Flying the Flag(s)

Deefer at 11

Happy Birthday, then Deefer, this blog's eponymous dog. She made it to 11 along with her sister, Ellie-Bezz back home in Kent. Sadly, her brother (Archie) did not make it and had to be put down back in February (bone cancer) but we send our condolences as well as our good wishes to Deef's Mother, Mollie who is still with us. Another year, perhaps, everybody?

The very last of the 2016 pork bits get cleared out of the freezer for
use as raw ribs (Doggie Birthday Cake) and then a Medieval meat
feast for us coated in peanut sauce. Finger licking good.

That was Sunday 17th but ask anyone here what that date was all about and they will swoop on by Deef's celebration without so much as a sideways glance, and land firmly on one answer, "The All Ireland". This the GAA Irish-rules football final played at 'National' stadium Croke Park (you Brits think 'Wembley'), this year between Mayo and Dublin again for, I think, the 3rd year running.

This 'Dub' always puts out a good display, all be it the "wrong"
colours. 

One of the first cultural things a Brit notices on moving here is the huge keenness for flying flags; be it the National tri-colour, or more commonly your sports team colours or county colours. Perhaps a quick 'Heath Warning' here for those who don't know me and need telling that I was born without the 'sport' genes in my DNA - I was always rubbish at football and had no interest in it despite working all by life with hundreds of soccer-mad warehouse-men forever teasing each other over the triumphs and crashes of Chelsea, The 'Ammers, Man-U, Liverpool and Spurs. I have brought this appalling ignorance with me and am only very slowly learning how to chat 'knowledgeably' about "The Rossies", Mayo and the Dubs. If I have gone wrong here, please do feel free to comment.

If you don't have a flag pole then a wheel
barrow be-decked with red and green shirts
and watering cans will do. This guy even
managed a turf-stack topped with a Rossies
scarf!

So a month or so back we were driving through a sea of 'primrose' and blue as our team, Roscommon (Go the Rossies!) battled their way through the Provincial stages of the competition to end up Champions of Connaught. I think this is a league type competition where everyone plays everyone else within Connaught (Rossies, Mayo, Galway, Sligo etc), so 'we' may have beaten Mayo back then, but maybe not; it might have been a 'play off' thing.

Someone hung a Mayo shirt on the new
Memorial stone. One of the Guards named
here was a former Mayo GAA star.

Either way, I felt quite cheated when I learned that winning Connaught did not automatically get us a place in the All Ireland semis. Each Province enters 2 teams, with a 'back door' route for one of the teams so suddenly Mayo were back in it and, because the final 8 is a random draw, we were picked against them and they knocked us out. I know. Unreasonable!

Bobtail brings her 4 new babies off the nest.

Ah well, all the yellow and blue Rossie flags came down and most of the local support switched to Mayo being the nearest county to us still 'in it' (green and red). The die-hard 'Dubs' of course would not be seen dead with green and red flags outside their houses and created some impressive showings of the dark and pale blue colours of the Capital. Pubs tend to try to stay neutral, so will often fly both flags AND an Irish Tri-Colour just for the look of it. Many people also fly those little side-roof-gutter flags on their cars. It all makes for a lovely, happy, party atmosphere and very pretty countryside.

Onion harvest. Small bulbs but very pretty.

Ah well. The day came and went and history will record that Dublin won again, this time by just one point in the last seconds of a very tense exciting match, breaking all the local hearts again. Maybe next year, lads. Liz (a Dub, obviously) just sent me a very restrained, jokey text saying "Tanks Be". A few days on I see most of the flags are down now, though that Dub with all the flags at the far end of Lough Glynn village still has his out in celebration. The trophy they are all chasing is called the Sam Maguire Cup, or "Sam" for short. I am always amused by the Dub's adopted slogan, "Dubs for Sam, Mayo for sandwiches!" But enough of the All Ireland. Enough, I say!

Bullace plums and sloes

So, what have we been up to when not glued to the telly watching sport (Yeah, right!). One nice task was to tour the local hedgerows picking nature's bounty - black berries, sloes and just down the lane from here a couple of trees of the small wild blue-black plums we are fairly sure are known as 'bullace'. They are ripe, soft and sweet like greengages. They are not, as someone suggested, 'damsons'. We KNOW damsons and we have a tree in or orchard and these are not they.

