Doesn't he look proud of himself? What you can not see is that Roo dog is just below this picture desperately wanting to poke him, she is very patient while he sits winding her up, everytime she tries to nose him he swipes her with his paw. It must be like when a child really really wants the sweets in the shop and their mother drags them away. I wonder if Frank is more appealing than custard creams?? Hmmm, a test i shall have to try.

EXMOOR...

Today I wrote my secrets... in the middle of Exmoor. I even told one to this Sheep... good job she looks like all the other sheep, otherwise if I ever saw her again I suspect I wouldn't be able to look at her..

This weekend I am going to Exmoor. I am feeling a little mind full from work at the moment. Its been ok, just busy and I have not had much time to just stop and unload my head. I really should write lists, it may solve the never ending filtration system in my head of trying to remember everything. Its always worked pretty well, its just i never get to switch it off incase when i power back up something is forever lost.

Come tomorrow the magazine will have gone to print and I will be able to delete a major part of the tangle in my head. Thereby allowing me to enjoy a couple of days relaxing in the moor, just me and my camera.

I must make some kind of itinery before i go else i fear i will end up in the pub and that is something i dont really want to do.

Its funny how i never really realised quite what a beautiful place i have lived in for the past 26 years, funny what you take for granted when its on your doorstep. This evening on a walk along the North Downs I encountered the far away tree I have been looking for since Enid told me about it when i was a small child. I am going to make an effort to appreciate the things on my doorstep, the things I seem to have been blind to, or maybe just unappreciative of for so long. To appreciate a walk in the country without the anxiety of getting back in time for last orders at the pub makes the whole experience far more pleasurable. For maybe the first time in my life I am actually liking and feeling pleased about my location on this planet, and that is a good and worthwhile feeling to have.

On my journey to the office this morning I had a tricky encounter with one of my lolly brigade crew,... it made me a little sad when I realised that on moving house I have lost 2 of my specimens from my lollipop notes that I took some time ago - it did however make me think to publish my findings on here....
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I have been taking notes on Lollipop men/womens actions lately, trying to work out their training schemes, whether there is a Lolly lady school or such.

Well on my way to work I pass 4 Lollipop brigades, and they all have very different methods of working.

The first is a male and is very bold, he barely looks and boldly steps in to the road Lolly firmly in hand... Many a screech of brakes have been heard at this crossing where he risks his life for these children..

Onto the second, this time a women, she has by far the best lolly action I have ever seen and she always makes me smile... She steps to the edge of the path lolly in hand and she holds it high above her head by the very bottom tip she then leans and extends her body up and over using the lolly in a barrier type fashion across the oncoming traffic, once her lolly barrier is in place she steps boldly out.  I give her a 9 out of 10.

Thirdly is a very nervous old man who quite frankly you wouldn’t need to stop for if you were in a hurry cos he is like a mouse that edges to the edge and nervously pushes his large lolly pop end out waiting for a safe flash of lights to guide him out into the road. I do like to give this one a little wave each morning however.

Finally is some lazy mare who operates a poxy pelican crossing! she presses the button waits for the green man and out she goes..

I am going to join a climbing place. I need to do something.. I need to spend what was beer money doing something else, something more adventurous. Something physical.

So my next dilemma is do I book and just chuck myself in on a 6 hour course so I am all up to speed and ready to go. Or do I break myself in more gently and go along with my house mate whom already knows a bit about climbing and can show me the ropes.

I thought about phoning today and booking myself in, but on what is the hottest day of the year, the thought of climbing up indoor walls was not all that entertaining. In fact the thought of doing anything other than sitting still is rather unpleasant.

I even had to drive home from work in my convertible car with the roof on today, just so I could take full advantage of the air conditioning.. for a while I forgot just how hot it was outside. I sure got some odd looks, I think people felt sorry for me and that my roof must have been broken - little did they know I was smiling because I was sat in 16 degrees rather than the 34 degrees they were in outside. I am tempted to go and sit in it now with the engine running.

I feel like I need to be pro-active at the moment or things will just drift. I keep trying to remind myself there is a world out there apart from this show that is taking up almost all my time. So on that note I will phone the island tomorrow and arrange that course! :)

Roll on the 5th of August I say... I have so many plans for when I get my mind back.
First thing on the list is a mini holiday.

I am sure I find words far more confusing than they need to be. I have words I hate and words I can not say because of how they make my mouth form into shape. The words I hate I am quite happy to type onto this screen, I am quiet happy to read them just so long as I don't have to form them in my mouth. Infact there is one on that very picture niggling at the corners of my mouth - urgh.

It does seem however its not just the act of saying them aloud which upsets me, because I don't like to hear others say them either. Curious indeed. Maybe I worry for how their mouths must feel forming such shapes. There are also some words that just hold too much behind them, words that to say would be offering to much information, like saying a secret out loud - It doesn't make it a secret anymore, and even harder when those secrets have been kept by you from yourself.

Words have been making me cross this week, words that I can not say, ones that get stuck in my mouth like when you have carelessly put to much food in and can neither swallow nor chew comfortably. Yet thats a physical presence, words are not, they are just sounds, and it is these sounds that make me cross.

I dont think I am alone in my speech phobia,... maybe its not actually the words I dislike, more the act of saying them. But what are words without sound? Shapes?

I have been reading about the relatively new idea of training dogs to read, an idea inspired to help assistance dogs, mainly Guide Dogs. The idea is that if a dog can read, it is able to look for EXIT signs and so on. You start by using flash cards and showing it to your dog whilst saying the command. Then you move onto just showing the card, we are currently training our office dog Max . Once the dog has mastered single words you can start to put words together - for example "no fouling" - hmmm I am not convinced.

This picture is something I would like to do, just get all the words that get stuck and just chuck them out in front of me - then pick them out and hold them up when I need to. Maybe those cute fridge magnets would do the job, however I don't think I would find the words I struggle with in the box.

I WISH I WAS A BOY BADGER