There. That’s your Macro Monday puzzle for today.

This is something most households have, especially those with .. um .. industrious family members who like a hobby which produces something useful. Of course, some will use one of these things out of necessity, as my own mother did when we were young.

Me, I use them mainly for my hobbies these days – and yes, I have several, though most houses will have just the one. Even so, I can never find one when I need it! This one was upstairs with my jewellery-making stuff. Of course it was!

So, if you do have one in your house, will it look just like this? Well, no, probably not, but many do. Some are bigger and a lot simpler, and I’ve seen some smaller, but not often. Mine are about as small as you can get while still remaining useful and functional, and robust enough not to break or be difficult to use.

Colour? I have to confess, most are white, off-white, or yellow and most have no plastic casing on them, though they may be plastic coated. I’ve seen some of the usual type which are pale blue or pink, but that’s not common. I’d say they’re usually either white or nearly so.

Size? Most of the ones in ordinary households are quite small and pack away to about an inch or so by half an inch. I have seen some big enough to need two hands to operate, but mostly those are for outdoor or professional use. Actually, thinking about it, you need two hands to use them anyway, but … well, you’ll see what I mean when you get the answer!

Mwahahaha! No help there, then!

Pop your answers in the comments, and I’ll be back tomorrow evening (Tues, UK time) to give you the answer to this hopefully intriguing puzzle. Till then, have fun!

YAY! We have a winner! Yep, one, single winner. Congratulations to Jeni of Jeni’s Dollz! Well done me ol’ shipmate. I suppose I might have known that you’d get it!

The answer, for all of the rest of you, is here. Yes, that was a tough one, wasn’t it? But you’ve had a couple of easy ones lately, so it was time for this!

Join me next week and see what I have for you. Will it be easy peasy, or as tough as your new DVD instruction manual? You’ll have to wait and see!

Uh-oh .. someone’s gonna regret parking there!

Spotted in Pisa last year as we sat waiting for our meal to arrive at a pavement trattoria. The quality isn’t great because as those of you who’ve been there will know, the streets off the Piazza del Duomo (where the leaning tower is) are heaving, all day and half the night.

By the way, that little trattoria sold the best cappuccino I’ve ever had. Pity I can’t remember what it was called!

Feel free to join in with this new meme of mine. Just add your name to the Linky list and link back to me, and I’ll be happy!

And please be patient – it’s the first time I’ve used Linky Tools, so there may possibly be bugs to iron out.

Our server host had a problem during our night and this blog had disappeared this morning, along with my other sites, my email and OH’s sites too.  It’s back now, but they seem to have lost my most recent post; ABC Wednesday, the letter G (for Greyhound).

I’m afraid I didn’t keep a copy, so I can’t restore it.  I suppose I could write it again, but all the comments are lost, so what would be the point?

They are trying to find and restore the lost bits, but if they can’t, well, I guess I’m going to have to skip straight to ‘H’… sorry about that.

So, I guess this is an easy choice for ABC Wednesday, huh?  The fact is, I’m being a bit lazy, too, because I have a lot to do today and I didn’t have time to do this post last night.  So here we are with G for Greyhound today.

Ranger, the new guy, is a cute black greyhound who is going rapidly grey.   He is getting older, being of 2002 vintage, but it’s his first time in a permanent home.  He was fostered for a while, but for less than two months, and it was in a very quiet location, so he didn’t gather much knowledge about life Outside and he’s been giving us a lot of grief since we got him.

We decided pretty quickly that we didn’t want to keep Ranger, because he was genuinely not the dog who was described to us and I needed an easy dog this time; I have gammy shoulders and knees, and I was going through a particularly difficult period healthwise.  Ranger turned out to be difficult in many ways:  contrary to what we were told, he isn’t fond of other breeds at all, and would certainly see a cat as fair game.  He was NOT easy to walk on the lead, he would NOT let his mouth or his feet be touched, he was the first greyhound I’d ever had who would have galloped out of the front door as soon as it was opened – it was painful for me to grapple with him when someone rang the bell.  In the first week he growled at me twice.  He also regularly body-slammed Sid, who was suffering back spasms as a result.

The arrangement was that if he didn’t make the grade – which was important with a tripod in the house – he could go back, but at the end of ten days when we gathered that he was not a good fit, we discovered that the foster home had assumed he was fine and got a new dog in so she couldn’t take him.  I told his trainer (who was also packed to the gills with dogs and had no space) that we would keep him as a foster and then the clumsy dog broke his foot, inside the house, by smacking it into his wooden feeding stand.  Clumsy, by the way, is ‘goffo‘ in Italian – I thought you might like to know that.

Obviously, we said we would keep him until he healed.  *Sigh*

Since then, he has run into a brick wall at 1.30am, tearing two great 4 inch gashes in himself (plus a less grievous two-incher), and he needs to be taken to be bathed (now that his support bandages are off and the wounds have healed) because he has the most awful dandruff.  Oh yeah, and because he didn’t like his mouth touched, the fact that he had a ghastly, deep, grungy fistula in the gum of his upper jaw since having a tooth out had gone un-noticed.  So once I’d got a glimpse into his mouth (which took me a week), we’ve had to treat that, too – and Ranger is not a dog you can ‘pop a pill’ down, or even hide it in a treat.  He has been a great headache, one way and another, and has already cost us close to a grand.

But … you know what I’m going to say, don’t you?

During our enforced custody of said dog, we’ve become very fond of him, and so has Sid. We’ve been working on his issues, and it’s gratifying to be able to tell you that he no longer smacks into Sid so hard – and Sid has learned to hold his ground.  Ranger no  longer pulls on the lead.  I’ve worked on his mouth, and can now use a dental wipe to clean his teeth.  I’ve learned how to give him pills.  He doesn’t growl and grumble anymore, or bolt out of the smallest gap, and his dandruff is improving.   He’s learning to accept other breeds of dog, too.

In short, we’ve given in, and we’re keeping the daft gangly great gawky goofball of a greyhound!

NB:  Since I lost this post in a server accident, I’m using a saved (draft) version, which had no pictures in it.  These are the right pictures, but I may not have them in exactly the same places .. also, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about replacing your lovely comments.  Apologies all round.