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.