Steff and nonsense

Here are some photos especially for Claire, to show her just how cute puppies can be:

Here's Stanley taking her friend for a ride:



...and before you start saying I'm being cruel, look at these:





Stanley and Dish-Dash teddy have become best mates!...although I'm not sure I'd be friends with someone who keeps chewing my eyes.

Anyway, here's the final picture, just incase you thought I was joking about the piglet's tail:



Just what you want to see as you tuck into your cornflakes...a picture of a dog's arse. Sorry!

Right, I promise to stop posting pictures of our dog now.

Thought you might like to know that I haven't really turned our Stanley into a coat, and she's doing really well. Our little bag of bones is getting bigger and stronger by the day. Not only can she stand on her own now, a definitely improvement, she tears around the place at a rate of knots. She chews anything you put within a mile of her, and has a particular penchant for licking toes.

Of course, being a puppy, she's also pretty stupid. Oooo the fun we have, watching her as she topples over on the tiled floor and runs slap-bang into table legs on a regular basis.

She's the only dog I've ever seen with the hick-ups, and she's got a 'special' tail: It would look more at home on a piglet.

It's typical that the first pet I ever have is a broken one. I suppose I will have to stop taking the mick out of Hairy Christopher for having a blind rabbit.

I've got a new housemate!





Who'd have thought? The animal-hater now has a puppy. Ok 'hater' is a bit strong, but I'm hardly Doctor Doolittle.

This little mite was found by the kids on the compound, it had staggered through the back gate and was not in good shape. It was just a bag of bones which could barely stand it was so weak. They looked after it in the way only children could: wrapped it in a towel and put a bracelet round its neck. Well it is only 40 sweaty degrees here...

They eventually took it to one of the parents - Everton's wife Alex, who gave it some food and water and took it to the animal shelter...or she would have done if it hadn't closed down a few weeks ago. Now there are no animal shelters in the whole of Qatar.

So...what to do, what to do? It's only 6 weeks old, the only way of getting rid of it is to put it down, and you can't kill something with that little face. So although neither of us wanted a puppy, a puppy is what we've got.

We've officially named her Stanley, after the boxed wine we drink too much of here. Don't ask me why we've all taken to drinking boxed wine here. I'm sure I wasn't that much of a pikey in England. It was my mate Ruth who used to try to pay for things with string.

I wanted to call her Killer. I woke myself up the other day laughing. I'd been dreaming of a man calling for his dog 'Killer! Here Killer!' and round the corner comes boney old bambi-legs herself, struggling to stand.

So Stanley is now shared between a crazy house of 3 children, a cat...and the quieter house over the road. She's got the best of both worlds...even if she does have a boys name.

I had four days off the roster, so I did what anyone in Doha would do...go to England! I'd not been back since I arrived here 7 months ago, so frankly it was about time.

Thanks so much to all of you who came out to play on Friday. I forgot my camera, so I'm afraid there are no photos (which is probably a blessing if we're honest). The next day Helen and Andy's wedding was marred slightly by the attendance of Harry Hangover, who gatecrashed. Still, other than that it was a perfect day; warm, sunny and a beautiful setting. Great to get out of London to see that plants still exist.

Then on Sunday, it was time to get back to London....and you know what they say Dilster...when in Rome...













This last one did make me laugh. It was supposed to be me having a drink in a traditional London pub, but I missed a bit. Instead it looks like I'm one of the working girls in Amsterdam. Still, at least I know I have options incase this weather thing fails...