She made a very dark sticky puddle! Bullace 'cheese'. 

The sloes have not yet had the necessary first frost but we have picked them anyway and they will get a night or two in our freezer before being converted into sloe gin. The bullace plums got a whole new treatment - being used for 'cheese' and also for 'leather'. I'd heard of the former but not the latter. 'Cheese' in this sense is a clear, very firm, super-concentrated jelly. It is intensely flavoured and you cut the set slab into small rectangles which then get sliced at the table to have with your cheese-board. Nom nometty nom!

Our James Grieves apples and blackberries from local hedges

The 'leather' is a fun confection mainly for the kids. You smear smaller amounts of the hot (cheese) jelly onto grease-proof paper as thin as (you guessed it) leather. When the smear is set you peel the paper off the back and cut the thin jelly into strips so that the kids (or adults of course) can eat them like liquorice shoe-laces. The blackberries and apples became a rather lovely tart. It's all very 'mellow fruitfulness' round here at the moment.

A very sleepy bumble bee on Sedum spectabile

I think that'll do us for this one. Good Luck now.

Mum looks a bit weary about the eyes. 4 kids under a week old.

Bespoke Livestockman's Dressing Gown?

Deefer at 9

Happy Birthday to my 'Number 1 Daughter', Deefer Dawg after whom this blog is named, 9 years old on Thursday 17th. She had a day of extra fusses and all three dogs got raw pork bones which pass for doggie Birthday Cake in this family. Happy Birthday too, to her litter mates, bro' Archie and sis' Ellie-Bezz who are both back in Kent and still in contact via their owners on Facebook. I don't know if Arch and Ellie get bones but if not, then they are missing out.

Our 'alpha' rooster, The Lieutenant with a Buff hen

Our bones were of course those from recent pig butchery of our Berkshires. I cut the shoulder prime-joints through close to the spine and ribcage so that all possible meat stays wrapped round the shoulder blade and we cook them bone-in. The few front-most ribs and associated vertebrae are our dog bones. I can remember watching the meat factory lads cutting up the pork for a friend of ours a few years back and using a hydraulic puller to rip the shoulder blade out of the joint.

The new flock line-up in the East Field

You'll be pleased to know that the new ram (Rambo) has settled in well with our ewes and our existing young ram-lamb, Dylan. Within hours he was 'with' them, very much part of the flock and very much taking his duties responsibly in terms of 'marshall and protect'. When I walk the dogs around outside their fence, the ewes will usuallly look up and get a bit nervous, though they are well used to the dogs by now, but Rambo grunts and moves to defend the ewes, placing his body squarely between the dogs and his women and even coming to the fence to glare at the dogs.

The turkeys have now taught the chickens to steal catfood
through the kitchen window.

Of course, he is really quite tame and as soft as grease, so he also wanders over to any passing human to get his head stroked and his chin petted. As to his real job, we have seen him schmoozing the girls up, sniffing their vulvae and so on, but so far we have seen no actual mounting. I have read that the presence of the ram will bring the girls into season but I don't recall how long this might take. I will have to do some research. Also, worryingly, Myfanwy is still very occasionally allowing Dylan to suckle,and I think that this will stop her coming on heat. Ah well, we have the lend of Rambo for as long as it takes so we are still hopeful of a good result.

All taken! 4 hens in 4 nestboxes. 

On that one, I find I have been too clever, using the word 'tup' and 'tupping' for all this maleness. It is the word the UK sheep farmers use, so it is in our sheep 'bible' Tim Tyne's "The Sheep Book for Smallholders" but in these parts no-one uses it and I completely bamboozled our lamb-butcher and slaughterman (They asked what word I was saying and how did I spell it!) by talking about this year's tup. They say, simply, that you "let the ram in" or "let the ram out (into the ewes' field)".

Dry salt cure for this leg complete. Now it gets air-dried

While we are on pork and butchery, our dry salt-cured complete leg of pork is now through the salting process. It gets covered in salt for 21 days, with daily draining of the brine water which is sucked out of the meat by osmosis and repairs to the salt crust 'patted' onto it all over. This salts the outside very well and dries the outside to a nice safe preserved dark-red state. The salt and spices are then washed off and the leg patted dry before being enclosed in a muslin bag and hung up to dry in a good cool drafty place for between 4 and 18 months.

