March and musings

I can’t believe it’s March already. See this is another thing wrong with the whole human time framing system. (In addition to the whole childhood/teenage education thing). Time should feel like it is passing slower the older you get – but seriously when you’re little everything takes sooo long and yet when you’re an adult and getting older years seem to go by even faster. There’s just something wrong with that!

Irrespective of my grumbles about the rapid passing of time I am here to update and update I will. Although it is barely March really and I will probably be breaking with tradition and posting more than once this month. Staggering I know but there you have it, call me my own rule breaker.
First off – news about the 2010 National. I have none. As in I am not involved with the committee this time except to offer my services as website maker/manager etc. I am still on the Agility Committee so I will kind of be kept in the loop about what is going on however there has been no schedule finalised yet, all I can tell people is that it will go for four days and runs from the Thursday the 29th of April to the Sunday May 2nd next year. And the Agility committee is currently training up stewards for it so we shall have plenty. I have managed to combine my work place with agility by asking students at my school if they would like to help us out. Now yes they get a small fee and given dinner and refreshments but most of these kids are now attending because they enjoy it and it gives them something to do. It’s weird though – having the kids call me Miss in front of everyone at agility who just knows me as Simone. But so far the feedback has been great and they are certainly conducting themselves well. Their enthusiasm and energy is good for the sport and who knows maybe some of them will want to try it out with their dogs so it works out for everyone all round especially with year 10 students having to complete 20 hours of community service each year.

So onto the first trial for March. Last night it was held as a Games trial fundraiser for the Obedience committee who are hosting the October 10th Obedience National here this year. I faired fairly well in this one gaining six passes out of nine runs and finishing a few titles off. Spryte ran with partner Guirmere Snazzy and gained a quallie and 2nd place to finish off their titles. We were a couple of seconds behind the first place getters and I am blaming Cathy entirely for that one because her idea of yelling and my idea of yelling are probably about ten decibels in difference. But YAY title! Then Nifty and Raven won Masters Strategic Pairs despite Raven always managing to fit in extra obstacles. Can only find six cards though so yeah still waiting on one more leg there! Cypher and Smudge also ran clear in Masters Strat Pairs and finished 4th or 5th I can’t remember except to say we must have had some seconds wasted somewhere – probably when Cypher decided barking and jumping all over me between sequences is the best fun ever.

Snooker and Cypher won Excellent Snooker and I am feeling very virtuous by saying that I held his criteria throughout the whole game his four on the floor contacts were held before I gave the release word each time. Masters Snooker Raven came second in to Terra – the girls had the same points but the four year age difference definitely came into play with the speed as Terra beat Raven by about 5 seconds! I can’t believe Raven is going to be nine years old next week! Spryte and Snooker Novice was going great guns till the closing when she decided to do her trick on the dogwalk contact and I picked her up and walked out.

Gamblers and Raven was going great guns in Masters, the scribe telling me she was running out of room to write points down however I made the stupid error of trying to squeeze in another dogwalk just as the whistle blew and I couldn’t turn her around off the dogwalk and had to finish it and thus those fifteen seconds to get the gamble done was just too tight for her but I was absolutely thrilled with how she’d run as it’s a very taxing run the Masters gamblers and far more running than she’d do on any regular courses. Excellent Gamblers with Cypher ran just how I planned it and I was very pleased with everything he did, nailing his contacts, jumping well and just very in tune with me. We connected well on that course and even though I felt like I needed oxygen at the end of it I really enjoyed it. That was his GDX title finally and a third place. Spryte had issues in Novice Gamblers and not just with a dogwalk – for some reason doing 12 weavers was deemed too hard. We eventually got our points for them but she popped them at least three times that I remember. We left after doing (or not doing two on two off) the dogwalk. Needless to say dogwalks and weavers will be DRILLED this week.

And in my usual style of posting random real life thoughts at the end of my entries - I want to learn piano. As in the playing of it. Not so much the reading of sheet music thing. Surely the expression play it by ear evolved from doing just that with a piano? Besides YouTube is great for teaching me where to put my fingers on keys. Bizarre moment of the week at school - there's this new energy drink out called Rock Star (clearly not aimed at any kind of market demographic with that labelling is it? *rolls eyes* - could have just called it Just For Egocentric Teens with Stars in the Eyes). A can was intercepted by one of the teachers at our school. A 750ml can. A can that has on it, in tiny letters - "not suitable for children and you should not consume more than 500 ml per day". Did I mention the can contained 750 mls?? It was taken off a kid who bounces off the walls quite well without any kind of artificial help - the can contains 100GRAMS of sugar and a 120 mls of caffeine! *shudders* Seriously people should have to provide a driver's license to buy this stuff and here we are with 12 to 14 years olds drinking it like it's just your average soft drink! That's just crazy.