Max says…

Happy New Year!

I’m not much of a ‘New Years’ person. While I appreciate that Hogmanay is a big holiday for a lot of people, I’m not one of them. I always feel that it is a holiday where you are expected to force yourself to have a good time for the sake of it. Having said that, I did have a good Hogmanay this year! Going hand in hand with my ‘bah humbug’ feeling of New Years, is my opinion of so called resolutions.

Rarely do people manage to stick to resolutions that they make at the beginning of the year, and I tend to make a point of not making resolutions because I’ll just feel guilty when I inevitably break them. Nonetheless, I am going to make a few this year that I will try very hard not to break:

1. Stop smoking
2. Lose weight
3. Play the trombone more
4. Drink less coffee

Surely I can manage four things! Although I don’t hold out much hope for the first two… we’ll see!

• Personal

Today I received the sad news from my parents that my dog Flint was put-down. Several years ago , a small piece of cartilage broke off of his spine and lodged itself in a vein. This caused a swelling that led to nerve damage in the surrounding area. He effectively wasn’t aware of where his legs were; although he had some feeling below the waist. Our vet had never heard of this happening twice in one dog, but as he was on the mend it happened again.

In the last few weeks, he had further nerve damage, this time more severe. He lost all feeling below the waist. Due to the last incident his highly developed chest and shoulders allowed him to pull himself about the house, but he was unaware of going to the toilet inside, and getting him outside involved a crude sling/wheelbarrow affair with a towel slung under his stomach. [Read more]

• Personal