Full leg in its muslin bag.

The muslin keeps the flies and dust off the meat while the salt diffuses throughout the meat and the inner/outer saltiness evens up, plus various other chemical changes happen to mature the meat. You hope that you have left no bits uncured to go off. If the meat starts to smell you cannot recover it and just have to throw it away, though you are allowed to scrub surface moulds off the outside with vinegar during the curing time. We are hoping for a 'parma ham' type effect but we might be a while showing you any results. 18 months? What is that all about? Patience is the thing.

Music sessions at the local pub are still going strong.
Here 8 musicians make a goodly noise

The need for a muslin bag led Liz to break out the sewing machine and write out a list of projects on which to try her skills even though sewing 'school' is currently broken up for a 4 week holiday due to all the others involved being tied up on other jobs. The muslin bag turned out to be no simple wrap-around shroud - it had posh seams and a draw-string tie at the top. The string was even plaited for extra strength and the whole leg is now hanging on this from a screw in the loft-hatch.

Skilled hands work another seam.

Better still, Liz decided to try to make me an entire replacement copy of my Summer-weight dressing gown, originally a rather posh 'designer' (Calvin Klein) one, a gift from Liz decades ago. It is my habit to 'sprint' round on my first livestock round in the dressing gown (plus crocs or wellies if necessary and, of course coat and hat if it is raining) and I have over the years snagged the old one a couple of times on fences or doors and worn it thin so that it was looking a bit disreputable. I can then 'lep' back into bed for a sneaky lie-in till it is a sensible time to bring Liz her cup of tea.

Who needs Calvin Klein?

To the rescue, then, a redundant dark blue kingsize bedsheet, 8 feet by 8 feet of flat, blank "canvas" onto which Liz could chalk the shapes of the panels of the old one and the parts of sleeves, belt, pockets, collar. I just had to do 'model' occasionally, standing on chairs or next to Liz who was on a chair with pins between her lips and tape measure in hand; we had a number of fittings for this tailoring. The "bespoke" and "livestockman's" words in my title? It was during one of these fittings that Liz asked about pockets and I admitted that the pockets were only ever used for carrying two carrots, those for rabbits Ginny and Goldie who I reach further round the 'rounds' and that I only ever use the left hip pocket and the left breast pocket. The two hip pockets Liz had already made up quickly got re-pinned to these locations on the gown and Bingo! A unique one-off garment but one which Liz is delighted to find that she could easily turn out again if needed. I am very pleased with it and the Calvin Klein original is currently in the blue wheelie bin, just rags now. Up-cycling at its best.

Tsipouro! Yammas!

Mum returned from Greece with a small amount of a drink which was new to Dad, it being the local fire-water, "Tsipouro". Absolutely clear in colour this is 'pomace brandy', pomace being "the solid remains of grapes, after pressing for juice. It contains the skins, pulp, seeds, and stems of the fruit". It is around 47% proof, so not quite as lethal as good old Irish over-proof Poitín (Potcheen) and, it will not surprise you to know, was first produced by some Greek Orthodox Monks (weren't all these dodgy spirits?) up a mountain. According to Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsipouro  ) " Depending on the time of year, tsipouro is used either as refreshment or as a hot beverage, and depending on the time of day, it replaces the drinking of coffee or wine. Tsipouro and tsikoudia, as with all alcoholic beverages in Greece, always seem to coincide with various social gatherings, as their consumption had a festive and symposium-like quality.

It is usually served in shot glasses, very cold, often with meze, walnuts, almonds, raisins, feta cheese, olives, or accompanying halva or other desserts in restaurants.

In 2006, Greece filed a request to recognise tsipouro as a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) product.

We say 'Yammas' (Cheers) to that!

