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Peter's Letters: Open letters to friends and family |
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I've received out of the blue from visitors to this site)
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January & February
It has been a roller-coaster start to the year with a string of bad stressfull events and then a few positives at the end of February and into March. At the start of the year George was ill, of course, so there were a stressful few days worrying about that and - for Mom - managing with George away. Also at the start of the year Meg the horse had a nasty case of lymphingitis that caused one of her legs to swell up and needed a series of daily vet visits for treatment adding up to several hundred pounds. Meanwhile Gust, who had been showing signs of a problem at the end of last year went steadily downhill despite a long series of veterinary efforts and we had to put him to sleep on February 14th, my birthday. By mid February we'd officially had one of our worst ever starts to a year.
March
Rather than dwell on the negatives, I can report that February ended and March has started with a few happier things to report.
- The new edition of my "How to do your dissertation in Geography" book was published after a LOT of work over the last year or so. Please buy lots of copies and write some nice reviews! Link: See it on Amazon.
- I got a promotion at work: no new duties and no change of salary, but I am now officially a "Reader" rather than a "Senior Lecturer". Basically I'm now a Professor without any of the responsibilities or perks, and have the immense benefit that nobody really knows what my job title means. Link: my work page.
- We got a new dog!! Everybody say hello to "Doc", the border collie that we have taken on as a rescue from Border Collie Trust. Link to Doc's web page
I'll post up a few photos in due course, but in the meantime you can see what's going on via facebook and Twitter
April
The difficult start to the year that we had with Gust the dog being put to sleep has continued into the spring: Meg the horse had to be put to sleep in April. Although we have known for a long time that she was obviously approaching the top age for a horse of her type it was, of course, a terrible shock. As well as missing Meg herself, our whole daily routine has been completely changed and we are struggling to regain our equilibrium.
As I said in the previous post though: let's not dwell on the negatives but find something good to report. The main thing that is going well is the new dog, Doc. He is a much more nervous character than any of our previous dogs so he's taking a while to completely settle down, but so far, after about two months with us, he has really come on. He has put on some weight, his coat has improved, and he really does seem like part of the family now. Debbie has started a FaceBook page for him where she posts up a little update each day to let his friends and followers see how he is getting on. You can find it here at https://www.facebook.com/docthecollie "Doc's Day: the life of a rescue dog".
The rest of the year
Regular reader, you will be familiar with this pattern that has emerged over the last few years. A number of posts early in the season, and then nothing until the end of the year. Blame Twitter and Facebook, if you will. I do. So here we are again transitioning from one year to the next. 2015 is all done now as I write, and we are moving into 2016.
2015 had some very poor spells, especially in the early months. But by the end of the year there were some positives as well. We are all settled down now with Doc the new dog. We had a successful trip to Scilly. Things are trundling along. We continue to endeavour to persevere.
Steady as we go.
That's all for now, thanks for tuning in, please drop me a line!
(Follow this link for some of the letters I've received out of the blue from visitors to this site)
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