I guess I kind of owe an update...

... but I've been avoiding it, since I don't like being seen to whinge, whine or otherwise write a negative post that might suggest my life sucks.

Item #1: Tara
As a lot of you will have already heard, there's been a lump on my dog's back that increased steadily in size from the first time I noticed it, going from squash-ball to tennis-ball size over the summer, and going from that to the current half-grapefruit-sized lump over the course of Michaelmas term.

As you can probably guess, she's not budding a new Tara in there. Histopathology showed it was a mast cell tumour - for the non-vet readers, that's one of the most aggressively malignant doggy cancers you're likely to see - and radiography showed there are already tumours in her lungs and liver.

Tara is older than either of my (11 and 6 y.o.) sisters, and we've had her since she was 6 weeks old. She's a good dog. She deserves better than this.

I don't really know what more to say than that.

Item #2: Work stuff
Has seemed pretty trivial lately, in the "I can't work up the energy to x/y/z therefore it probably doesn't matter much" way of things.

2a) My EMS for this holiday has somewhat fallen through as there aren't many pig farms in the north of Ireland, and the one that I'm at doesn't have much work for me to do at the minute so has suggested I save the 45-minute drive there in the mornings for the new year, when there might be more to do.

2b) I still have to do my farm report. See above re: trivial.

2c) I have, as was anticipated, had to redo my dissertation plan from a different angle. While I've chosen an approved title, I haven't yet done a new plan, let alone started writing.

2d) How t.f. am I supposed to write 12 essays at the end of this year?