Much to everyone's amazement, I reach my 6th Birthday (on Monday 17th), and so, too, do my sister, Ellie, back in Faversham, and my Brother Archie, back in Maidstone. The word is that I have matured into a very sensible, capable, well balanced dog and a good 'Auntie' to the kindergarten. Cynics say that this is because I was always wishing I was a favourite only dog and I am happier that way so that I just had to contrive to remove Megan, Haggis and Coco from any position superior to, or threatening, mine and I'd be home and dry. All I have to do now is make sure Blue, Rolo, Towser, Poppy, assorted rabbits and poultry and any other arrivals stay subservient and I should remain well adjusted to the end of my natural puff. Yammas to that, too.

Mike-the-Cows's herd have now pretty much eaten off all the grass on Vendor Anna's land and on our bits so, yesterday, were moved off to give the grass a chance to recover and for them to get some grub on less grazed turf. Dad loves that the local farming mags talk about something called the 'rate of thrive' which is basically the rate at which cows put on weight in kg per day. These are beef animals so success is all about the weight of the carcase at slaughter. The farmer either buys them in at a known weight or breeds them himself, but then has to spend x amount of money on grazing or on concentrates per day, hoping that at the end the weight will have gone up sufficiently that they have made more in carcase value (weight) than he has spent getting them to that weight. I gather it can be a bit knife-edge at the moment with a poor Summer having given them poor grass growth and a lot of them having to eat into stored silage which was meant to see them through winter. Also, says Mike, with cows being worth anything from €700 up to and over €3000, you've only got to lose one to sickness or an accident and you may have no margin left this year at all. Mike seems to be doing OK, though he'd never admit that!

Yammas!

Deefer

Support Group

A couple of days back we mentioned the late Spinone "Archie", because we'd met another Spinone "Tosca". Archie used to be walked with a lovely little long haired terrier called Jamie, and Meggie and the H always looked forward to meeting them, or passing their superb old jettied-roof, tudor wood framed house with it's inglenook fireplaces and bay windows. There was always a welcome there and on hot days, always a bowl of water for the dogs, in the cool shaded stone flagged porchway.

This link will give you some idea, but this isn't the best house down there.

http://www.faversham.org/pages/standard.aspx?i_PageID=15993

We met Jamie the other day, out with his Mum, a good friend of our Dad, and as we were in the Rec and we dogs were chasing about, the humans got to talking. It turns out that Jamie , too, has cushings, just like Megan! It's an unusual condition; in fact when Meggie was diagnosed, our lovely vet, John, said he only had one other patient on his practise with it. Jamie, it seems, was diagnosed a lot faster than Meggie, so his condition was not so bad, and his recovery, on Vetoryl 65 is almost total.

The two dogs chatted a while, excited to find they had their very own support group for the affliction.

Deefski

Long Leather Pouffe

Real Mum (Mollie) is upset and bereft. My real family spend a lot of their time up on the back of the sofa where they can look out of the window, nosey-ing passers by, shouting at the local foxes strolling down the road, and keeping an eye on things. This is thought to be where I got my own love of sleeping along the backs of sofas and settees, even though ours is against a wall, and we can't see the road. Mum and Dad say Meg and the H did enough damage to the back of the old sofa when they were young and the sofa was against the window.

The back of the sofa, says First-Dad, was shot to bits, by the scrabbling actions of multiple dog feet.

Well now the entire downstairs has been re-decorated, paint, wallpaper and new furniture, with the new sofa not being in the same place, so suddenly the dogs cannot see out. Hector and Arch are apparently fairly chilled about this and just crash out on the dog-bed, but real-Mum Mollie is stressed to the max. She paces the room chuntering to herself, moaning and groaning.

First-Dad's answer to this is to buy a "long leather pouffe" to go under the window so that the dogs can all see out again. Such devotion. Don't think there's any chance of my Dad buying me any leather furniture all to myself........

Meanwhile we need another Hallowe'en. One by-product of 4 small children racing round the neighbourhood being given small parcels and bags of sweeties was, when the sweeties were stripped out into the crate, a mountain of small poo-bag sized polythene bags! Almost all used up now, Mr Silverwood, so if you could arrange for another Hallowe'en soon, that'd be great.

Deefer

8 go mad in Maidstone

After the emotional turmoil of yesterday, we needed a happy relaxing day today. We certainly got one! Today, all the family went on our annual birthday joint-walk, on this occasion around Leybourne Lakes in Maidstone - that's we three (Meggie, Haggis and (me) Deefer), plus my real-Mum Mollie, real Dad Hector, bro' Archie and sis' Ellie, plus, on this one, sis's owner's daughter's 6 month old Rottie pup, another Mollie.

