Oh yes. Even here chez Macy, there is a World Cup Thing going on.
Previous world cups have seen me working around the thing.

Italia 1990 - Loved Nessum Dorma, developed a major obsession with Salvatore Schillaci (hey I'm Scottish and a GIRL, so I could cheer when he scored a goal against England.. it was allowed!).

The 1994 World Cup was in the US, so what with that and no Schillaci, I could safely ignore it.

In 1998 I was still nursing the baby cherub, so I probably slept through most of it. I remember nothing.

World Cups 2002 through to 2006? I could flit in and out to be sociable make general comments about Rooney's fitness, Beckham's lack of direction, Goren Eriksson's general uselessness... for some reason Scotland had failed to qualify yet again, so there was no drama.

This time around it's a bit different.
Well, still no Scotland obviously.. but more to the point, this year it's just me and the Cherub. This year as sole parent, there can be no cop out... It's me filling in the wall chart, me having to give opinions on the goals...or lack of them.

I've been doing heavy revision here. England's dearth of talent even before Ferdinand dropped out? Maradona going a long way to stiff the Argentine team (and Messi) before the end of the first round? Spain's unstoppable form in the qualifying matches?
Yep, done the basic revision. Got the hang of the offside rule.
Gearing up for the harder stuff; Gerrard as midfielder or second striker to support Rooney?
What was wrong with 4-4-2 as a gameplan?

Sometimes though life gets real simple. Even I didn't have to fake my head in my hands watching the re-runs of .. er... was it Robert Green's goal on Saturday??





Sorry...sorry... English people....I didn't have the heart to put a video of that goal on the blog.. This one's good though.. http://gu.com/p/2hke8

I am explaining the joys of Ladbrokes to Penny.

"Because the odds on the Irish lottery are so much better. See, just two balls matching gets you £53.. None of that three balls gets you £10 here. And they were having an open day in there, all very sociable".

"Could be a good place to meet men"...

Who? Wha? huh?? This woman never fails to amaze. Last time I checked she was a 50 year old Senior Accountant, happily married with two teenage kids and an obsession with standardising typefaces across all the Institute's correspondence.

I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume she's worrying on my behalf, not her own....

Yeah erm, yeah there were lots of men there ...
More than your bereavement group?

Ah! So unless there is Something She Hasn't Told Me about Mr P, this line of thought is headed straight in my direction.

Mmm, well you know anyone I'm going to meet there is going to have their own set of problems....

And only one of my numbers came up...

Behold what was parked chez Macy last Sunday!!
Right outside my front door no less!!

Now what I want to know, is what kind of eejit would buy me a new set of wheels complete with customised number plate and forget to drop the keys through the letterbox..

Yeah, I know, I know, I know, it's been WOEFULLY quiet round here. The average blog flicker could imagine that the Cherub and I were currently washed ashore in deepest NZ already.. huddled around a campfire with only a depressed Collie for warmth.. or worse marooned in my mother in law's front room...
Nope.
As if..

The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs has been in touch.

They are not impressed with my ten page application and supporting documentation. To be specific:
1. They need to see sight of W's Actual Death Certificate. Not the copy that I haphazardly posted them. Because I naively imagined that it was irrelevant; that the Cherub had dual nationality whether or not his dad was alive or not......That this standard Extract would do since it was issued by the registrar pfft. That word copy on the top of the form seems to have thrown them into a loop..
Well you never know. I might be making all this up - and print the word COPY on the top of all my faked forms, just so I can separate them from real forms later.

2.The Cherub's witness, a teacher at school, did not sign and date BOTH photos of him.
Since both photos are identical, she probably thought one signature would suffice. Fool that she is.

3.The Privacy Act Section 6 was not dated.
Sigh.... I'm blogging this! HA! Take that with your Privacy NZ!

Sensible Self. Macy. Three words. East. Coast. and Winters. Now focus and re-gather the forms.

The dogs in Cheesetown are not having a good run of things right now...In the past couple of months no less than three of Ned's five regular walking companions have gone through the door of the vet's for the last time...

Remember Jock? or Old gentle George? Yeah last week saw another beloved old family hound put down.

Now it's Ned's turn to get the qualified diagnosis from the vet.

Not the full death sentence! Not a terminal diagnosis... but the writing's on the wall.

The Nedster started taking fits last autumn. Nothing to worry about yadda yadda, come back if they become frequent said the vet. How frequent is frequent? I asked being uninformed about all this. More than once a fortnight said the vet.

Within a week I was back.. because he was having attacks twice a day or more..

And the vet was relaxed about this, and Ned got put on drugs. And the drugs worked, until they didn't, when our relaxed vet upped the dosage. To cut a long story short for the past nine months we've been raising the dosage everytime he has more "breakthrough fits".
He's currently on six times the level of drugs he was on last September.

Which is not a Good Thing.

Last week our vet was sounding a bit less relaxed. Ned had had to be taken back after yet another major episode. The vet phoned me with the results of his blood tests.

"Well the good news is that we've still got some scope for increasing the dosage"
Oh..right..good
"But we are approaching the limits he can be given...How old is he again?"
Four and a half.
"Ah.. mm and it's been 9 months since the first episode... I think we may have to accept that we won't be able to control the epilepsy. This does happen I'm afraid".
..
I'm waiting for the usual "Lots of dogs have fits and live to a hundred" routine.
..
It isn't forthcoming.
..
So his fits will keep getting worse?
"Yes, that's entirely possible."
"At the same rate?"
A deep breath from the vet, "Yes, we may have to look at quality of life issues. "

The Nedster and I are currently contemplating the meaning of Quality of Life Issues.