So I've not been about. This is not my fault.

1) our internet got cut off 5 days before we moved

2) we moved house

3) school blocked GA from all school computers

4) despite having moved in on the 2nd May, our internet didn't get connected until TODAY!

Normal people are irrational and grumpy without the web, so can you imagine what my life has been like living with a first-class grade-a bona-fide geek-nerd and programmer without internet? He's been in hell. Oh goody.

The house is bliss, and very nearly perfect.

I've painted the front door John Deere green, then we had 2 solid days without water when the water main under the A22 snapped, flooded the road and left 10,00 homes without any running water (makes a mockery of finally owning more than one toilet when you can't use any of them), I bought a chicken coop, which I need to convert before the chickens arrive this weekend.

I'm not even close to being fully set up in the kitchen yet!

And then there's Dashi.

Follow me if you will. My riding buddy Clare has a son called Dylan. Dylan's best friend Charlie (always known as Weller) has a beautiful long haired lurcher called Kelly. Kelly is his gun and running dog, which for the uninitiated does not mean she goes running with him. Kelly hunts for him, because a lurcher is fast enough to catch a rabbit which hasn't been shot. In Ireland they use Greyhounds and lurchers in hare coursing, a sport in which the hare is now given a head start because otherwise the dogs win too often. Kelly is a good hunter, and Weller eats a lot of rabbit (he's also a cracking good shot - through the eye socket with an air rifle and practices on 5p pieces at 200 yards).

A lurcher is not a specific breed, but a mix of sighthounds and other working dogs. Kelly has greyhound, whippet, and Beddlington terrier in her background, which makes for wonderful robust health and very fast dogs.

And Kelly had puppies.

The sire is a lovely boy, also fawn coloured, with collie, greyhound and other stuff in his genetic make up, and I have also met the grandsire and the bitch's sister, who are all owned by Weller's family and his parents-in-law.

The puppies are 4 weeks old today, and as of last friday, one of them is mine. Obviously Dashi isn't home with us yet, because he's only little, and unlike his brother's and sister, he is black, tan and white, with orange eyebrow spots and little white paws. I love him into tiny pieces already.

I've waited so long for my pup; he's going to be perfect.

and yes, I'm going to train him to do what his mother does so well, and be a loving, loyal family pet who kills rabbits for us to eat.

Pictures of little Dashi are on my twitter @sashadistan because GA and image hosting no longer seems to be such a useful thing.