Kept Waiting

Dad's on weekend cover again so he's on the 04:15 alarm and into work by 05:30, but he's back by 09:00, so Haggis doesn't even notice he's gone. In fact , on the way out to work Dad can't see the H to give him a farewell 'sweetie' so he has a crisis of confidence and has to trot back upstairs, where he finds the H stretched out next to an equally comatose Mum and completely wrapped in duvet. No demand for sweets there, then!

We're awake when he gets back though, so a good walk is in the offing, out to Conyer Creek. Annoyingly Dad decides to go every where else first on errands, and at each stop we have to wait in the car. It's sooooo unfair!. First the Cambria where Dad wants to nip on board and get some pics for the Cambria blog. From there to the site of an old foundry which used to make castings for Cambria 100 years ago (and only recently demolished). From there to Conyer, where Dad wants a pic of their village sign (picture of a barge, naturally!).

Finally we get there and can get out of the car and run round our normal circuit. This place is terrier heaven, with short-grazed turf and thorn scrub, and hot'n'cold running bunnies everywhere. Dad notes that the local boozer, the Ship and Smuggler, seems to be closed, being redecorated but currently stripped of all its pubby stuff (signs, kegs, beer-garden paraphernalia) so we're not sure if this is a permanent closure, or just a refit.

Deefski

Pemberton

The Humans are still enjoying their long Christmas break - well, 4 days anyway. This is the longest break Dad says he's had over Christmas sonce he started working - more fool him for working in the chilled food distribution industry (cream, meat, turkey, brandy butter, salad - it's always going to be a bit mad around Christmas!).

We are getting some decent walks, such as this morning's one to Conyer where we walk out along the creek bank, past these two old hulks of long-dead barges (and Haggis clambering back up to high ground through the rocks). Conyer is brilliant for it's low scrubby bushes and millions of rabbits running everywhere.

Also depicted, the funkiest pair of socks received this year by mum, resplendent in red with tartan bow and westie face! How cool is that?

And finally, a kit car called a Pemberton. Dad and his 2CV cronies descend on one of their number, Ian C, train driver living in Folkestone. Ian's garage is double length, carpetted throughout and bedecked with railway memorabilia. Even the en-suite loo (en suite to the garage I mean) is done up like an old railway train toilet and when you lock the door it plays railway station sound-effects, and you are made to feel guilty by the sign saying "Please do not use this toilet while the train is standing in the station"

The Pemberton is a look-alike old 3 wheeler Morgan, with open wheels and an exposed engine in the nose, like a WW2 fighter-plane with no wings. The "chassis" is replaced by a space-frame unit, the suspension is ex-2CV, and the engines are some kind of air-cooled 2 cylinder. In Ian's case the 2CV engine out of the wrecked car he broke to get the suspension, but many people use motorbike engines like V-twins. Ian's has Dellorto carbs instead of the standard single solex of the 2CV (we Westies know about these things, of course).

Ah well, back in the old routine tomorrow, for 3 days anyway....

Deefski

Poets

With Dad having blagged a "poets" he's finally home in the dry daylight, and we are all treated to a walk down at Conyer Creek. We love this logo on the gated community at North Quay, which is cut out of sheet metal and painted white.

Conyer is, as ever, alive with bunnies and there is much fun to be had hunting in amongst the bushes, but it also seems to be THE PLACE to take your dogs at that time of day, presumably squeezed in between the end of work and it getting dark.

Quite sociable it all was. Have a good weekend

Deefer

PS - we seem to have swept straight through the third birthday of this blog, which was the 18th November. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun.

Target-rich Environment

Conyer Creek in the fog. We walk around the flat area which was presumably once buildings, roads and low walls - now it is finely rabbit-grazed turf and low shrubs, the surface liberally pitted with rabbit scrapes and every where you look, bunnies running for cover. What the US airmen chasing fleeing invaders back up the road to Baghdad liked to call a "target-rich environment".

We had tried to contact Hugo but he wasn't allowed out to play. Shame. Instead we met 2 superb dogs, a saturated black labrador called Pepper, and an even bigger, less wet, lurcher-looking thing called "Moose" (I kid you not).

The reason for Pepper's wetness soon becomes clear. He collects stones from under water. The dogs were with a lady in a red coat. She explained that she had had 5 labs and this was the worst "water baby". Always in and out fo the water and, if a suitable stone cannot be found above water, Pepper will wade out deep then effectively dive to the bottom to grab a stone, letting go great boiling surges of bubbles. Moose will chase in amazed at the sight, only to get Pepper surfacing like a whale beneath him, snorting and blowing.

"They are like kids" said the lady - "Anything one has the other wants..." so Moose will often steal Pepper's stone, so Pepper has to go back in and get another. "We often walk at Minster" she said "Where there are lots of loose single bricks. I am often walking home with each dog carrying a brick. I feel like everyone is going to ask me whether I'm building a house, snd we are carrying it home in kit form, one brick at a time!"

And they say we're mad!

Deefer