Still feeling rather "out there" atm. Spent all of Saturday checking in with the real estate agents. No joy there. We went to drive out to some of locales that we may rent in (will be cheaper, maybe more open to dogs) but are further out than we'd buy. (Too far for me to drive La to school from.) Anyhow, we went from Belgrave out towards Emerald, Avonsleigh, Macclesfield out to Cockatoo and then Gembrook which Nic insisted he wasn't lost and had me take a "short-cut". I'm in my whimpy, suburbanite, non-4-wheel-drive SEDAN without even a few wooden planks and bag of cat litter in case I got stuck in that muck on what ended up being a dubiously 1 lane, washed-out, dirt track hacked into the middle of the bush. We did eventually, with a few interesting driving tricks, make it to Monbulk, Mt Evelyn etc.

Today we had a show for Hope at KCC. A fair number of Aussie's there, got to see Jezza and Hondo et all again! Jezza, is the size of Hope now! We got to see two 12 week old Puli puppies and Oh. My. GODS... being that adorable should be a SIN! I'd have happily stuck one in my purse to take home! And best of all I got to meet Kate's little baby Cameron and got all horridly clucky over having a nearly-newborn to hold again! ;-p What a cute little chappy he is, blowing spit bubbles, gurgling and smiling up a storm!!! Hope & I did nothing as far as placings went... 2nd of 2. Hope totally deserved to place last as she was hopping, forging, crabbing, galloping and generally doing everything BUT gait properly, the booger! Point taken - no more slacking off training because I'm busy obsessing over finding a house, else she'll end up completely feral. X-P

Meanwhile I finally sat down to fill out entries last night and realized I've missed every entry-closes-by date except for one on the 31st of March. So apparently we won't be showing at all till April. *sigh* The saving grace to that is that there is at least quite a few herding events on in March and maybe the house thing will be resolved by then. Till then, there's Southern's instinct test, then ASCV's training day, then a VHA test day (which I think is beyond our current training) and then the weekend after the end of march the ASCV test day.

Because we'd been out to Skye, it made me think about looking in that area. Cranbourne and surrounds certainly aren't my first pick of place to live but what the hey, can't hurt to look so I took a squiz and found THIS HOUSE on 2 acres, 3 bedroom BV house, set up for horses for $495K The house is okay, not even close to what I'd design if we custom built but not completely yarg-worthy either. I suppose the paddocks could be fenced for sheep and dogs, the arena could do as an agility arena and stables could transform eventually into kennels. I'm not wild about it and half-way wonder if I'm selling out on my dream for the chance to have something sure/safe now (better a bird in hand...) but I suppose we'll probably look at it and look at the area as I don't know what it's like beyond the few times I've driven through one street of it to get to KCC or go to Toora. There was semi-affordable land in Beaconsfield Upper - 7 acres lightly treed for $399,500+ but it looks too far out for Nic to deal with transport. (Pakenham would be the nearest train line I think which is WAY too far for school!) Anyhow. Time for sleep. I've had crappy sleep the past few days and too little of it so time to haste me to the bye.