Ticks, and changing things

 Bloody things.  Where we are, both here at home and at the caravan park, there seems to be a population explosion of ticks right now, what's it like where you are?  We've found several on Betty, fortunately they haven't latched onto her skin, they've just been crawling on her fur, so are easy to catch and dispose of.  She's been on Nexgard flea and tick tabs from the vet ever since she was a pup, it's expensive and I'm aware there have been concerns about safety to animals.  However, my view is that, although there are no doubt some animals who react badly to it (just as some humans suffer side effects from some medications), Betty's had no such problems with it and I don't think our vet would prescribe it if it wasn't basically safe.  We did stop giving it to her for a few months the year before last, on a cost basis, and gave her a herbal remedy instead - during those few months she had several ticks actually attached to her skin, she'd never had them before.  So back on the Nexgard she went, and hasn't had a tick latched on to her since.  She's also never had fleas in all the time we've had her (5 years), so we think the cost of the tab is worth it.

Since I had the talk with husband about his constant TV viewing (or rather, constantly having it on regardless of the fact that he can't actually watch it with his eyes closed!), he's been switching it off after he's finished watching something, so it's not now on constantly all bloody day.  I did look at loads of headphones online - goodness me, there's a huge range of different prices and specs, quite bewildering actually.  It occurred to me that I might actually get more benefit than husband out of a pair of headphones - noise cancelling ones, that is.  Then husband can have the TV on and I won't have to hear it....although of course I'd still see it if I was in the same room.  I'll have a think about it.  However, as I said before, I would much rather he only had the TV on for the things he really wants to watch, rather than having it on ALL the time and watching the same old daytime rubbish every single bloody day.

There are things I like to watch - I've enjoyed the coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show the past couple of evenings, and I do like a good drama series, such as Line of Duty or Call the Midwife.  What I don't enjoy is daytime rubbish, endless repeats of things like antiques programmes, Top Gear and other car shows, noisy car racing, and superhero films - all of which husband will cheerfully watch over and over, ad infinitum.  He will also happily watch the news at breakfast time, lunchtime and then again at 6 pm - why for goodness sake?  It's not as if there are many new major news stories in the few hours in between each showing, it's just rehashing the same things.  And when the news is so gloomy (Boris's parties and lies, yet another mad gunman shooting kids indiscriminately in the USA, Ukraine, energy prices going up massively again in a few months), it's just piling on the depression having it constantly repeated on the TV.

I think I've been too passive up till now with regard to husband's TV watching and his habit of doing very little (which he has allowed to become very much a bad habit over the past year or so) round the house and garden.  It's not good for my stress levels, and it's certainly not good for him - he's put on a stone in weight over the winter and is always moaning about it, yet does nothing to get it off.  And the extra weight is certainly not good for his heart failure, putting more pressure on his heart and making him more breathless.  Whilst he's being fairly co-operative at the moment with regard to the TV, that probably won't last.  But I'm not going to go through the same cycle over and over again, so things are going to change around here from now on.