It's a dog's life

THIS week, we're dogsitting for a friend and her family while they jet off to Tassie for the week.

Their long-legged Labradoodle puppy is virtually a mirror image of ours and they've grown up together over the last 10 months. Inseparable when they meet up, the pups play for hours on end, so much to the point of landing themselves with bloodshot eyes and tired out looks on their faces.

We have a relatively large back yard and the boys can roam free to their hearts' content. Although, I do get a bit tetchy babysitting someone else's 'baby' ... he's a 'digger' you see and although I'm upto speed with what mischief our pup is capable of, having a newbie in the house is a different ball game.

I sat in the hairdressers this morning worrying away in case I got home to an open gate and an empty garden. I put my usual shopping on hold until I rocked up home and checked they were both exactly where they should be. And they were. Which came as a huge relief.

When they're inside, rolling around with eachother, they fill the house. They're like a big piece of curly chocolate brown tumbleweed and now the rainy season is with us, that, too, traipses in with them.

Now at the moment, I don't mind this mess as we're in the full throes of a messy renovation anyway but the sooner I get this mud patch of a garden dug up and filled in with a swimming pool, the better.

I'm not a lover of much of the green stuff, particularly when it's so hard to keep looking nice over here. In spring and summer, it's a threadbare and water-starved patch. In autumn and winter, the rain comes down on it hard and turns it into a Virgo-woman's nightmare.

Kids + dogs + mud + freshly cleaned house = disgruntled Mandi.

It's all in a name

I'VE had a funny old week. After a month and a half of being without wheels following the untimely 'death' of one of our cars, we finally got some cash together and bought me a motor.

I found it for sale at a car wholesaler on the internet and husband went to give it the once over during a lunch break. He liked what he saw and knew that I would too so put down a deposit and went to collect it later that week. We booked it in with a local mechanic to give it a thorough going over, service and bit of TLC to get it through its roadworthy test (MoT).

All this was finished just in the nick of time to make it for our slot with VicRoads to get the machine registered in our name with new plates. But on the return trip from the rego office, the beast faltered and gave me no option to do a u-ey (U-turn) and nurse the machine back to base.

All deflated and harrassed, I headed in to do a shift at work and left husband with the strife of sorting out the problems our new buy had brought. It seems the head gasket's blown and to buy a new one, we've been told it will cost us $900.

Funny that... because thanks to the wonderful internet, we've managed to buy one for £85 - the equivalent of $146 - and that includes round the world postage. Yes, we may have to wait a day or two longer than if we were to buy the same thing over here, but for a price hike like that, I'd rather spend the difference whiling away the time in the natural hot springs down the road or on a trip to the city or a weekend away. Even possibly all three.

So, for the time being, I continue to get around in a borrowed purple Barina - a kind and thoughtful colleague had given me the free lease of her spare wheels until I got myself sorted. But just as soon as I did, I've been thrown right back to square one with a new car laid up over the pit and feeling a bit crook.

When the car salesman signed the paperwork selling us this car, I raised an eyebrow and poked fun at his Christian name, not thinking for one minute of the possibilities. Surely it was pure coincidence that he answered to the name of ... wait for it ... Kon!