I have a dog, so I do a lot of dog walking… Every morning, that's right...every morning including Saturday mornings, while more sensible people are sleeping, or whatever sensible people do at 6:30 on a Saturday, Ned and I have a quick jaunt through the graveyard, head up the road, through the park, and then stroll round the reservoir.

Did I say reservoir? Well it is to us, to other people it’s a mucky looking pond.. so spotting a heron there last year was a Good Thing. A sign that the mucky pond could support life. There had to be enough fish to make it worthwhile for a bird that size to hang out all day.

Ha! What I don’t know could make wise men weep.

There are other dog walkers, Let’s call one of them Norrie. Norrie’s an old guy. I’ve clocked that he wears a Marie Curie sweatshirt. Cancer’s a small world. He might have clocked my Maggie’s Centre bag. But we‘ve never gone into the details. We don’t know each other that well, and I’d have to yell questions into his hearing aid. So we were sticking to pleasantries till yesterday.
Nice mornin!
It is that!
Aye, the heron’s back.
It is, yeah
We check out the heron poised at the top of the pond.
Aye, that’s him lookin’ fur the baby ducks, ken.
The baby ducks???
Aye, see how it’s just the men ducks out there? He’s waitin.
Herons eat baby ducks?
Oh aye.
…….
That’s life, hen. If it wisnae him, it’d be some other bloody thing

So, as I was about to say before the Great Broadband Disaster of 2011.... the Man Shortage has finally evaporated. Chez Mace has been inundated with Men.

Yes, I know, be careful what you wish for..

There were two grim men who turned up one day and fixed the guttering. Get me. Not every house in Cheesetown has a gutter you know. Hell at only £386 a pop they might catch on round here. The men are nameless, but big cheers because the strange dripping sound from the back window has finally stopped.

Then there were the Gowan Brothers who turned up, entirely as arranged... and fixed the shower. Guttering and a shower in one week!! Nifty, non?

But biggest cheers of the lot to Innes the Joiner. Another man who Turned Up, and Did Stuff. Joinery Stuff.
Before Innes the front door leaked, and was growing a lovely green moss, that even the permafrost on the inside of the windows couldn't kill. Locked, you had trouble opening it; unlocked it would just open. This was an arrangement that suited only the dog.

Before Innes the door through to the living room only opened halfway. After the first two years the Cherub and I were used to sidling through it - but you know I've always wanted to live like normal people....

Before Innes the kitchen door got stuck on the third flagstone in. Which was lucky, because if you closed it from the inside you couldn't get out again. I joke not. If you didn't have the keys to the back door handy, your options were to crawl out the window, or sit back and console yourself that at least you were stuck in the same room as the food.

Since Innes? Well, try it sometime. Go on. See for yourself...Go into your kitchen, close the door. Wait.. check it..now open it.
Enjoy... no it's alright.. you can thank me later...

You see getting online again is like the first day back at school! Just catching up with all the old faces you haven't seen for ages!
I'm doing the rounds, and catching up on the gossip - and then it's .. well it's bad news. The best science teacher ever isn't coming back.

Kaz is gone.

And I'm really upset about this.
Kaz was one of the first blogs I ever read - way back, way way back in 2005, before I even had a gmail account, never mind a blogger account, I used to check her blog daily.
Because she was funny
And she had attitude
She was brilliant.
She was a superstar.

And she died last month. Her blog was updated yesterday with the news. And all day long I've been thinking of her. Because that's what really great bloggers can do. They entertain, and inform, and eventually, they touch you.

And no. There's no punchline when a friend dies.
Unless of course her spam friend chooses to comment here. We might run to black irony today....

Yes, yes weeks have gone by... Thousands of e-mails are unread* blogs unfollowed... but now finally THE BROADBAND IS WORKING.

I'll spare you the details , and god knows it could could all be temporary, what with me now working on the oldest computer in Cheesetown ... ( it's an old Mac, insert appropriate joke here...)...but THE BROADBAND IS WORKING.

And rumours that I have lately been seen hugging the dog and crying over a Belkin modem are only slightly exaggerated.....

Bear with me while I catch up with y'all now.
*And if anyone has any ideas how best to tackle an in box of 2986 unread e-mails just let me know, won't you?