I do miss you.

Reading through Job at the moment in that Cover to Cover thing. It’s a powerful book – I think it was written as a play; not sure how true it is, but that doesn’t really matter.
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