Damage, B-person, time... Nurhan

Nurhan's take:

Arh, yes, the tropical rain forests of Stavanger (does six to eight degrees centigrade qualify for 'tropical').

If you go in for this whole concept of 'A' & 'B' people, then Kin is definitely a 'B' type. To walk him, feed him and make certain he's okay before I leave for work means that I have to be up between 0530 and 0600. On coming down the stairs he can just about lift an eyelid to see what's going on... I can't even get him to get up for a pee. The first day of this new routine, I managed a walk to the end of the driveway before he stopped and made it abundantly clear that he wanted to go back to bed! Since then I've tried every morning to take him out and I haven't managed to get him out of the garden yet! Now his food has to be soaked for 30 minutes before he can eat, which now means that we have our main bout of affection time prior to me leaving for work! He's so sleepy that he hardly even mouths me! That said he's mouthing less and less.

Today he's six months and wet... so there's no point in weighing him. Washed him yesterday and did grooming (lt), so if his coat ever dried he'd look quite good! Drying him yesterday I used the air blower and held a can of liver paste in my hand... I don't think he noticed the drier! And it didn't upset his stomach.

Damage so far has been limited. I haven't found any in the outside kennel yet and this is the main damage inside from him being alone. The matt could have read, "This matt was whole last week..." And the damage to the wall.

All this demolition can get quite tiring:

(He still hasn't got the hang of the fact that sometimes the stove is excessively warm and should be given a very wide berth... Karma wasn't great at this either; it's probably something to do with the coats being wet all the time!).


One thing I have to figure out is how to have a life as well. At the weekend walking in the forest in the pouring rain, I thought of long distance trips that I've had in similar conditions,

(this was last year when David & I walked the North side of Lysefjørd - arrive soaking wet at a cabin then get the fire going to dry gear out and cabins just should have fires going, whilst you pass the evening talking).
Now these kind of trips I can't take Kin on, in fact there's lots of stuff that I do that I can't take Kin with me. I'm hoping that despite the rain in Stavanger there will still be enough snow to go skiing locally:

Yes some of the folk here are skiing in shorts and some are skiing across a frozen lake. This is 900 m up on the 8th of June, 2008 the start of this ski is about 1 hr 45 min drive away.

Here is one of the winter closed roads in the area being opened in mid may:

(this picture I didn't take. It appeared in the local newspaper [Stavanger Aftenblad] a couple of years ago whilst they were opening the Suleskar veien, which that year wasn't open until towards the end of May and we generally take our last ski trip of the season towards the end of May/beginning of June from this road).

{I have plenty more pics... but you get the idea}.
The point is trying to get to do stuff like this. I think at some point I'm going to have to introduce Kin to a kennel just so I can still do this kind of thing.

But more pressing is what to do in the evenings. My days are get up, deal with Kin, cycle to work, work for eight hours, cycle home, deal with Kin, dinner, walk and feed Kin, prepare for next day, and go to bed... Without Kin some days I'd drive to work, with the glider/kayak/sailing gear/climbing gear/orienteering gear, in the car and go straight from work to do something like this... can still go skiing after work but bit of a drive! With Kin this isn't an option unless I can find someone who can take him for a few hours... Have to figure out some form of balance here, so my life is more than catering for his life.

Also bouncing around ideas for some viable income that has me outdoors more, preferably one where I can have the little chap with me.

With Karma, I had an arrangement with my ex-samboer where she'd take the little chap so I could go off and do stuff. Kin, I don't have this with, although Jan coming on work days and feeding/being with/walking the little chap is a godsend.

Some thinking to be done here.