Yes, the dog-related puns will just keep on comin’.

Things have been quiet of late; not boring as such, but to borrow and roundly abuse a mathematical metaphor, the graph of excitement against time is smoother than normal even as the integral of said graph is somewhat greater. Dog ownership enforces more responsibility and regularity on life even than I’d expected — who stays in tonight with Maisie because this pub or that pub isn’t dog-friendly? Who walks Maisie this morning/lunchtime/evening? Who’s dog-sitting this week? — but the rewards are worth it. Our furry friend appears to be happy in her new home.

Other than hound-related activities, the last couple of weeks have been anticipatory in nature. A prelude, if you will, to greater things. The band is limbering up for a 15-hour recording session in Lofi Studios in Glasgow this Thursday, wherein we will commit the bare bones of our putative album to some sort of electronic recording medium (doesn’t have the same ring as “tape”, does it?). Charlie, the selfish bastard, has of late been off enjoying himself on a variety of work jollies and holidays, and so I must admit to a certain degree of trepidation. We’re not bad, we’re just a little rusty. Time — 15 hours of it — will tell.*

Looming alarmingly over all this, though, is that which is gradually coming to occupy all of my conscious thought: I’m off to Vancouver for three months starting at the beginning of June. My work has signed up to place an on-site support/communications person in our customer’s office for a trial period of a year, and I’ll be taking up the reins when Dom finishes the first stint during the first week of June. I’m see-sawing back and forth between enthusiasm and guilt at the moment, what with the promise of sunny days and mountain biking in the Pacific Ranges balanced out by having to leave Ash and Maisie in Edinburgh. Ash & I are planning a holiday (a drive down the West Coast of the US) when my time in Canada is up, but of course this means that Maisie will have to be left with some understanding friend or relative for a further fortnight. I feel bad already.

And that’s it really; The Project lumbers onwards whenever Maisie has fallen asleep, exhausted from herding tennis balls around the living room, when the band isn’t reheasing, and when we aren’t enthralled by the terrible spectacle of Prison Break becoming the worst TV program ever made.

God we rock.

* Although having said that, a rather rocking practice last night (relaxing Crossroads jam ahoy) has assuaged my fears.