A cold and frosty night during which the swimming pool frost stat turned the pump on and this combination unsettled Sam. Debbie helped me entertain him this morning before getting accidentally nipped!
Then returning to Norfolk to work further on Harnser after which a better night with Sam. India is plunged into a new Muslim/Hindu religious crisis by the destruction of a shrine by one side on the supposedly sacred ground of the other.
Last night did not go so well. It was very cold and frosty and the swimming pool pump started up on the frost-stat and whether it was either of these facts, or my having fed the pup on a meal spiced with chopped pigeon heart and liver or what I do not know but he was awake and yelling for an hour from 10.00pm until 11.00pm, again for a few minutes at 2.00am and then for a good while from 5.00am until 5.20am! In all, I had another unsettled night disturbed by this racket and worried about the similar disturbance to our neighbours. I was up at 6.30am and just got to him half an hour later when he woke up again.
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I took pains to keep him busy and occupied for two hours with the help of Debbie so that he was tired enough to rest for as long again when we put him back in the kennel at 9.00am. He is now quite amenable to lead and choke chain and pretty much under control when they are used. Meantime I shot and prepared another wood pigeon. Strange to note that both this and the one yesterday had just been eating what appear to be fresh green peas which makes me wonder where they have been getting them from. Tired at breakfast and thereafter but managed to update my notes on Sam and my training diary as well and to try a little paperwork before lunch. I quickly made out cheques to cover the outstanding bills and then reconciled my VISA credit card and two Abbey National and Norwich & Peterborough Building Society cheque accounts which were all jobs very much overdue.
Di had prepared the lunch early and we then packed my things and loaded my car afterwards for the trip back to Norfolk. Debbie was very helpful with Sam this morning watching him whilst I did some work but it was a pity that, whilst doing the same as I packed and looking after the smaller children saying good-bye to Sam, he made her cry by nipping her in the neck whilst trying to hold her hair. I will have to curb the puppy's enthusiasm and stop it doing that sort of thing. The journey to Norfolk was all right and Sam behaved well enough whilst underway, but he found out how to clamber forward into the car whilst I was stopped and I had to shake him and scold him so that he skulked in his basket. The difficult task of unloading the car and turning on the Heronshaw services in the dark but I fed and exercised Sam for a good while and then put him in the kennel.
He howled for a long time, but I left him and, to be honest with myself, I am getting tired and fed up with lack of sleep and feel that he will have to respond more positively to my training if he is to stay as he has been more trouble than I anticipated. To Harnser to do some work for the evening and was joined by the decorator who arrived late after yet more car trouble. I sealed the knots on the new door stop mouldings and then primed them, intending to fill the holes ready to sand them off tomorrow if they dried. They did not and so I spent the rest of the time up until 9.00pm sanding down the stairs ready to be stained tomorrow. I bathed, washed my hair and went to bed at 10.00pm for a change and Sam co-operated by not waking me up until 5.30am which was not too bad. The weather had started very cold today but turned cloudy and windy with a right storm ensuing before the rain came and it settled in for the night. All the world still concerned with the troubled regions where peace and humanitarian efforts by the U.N., U.S. and E.E.C. come to nought because of sectarianism. India is plunged into a new Muslim/Hindu religious crisis by the destruction of a shrine by one side on the supposedly sacred ground of the other.