Pride in Your Streets - Pride in Your Work

I have always been taught to take pride in my work. I have a strong work ethic and believe that when in employment nothing less than 100% effort is acceptable.

When I was working for a Japanese company, there was a set standard for how your work station should look. Sounds crazy and controlling but they got it right..... a neat desk equals an organised mind. (Pity I have never employed this thought to my own home!!)

I have always taken pride in my work and am always self critical because I strive to do my best for others.

I honestly wished that the refuse collection service of Wrexham Council applied the same ethics.

Considering our council tax has hiked year after year and cuts have been made to our services at the same pace.... I do expect to have a service delivered with pride.

This is not the case.

Although I have seen "Pride in Your Streets" bandied about by the council, it seems a bit of a double standard when their workers don't have pride in our streets and yet we are expected to!!!

What am I talking about??


THIS.................

Each week I take out my refuse and recycling bins and place them neatly outside my house to the side of my driveway and virtually every single week THIS is what I come home to.

We live in a small cul-de-sac with not much parking space or room for manoevre so its frustrating to have to abandon my vehicle blocking 4 other driveways while I remove the said obstacles.

All they need to do is place them back where I put them! Is that too much to ask? That way I can come home from work, park on my drive and then take my bins back in.

Rant over, complaint going in to the council!

Positive Energy

I was going to blog about trees because I have some pretty spectacular ones in my village, all shapes and sizes with a story to tell but instead I am going to talk about something which is close to my heart, inspired by something a friend posted on facebook today........

POSITIVE ENERGY

and her words were "THINK POSITIVE THOUGHTS AND THE WORLD AROUND YOU CHANGES, POSITVITY ATTRACTS POSITVITY !"

I live by this code or at least I TRY my best too. When something "bad" happens to me I try not to sit there and cry or wallow in it, I try to see the good in what has happened and grow from the experience.

True.... it's really hard to find the good in some things but trust me, if you look hard enough and if you are patient you will find some!

In this cruel world, things happen which are beyond our control..... You have to ask yourself on a scale from 1 to 10  what is the absolute WORST thing that could happen to you. You then have to "grade" that bad thing with that matter in mind and then you can see that its truly not so bad after all.

I count my blessings.

As I live and breath and experience beautiful things I give thanks.

Sometimes its a Robin come to visit....

Or it could be a baby rabbit hopping across my path......

Or like yesterday, the fact that the farms dog chose to come along and share the ride out with me and my pony.......

Good things in life don't need to be bought with money, they are all around you! Everywhere and free to enjoy.

Wear a smile on your face - it makes you prettier, more handsome and more attractive.

Think happy thoughts.

If you have a bad thought try to challenge it!

The best weapon you can have in life is a postive mental attitude.

Flippin Cancer

I was diagnosed in 2009 with a nasty breast cancer. Having said that, ALL cancers are flippin' nasty aren't they!!

2012 I had a second breast cancer, other side this time!

I don't carry the breast cancer gene, I don't tick any of the boxes for being at risk of the disease, I suppose I was just a bit unlucky.

Anyway.... blah blah blah I had lots of treatment, surgeries, chemo, herceptin, radiotherapy and hormone treatment.

I was on tamoxifen at first but because another hormone sensitive cancer grew in spite of this they changed my hormone treatment to;

* having my ovaries shut down with monthly injections (for 5 years)
* letrozol

Well..... the thought of having abdominal injections every month for years didn't really appeal to me PLUS the fact that the injections put me into a chemically induced menopause so in 5 years would I come off the injections then go through a natural menopause???? The thought of going through all that twice really filled me with dread so I PUSHED (and I had to push hard) to have an elected Oophorectomy - the best thing I ever did!! Keyhole surgery - recovery time was quicker than my breast ops and the discomfort was minimal.

The letrozol made every bone in my body hurt so I was changed to Arimadex. Although that it is better than the letrozol it still makes me tired, my brain fuzzy and my bones hurt.

On Thursday I am waiting to see my GP to go through some statistics so that I can decide whether or not I continue with the drugs.

My gut feeling is that I have had my ovaries removed which produced 80% of my oestrogen and with me losing weight and toning up my body I will naturally produce less.

I have been on cancer treatment for almost 5 years now, I have lost so much during that time and the side effects have been so hard to live with that I honestly can't face further treatment for another 4 years.

I am extremely lucky to live in Wales, UK so I have the NHS and the North Wales Health Trust has provided me with the best care I could ever have wished for. They are thorough beyond belief and leave no stone unturned.

I honestly want to get on with my life.

Back in 2009 I had to shut down my successful Dog Grooming Business "Clippers and Claws". Living with the side effects I have been unable to restart it and now another groomer has opened in our village. I am angry, I feel cheated and frustrated. If it hadn't been for flippin cancer I would have a salon right now and a successful one too.

So I have to put my frustration to one side and stay focused on the fact that;

1. I am alive
2. I can still groom dogs only not as many at the moment
3. I am taking very positive steps to cure my back pain

A Mole

The other day, as part of my sons birthday treat, we took him and his friend to the Crocky Trail. The sun was shining, it really was a beautiful day!