Here are a couple of shots of the day. Anyone who knows Ellie will laugh at the one of her looking like a drowned rat, having just been in the lake (by mistake). Always immaculate, our Ellie is pretty much a self-cleaning dog. Her long hair seems to shed dirt, so, having got wet, and then picked up a load of dust on the wet fur she looked like a right tramp. By the time she got back to the car, she was pristine!

The one of the four westies near the chair, with Rottie, Molly is there to give you a look at Moll. She's a lovely soft, very well socialised, gentle, gangly loose-limbed babe, who regularly trips over her own feet.

And then there's the group photo. Dad had not managed to get a decent one of all 7 westies on the way round, so we were posed on this bit of grass. Even then it was difficult to get everyone to look at the camera, and this is one everybody looking, selected from among about 10 failures!

We had a fantastic day, and then many of us retreated to first-Mum's house for the humans to have a coffee. Happy Birthday everyone and we must do it all again next year! More pics soon

Deefer

Challock 6 dogs

As promised, that pic of all 6 of us amongst the bluebells in Challock Forest. I'd hesitate tio say who's who without being able to see collar colours, but I am nearest to camera, with Meggie centre right on the path and Haggis centre right front end off the path. More importantly, look at that carpet of bluebells. Another warm week and they'll be fully out and truly gorgeous.

Have a great weekend

Deefer

Good guys and villains

We dogs are on a mission today to confuse the humans, inspired by Rags's rescinded "asbo" and angelic behaviour hospital visiting.

First-Dad had been having problems with my Bro (Archie) and real-Dad (Hector) getting a bit difficult with each other - part of the reason why Archie has now been "done". As part of this, First-Dad had been seeking advice from a lady who does dog-training, partly because first-Mum was looking to make sure those boys didn't start to think they were the bosses.

Well, the trainer lady was last Friday and you'll not believe how angelic those boys decided to be. Maybe it was the "op", maybe the dogs were tired from a walk and a visit to the grooming parlour, maybe First-Mum's new get-tough approach has convinced them, but whatever the reason, training lady was both delighted and baffled, wondering why she'd been called out in the first place.....

Meanwhile, at the other end of the family, sis' Ellie is now causing concern for her Mum, Trish, by kicking off at a young Westie we've seen a couple of times, called, I think, Fleur, first shouting from the end of her lead, then growling and snarling. Most unlike her - Ellie's always as good as gold.... I'll let you know how that develops - maybe Trish will need to borrow that trainer-lady!

We know that about Ellie because we all met at the Rec at the end of our walks, along with a lovely soft, fluffy 4 month collie pup called "Molly" - you know that age when collies are still all rounded, and short-faced, without the sharp-pointed snout. Haggis, Ellie and I had a good romp about, chasing in circles.

I get the worst of this, because normally I chase Haggis and give him grief, but when Ellie's about, and I chase Ellie, H takes his chance to ambush me and unbalance my back end. I end up with two attackers on my case - one at each end. Ellie never tries to batter Haggis, nor Haggis to batter Ellie. It's like they're ganging up on me, referee!

Deefer.... from a dodgy family...

Poor Poor Bunny

My title line comes from a silly bit of video which the boys were watching on You-Tube (sorry, the link has long since escaped us, but you might get somewhere with "Man Flu") about man-flu, which shows paramedics screeching up in the blues and twos ambulance to tend a bloke with man flu, hustling his wife out of the way, then telling her to mop his fevered brow and say "Poor poor bunny" to him. It's become a standing joke at Dad's work.

Well, here's Archie on the day of his op looking for all the world like he'd appreciate a few humans mopping his fevered brow and commiserating with him. We love the pink stuffed-toy hippo, by the way. Every dog should have one.

If I'm not mistaken, that's the same marble hearth and same slice of "vet-bed" fleece that we have pics of showing his (and my) Dad, Hector, lying on when we were all new born pups. I will have to dig out some pics and compare.

Have a great weekend

Thinking of you, Arch'

Deefer

Archie is Without

Brother Archie is back out of Hospital and recovering from the woozies (anaesthetic). He has been successfully separated from his bits, and by 12:15 was reported to be sitting up and accepting biscuits. Go Arch!

