King Maker

I love RPGs and also action adventure games so when I first played Fable I loved it. Its a beautifully rendered game with exciting features and unique moral consequences. A few years later and I am still thoroughly enjoying the franchise and eagerly anticipate the new game later this year.

With Fabel III's realise date set for 29th October there is a pre-order treat for us on the lion-head website, pre-order with them and you get to design a villager that will be used in game : ) You decided the area they were born and live in, the way they speak, what they wear and thanks to a little quiz you can also define their "personality".

Along with the villager feature there is also a mobile game called King Maker. Its essentially a capture the flag game were you use a system similar to geo-caching to "log in" at locations to earn in game money, much like the a simular feature in the previous games :)

Veg growing . . .

. . . has not been so good this year. I had staggered crops of vegtables planted in the back garden for us to enjoy eating throughout the summer but because of the damp heat (28-32) a lot of the veg has failed. The peas barely garmented, struggled to produce flowers and only gave half a dozen pods and the beans also struggled to keep up with the weather. Strawberries also failed to produce a good amount of fruit, and even those few were small and odd shaped. Raspberries did a little better but still not ideal.

The other plants are doing well, I suspect another bumper crop of chillis, with the exception of some strange moth eaten leaves - quite possibly actually being eaten by moths!


The onions are doing brilliantly and the carrots are looking good too but both are slow growers, although I think the first set of onions will need much longer before they are ready. I am disappointed by the quick crop failure, and I'm still buying fresh produce from the supermarket :(

Pirate treasure under New York?

Whilst working at the ground zero site of the twin towers in New York diggers found something interesting last tuesday — the 10-meter hull of an old ship!

The New York Times reports:

"The vessel was probably used along with other debris to fill in land to extend lower Manhattan into the Hudson river, archaeologists have said. It was hoped the artefact could be retrieved by the end of today, said archaeologist Molly McDonald. A boat specialist was going to the Ground Zero site to examine the find. McDonald said she wanted to at least salvage some timbers; it was unclear if any large portions could be lifted intact. "We're mostly clearing it by hand because it's fragile," she said. A 45kg (100lb) metre long anchor was found a few yards from the hull on Wednesday but the experts are not sure if it belongs to the ship. The archaeologists are racing to record and analyse the vessel before exposure to air makes the delicate wood deteriorate."

More from the NYT, including photos.

SSAFA

SSAFA Forces Help are immediately available to support you and your family, whether you are serving at home, overseas or in an operational environment. They provide several services including but not are not limited to; Health care abroad, confidential support line, holidays for special needs children and their siblings as well as financial support and advice. They are a relatively small charity that do a lot of important work!

There is an army of SSAFA volunteers who offer practical help when you need a helping hand. They provide essential support when partners are away or when times get tough. I am one of those volunteers and can help with hands on stuff, ie look after the children or take them out while the service user gets some rest/catches up with chores/has some me time etc and can take dogs out for a walk, mow the lawn for you and help out at home if your partner is away.

Lots of people will feel vulnerable by asking for help, that they can't cope but serving with the forces is not a normal lifestyle, single parenting etc with out the support family and friends that regular families have around is never easy which is why ssafa is there to help you out : )

Mr Toffee Retires

You may have noticed the lack of photos posts and updates so far this year, Mr Toffee is doing well but is now in retirement : ) Last year he started to go blind and over the past 9 months of so he has been slowing down, he doesn't run in his wheel very much or have play time and is often sleeping. Mr T is 4 and half human years old which is the equivalent of 75 in hedgie pig years, he is an old man now. Africian Pygmy Hedgehogs have an average life span of 3-5 years so he is in the winter period of his life. And what a good one he has had, lots of adventures and fun, being spoilt rotten and having everyone who meets him falls in love immediately ^_^

Toffee did lose some weight at the start of the year but he seems more than happy living on a diet of worms which of course any pygmy hog would love! He is spoilt and has an unlimited amount of meal worms and wax worms at his disposal : ) At the end of last year poor old Toffee did have an incontinence issue which I hope are now gone.

Mr Toffee in oils ♥

His lil' whiskers are getting tatty, and his eyes are both glazed over with blindness and although I still take photos of him (especially when he is in a active mood and gets into mischief!) he doesn't look like the model hog he once was. Luckily I have dozens of beautiful photos to remember his youth by, the last 3 years have been wonderful and I hope we have more time to enjoy together : ) Here is an oil painted version of my favourite photo of Mr Toffee, I hope you like it : )

Dog Training

In April I finally bagged a full time job, a good one too, as a dog handler and I was pleased with the new job -still in secuirty industry- although it is very challenging.

I am self employed and work for TBW, I have a company owned dog Monty to care for, he was passed around the houses and hasn't had a female handler/trainer before so at first completely ignored my commands, taking a preference to any male present - even strangers. He was police trained at 18 months old but was passed up for government work and has spent his career in private security as a guard dog. He has been with me for a few months now and has learnt that I am the master, he is generally obedient and quiet although has some behavioural issues when out on walks or around other dogs - the worst of which is that he is male dog aggressive.

I have been trying to train him to heel but with little success, and he nearly always kicks of when we are at work. He knows when he is working and enjoys being on guard, but when colluegues with thier own working dogs (all of which are un-nurtured males) are around he becomes very defensive and aggressive.

In the next few months I am hoping to teach him to "watch" only on command, he is a big dog and is hard to handle; he can easily pull me over. It will be hard work but I plan to update the blog as I go, hopefully giving you guys an insight into the mind of a Working Dog : )