We stopped off at Salisbury's for a few goodies to eat (we had to keep energy levels up)!

It was so nice at the trail, lots of happy faces, smiles and laughter. It was a complete tonic for me to see Harry animated and happy. I haven't seen him play like that for such a long time, it was definitely worth the admission price to witness this transformation.

I am not really into adventure trails at the moment. I am far too stiff and achy with my ailments so for me, it was a treat just to people watch and enjoy the happy atmosphere.

I happened to walk over to a hedgerow for a nosey and as I did so, I noticed a tall nettle moving in a peculiar way! It was definitely not being blown by the wind. Curious.... I decided to stay and watch, to see if I could make any sense of this peculiarity. After a couple of minutes, I realised that it was a mole, busy digging and eating insects. As he busied himself I actually caught a glimpse of him but then off he went tunnelling away under other nettle bushes.

I have never in my life seen anything like that and I must say I did count it as a blessing, one of those once in a life time moments which I will treasure for the rest of my life.

Cola and His Bad Back Update

I am not very good at keeping up with my blog, I seem to publish a post a month! I really must do better than that!

Last month I explained how Cola had seen a chiropractor to sort out his back. As luck would have it, my friend who also has her horse on my yard is training to become a chiropractor for horses and dogs. She is extremely knowledgeable and has taken Cola and I under her wing.

Claire has been regularly working on Colas back and has shown me how to carry out simple stretching exercises and strapping which I do on a daily basis. With her help great progress is being made!

Colas weight is dropping and he is now classed as "fat" but borderline ok for his breed. I weighed him yesterday with a weigh tape and he was 504kg so he needs to drop about 20kg. I am sure that we will get to that point very soon.

He is on limited turn out for grass so no more than 5-6 hours per day. His hay is soaked for 24 hours and he has an unlimited supply, he has two small feeds consisting of happy hoof, dynamic balancer and garlic.

So things really are looking up for us!

Cola and his Bad Back

* just to remind readers that if you click on any highlighted text it will link you to a page which will give you more information about that subject.

We had almost a month of no turn out this time which has been really hard work, expensive and for me.... worrying.

I am over budget due to having to buy extra hay and shavings. Also, I am out of pocket because I have had to have the chiropractor out to him a number of times and at £50 a shot its not cheap!

This short you tube video shows you what a chiropractor will do for a horse.

When Rachel came out to Cola last Tuesday he was grinding his teeth, stamping his feet, flicking his tail and pulling faces at her when she touched him on his back. By the end of the session he was relaxed and pain free. The next day I could practically "see" him smiling with relief.

The reason Cola is getting this back injuries (never repetitive) is due to a combination of things but mainly because of the confinement. Weight gain because he can't be left without hay for the fear of not only boredom but ulcers, muscle wastage and stiffness due to lack of movement. These factors combined with his age have led to these injuries.

At the moment there is turn out because the ground has dried out so Cola is going through rehabilitation.

I am starting off with walking out in hand. I will then introduce the saddle as extra weight with in hand walking out and I will gradually get him used to my weight in the saddle. This is going to take a few weeks and allot of patience and fear of hurting him on my part.

I have ordered him a memory foam saddle pad to help ensure the saddle is comfortable for him and I have been giving him stretching exercises and massage to help keep his muscles flexible. I am hoping for a magnetic back pad which I think will do him the world of good.

The video above shows some of the stretches I do with Cola twice a day.

Seeing Cola in pain breaks my heart. The other day when he saw his bridle he spun around and "hid" in the corner, it made me cry. All I can say is how grateful I am to him for being such a communicative boy, he lets me know when he has a problem not by being nasty or hurting me, he actually takes good care of me, but by showing me with his body language.

I am hoping that now spring is here we will see an end to these lengthy periods of confinement. As the summer comes I am looking forward to riding out on Cola without him sustaining further injuries.

Lets pray that the rain is not heavy and the ground dries out thoroughly.

Water, Water, Everywhere.......

... but not a drop to drink!!!

I am fed up with the wet weather now.....

We had a wet summer last year which made it difficult for the farmers to get their crops in and meant that our horses were stuck in their stables and then the winter has been appalling so much so that the horses have been stabled for weeks on end.

Not only is this costly in extra hay and bedding but the horses are suffering physically and mentally.

I started the winter quite happy with my horses weight knowing that after the winter he would be starting spring in the best shape he has been in a long while but this long confinement has made him pile on the blubber!

So now I am having to soak his hay to reduce the sugars in it which is time consuming and hard blinking work physically!!!

AND

to make matters worse, with his age, weight and being kept in he has "done his back in" three times now. Its costing me a fortune in physio/chiro for him plus not being able to ride him during that time!!!

I am waiting for the back lady to visit on Tuesday because he is in pain again. He is such a lovely boy and rarely naggy but yesterday he wouldn't let me touch his back.... once he had been out for his 2 hour quota (better than nothing) he was feeling better....

So now I am walking him out in hand, carrying on with stretching exercises in his stable and loose schooling him at night in the menage - all of this is time consuming, worrying and hard work.

Sorry for the moan but I really had to get this off my chest!

Lets hope the sun stays out and we have less rain!