The weather has been wonderful since just after Christmas, about -10C with brilliant sunshine, which gives that delicate crystal frost on everything (which you can't really see in the photo, it was taken on my phone.) We went for a long walk on Sunday, following the smaller paths around the hill in Malminkartano, and then running up and down the mountain bike tracks.

So far this week, Tesla has destroyed the following:

• three sticks of lipbalm
• one pen
• two bottles of contact lense solution
• one phone, Nokia E70 (my phone!!! How could she??)
• one light bulb
• one book (mostly unread)

She is also in heat for the first time, and bleeding like a stuck pig.

To put it another way:

I have chapped lips, I can't open my eyes properly because my lenses are gluey, and I'm sitting in the dark. Here in the dark, I can't call my friends and family, I can't write bad poetry about my predicament. On the bright side, my book has been destroyed so I wouldn't be able to read it, and the splashes of blood about the place are a lot less disturbing.

ETA Just caught her investigating my hot water bottle (imported to Finland at great expense (not my expense)). If that had been destroyed, I couldn't have been held responsible for my behaviour.

Literally.

Just one of things I would never have thought of doing before I got a dog.

The Dog Expert Book* recommends encouraging your dog to chew the right things by coating acceptable chew toys with something the dog really likes, like peanut butter.

Well, we haven't tried Tesla with peanut butter yet, but she does love lip-balm. She cracks open the casing and eats up the entire stick (I guess it is her equivalent of a soft-centred chocolate), when we leave it about. One way to get her undivided attention is to apply the lip-balm to your own lips, and a special reward for her is to apply it to her nose.

So, now I am trying it on her chew toys. If it works, I'll switch to the cheapest vaseline I can find, but I suspect she will just lick off the lip-balm, and then go on a crazed quest to find more.

* There are hundreds and thousands of Dog Expert Books. Most of them contradict each other, and some of them even contradict themselves. I'm thinking of writing my own.

Not according to plan, I've been on sick leave since Tuesday. I'm trying not to think of how far behind in my work I am, and how ridiculous my estimates and commitments are going to look - yesterday was deadline day, I am the only tester on the project so I couldn't even delegate. I even left a test running on Monday evening when I left the office, so I have to go in there today or tomorrow to check the result, and pick up my laptop for a trip to Oslo on Monday.

Anyway. finnbear was sick as well, so the dog has been going mad with neither of us being well enough to take her for more than the shortest walk. When I finally took her (name of Tesla, by the way) out yesterday afternoon (ill-advised on my part, I felt horrible when I got home) she dragged me down to our usual meadow, and ran around in circles without pausing for about twenty minutes.

That's about the most exciting thing that has happened all week. I can't wait for life to start up again.