More caravan

The evening of Friday had seen us all gathered again at 2CV Llew's caravan, all be it Mum slightly delayed by meeting a burning hedge in the lane and having to call out the Fire Brigade. Might have been just an excuse to entice hunky uniformed firemen into a leafy lane at night but we're saying no such thing. Mum arrives with all the ingredients for a nice risotto and the evening is warm enough for us to stay outside and fire up the log burning converted LPG cannister. Autumn does come, though, in terns of the change from chilled whites and Prosecco, to the more hearty reds. Dad cooks, we all relax into the evening, beds get wrangled and that's another evening gone.

On Saturday, Diamond is being to taken to favourite restaurant 'Le Cygne' in Saint Omer (Northern France) by John for a birthday meal, so we are babysitting Ragworth. Mum, Dad and I nip over to collect him mid morning, leaving the H asleep in the van. This lets Mum drop us all off at the Albion pub carpark from where Dad and we dogs can walk the nice hour's walk round the Creek bank to the Shipwrights' Arms and back to the boatyard that way. Dad has been warned that Rags can be a bit problematic with other dogs, but the footpath is crossed regularly by secure 'kissing gates' so Dad can let Rags off the lead and just grab him easily enough should any dog walkers come the other way. Not many do; most people time that walk to end up at the pub when it's open!

We then have a relaxing day around the caravan with all three dogs off the lead and mooching around. Diamond and John return at 6-ish to collect Rags and Diamond's comment is that never was a dog more fitted to the caravan lifestyle! He looks the part and definitely enjoys the day. Mum's cooking tonight so it's a bit more adventurous; a roast rack of lamb with vegetables and very nice too, judging by the bits of vertebrae we get at the end. Also it's a bit chilly in the wind so having got a good coal-assisted fire going in the burner for Diamond and John's visit, we now let that burn down low and retreat indoors for tonight's feast.

Sunday sees Dad get up on the alarm and vanish off to lead a Deer Walk for the Friends of Kings Wood in Challock Forest, showing the public the delights of the fallow deer rut. It goes well and they all see and hear plenty of deer and plenty of rutting buck behaviour. Dad returns and we decamp to Icklesham where there is a family meal at the Queen's Head involving Mum and Dad, Pud Lady and Dad's younger bro and sis-in-law. From there we all retreat back to Hastings where bro can show us all his holiday slides of Galway which include some of our tentative new house which bro tracked down on his way to/from the west coast.

Enough for this one, then. We are now back in the old routine of Hastings and Pud Lady's, of which more tomorrow.

Deefs