Week's end

$175,000 - that's what CSP is currently sitting at - or was when I left The Big House last night. This means that no major prizes have gone off in the last week - which is a shame for all of those who have been playing ... but it does make that pot bigger for the person who does manage the Royal Flush. It's still quite exciting to get most of the cards for a Royal Flush - actually, any kind of flush, in a hand; I can't imagine how you would hold a poker face if you actually managed the big one! I'm not sure practising would help much!

The Big House has a new special at Spinners - Salmon and Prawns - which M had for dinner tonight. She thinks S will enjoy it very much!

The gardening continues at Latimers. M has now planted potatoes in a patch near the front gate and covered it in sugar cane mulch to help them grow. S's parsley is coming along in leaps and bounds and is starting to look very lush - and that it might be time to start harvesting some and giving it away to the markets crowd. There's no way we can use that much - even if we had tabouli every day. S showed me some of the tomatoes she had harvested yesterday too - so they're coming along nicely. This is a bonus given the price of tomatoes at the moment ($11.99 kg in some stores); at this rate, until the crop comes in, my tomato and onion sandwiches might just have to be onion sandwiches.

I don't think those furries are missing Prince; although word is that Mouse is enjoying having him very much. We do miss him, especially when it comes time for "walks". Even though Pearl tries her best, she just isn't all that interested in walking up and down the lane multiple times - once is enough, and you can almost hear her asking why anyone would want to do it more! Of course, Pearl isn't trying to get to 10,000 steps a day so she wouldn't understand that ... although it would be interesting to see how many steps she does do in a day.

We are having gorgeous weather at the moment - although the ground would be ever so grateful if it actually rained for a bit. When I walked up to the road with the bin on Monday afternoon, I could see that even the bitumen has cracked because the earth under it is so dry! Thank goodness M has bore water on the property, otherwise there would be tankers delivering water about now.

Tink is not due to the vet for another week. At the moment she's on 1.5 units morning and night - regardless of how much we tell the vet how difficult it is to accurately give the half shots. She isn't doing too badly but there is still no resolution on an insulin dosage - here the fortnightly and, in some cases, weekly visits to the vet. The biggest mystery about it, though, is why the charge for the blood test varies so much from visit to visit; it would be reasonable to think it was a standard charge, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Beaz is allowed on to the bed in the mornings after I go to work and he seems to like that routine very much. S doesn't seem to mind it either, because Beaz cuddles in to her back and is an effective heater (she seems to be feeling the heat much less that she used to).

Maggie is Maggie and comes and goes much as she pleases - although, that said, she is always the first one lined up to go out in the mornings!

Otherwise, things go on as usual here. It's still good to have Mouse back, and Mi is back next week! And it's the end of the working week ... so that's a bonus!!