The way it's organised down there, at the vet they use, no operations are done on site - all the patients are transported to the practise in Sevenoaks in the practise Ambulance. Arch has been telling everyone this was an exciting ambulance ride, blue lights and dee-dah horns, crashing red traffic lights and driving on the wrong side of the road. However, we all suspect it was just a white van with "Animal Ambulance" on the side, being driven normally. You can never tell with Archie.

Good to know, anyway, that he's OK, and recovering well. By 6pm, says Steve, he's home and fine but "very quiet".

Good Man, Arch

Deefs

Everything's Relative

A day for mixing it with the rels, if only via our sense of smell. Dad was working today, but First-Dad not. However, FD had come into work in the car to do a small job, and still had my Real-Mum, Real-Dad and Bro in the car (Mollie, Hector and Archie), so Dad came home smelling very much of them, where he'd made a fuss of them all through the car window.

Do you mind if we now dispense with all this "first Dad" stuff? From now on I will call First Dad "Steve" and First-Mum "Jean", for no better reason than those are their names (!).

But then on our good walk round the boat yard and back through town, we came upon my Sister Ellie, out with her Mum ('Trish'). Dad had his camera as we'd been out to photo the sailing barge Cambria, so here are some pics of Ellie to enjoy.

Ellie is easy to identify in all these as she is bright white (always!) and long haired, still not having had a Spring cut. She also has a rather smart be-jewelled red collar, but I don'r think my Parisian Emelio Pucci one is that far short, do you?

Pic 1) Me, grubby, tail up, left, Ellie Right

Pic 2) Ellie alone, sniffing ground

Pic 3) Meggie left, Ellie centre, Trish's leg right.....

...at least, that's how I think they'll appear.

Have a great weekend

Deefer

Archie is "Thug" says vet

Ahh, poor Archie, my beloved brother. Contrary to my story last week, he didn't get his jabs on the same night as me, as there was a mix up with the dates. He was last night, with real-Mum, Mollie. Mollie is apparently no problem, licking the vet's face and taking her treatment in true, hard Scottish style. But she was so long on the table that (First-Dad says) Archie got bored and by the time he was up there he wasn't having any of it.

Possibly from as long ago as his hedge-hog carrying-indoors incident, real Dad, Hector has a scarry lump under his chin and the vet needed to look at it, but Hector was not going to co-operate, first-Dad had to wrangle him solidly under an arm while he wriggled and protested. First-Mum was reported to be curling at the edges with shame, as the vet was laughing "Have you done nothing to train this dog?"

I'm proud of them both! They are true blue members of the Monarch* family!

Dad must stop at our vet's tonight for Meggie's Vetoryl, so time he's got in, lit a fire and waited for Mum, it's dark. We go a normal walk - known as the Macknade loop, but at night it's much more exciting - all those unfamiliar sights, sounds, smells! It's cold and spitting in the blustery wind. Some of Dad's work lot were reporting flurries of snow this morning over "Bluebell Hill". Winter is on it's way, for sure

Deefer

*Monarch? First Dad's mission is to own a gang of westies, all named after characters in the TV series "Monarch of the Glen" - hence Archie, Mollie, Hector. We are all waiting for "Gollie the Ghillie". Dad recalls the series with a laugh - wondering how they got to write lines like "Ach... Don't be silly, Mollie, it's only Gollie the Ghillie" etc

Jabbed up!

Megan! I'm never gonna talk to you again. You had it all kept quiet what "annual inocculations" meant, so I went all unsuspecting into that dark night. Now, of course, I know that an apparently nice sweet young lady in a white coat fusses you all over, lets you sniff her face, prods and probes gently to get your trust, then ZAP! (Eeee! EEk! Yip YIP ! EEeeeeeeee-eeee!) ... Ahh, stop being such a drama queen (Dad says). Searing pain between my shoulder blades. She stuck something sharp in me!

I hear that Archie and Mollie are suffering the same fate tonight too, and Archie is reckonned to be as much a drama queen as me.

Worse part was that at the exact moment Dad was leading me round the side of the house to the car the heavens opened and a full waterfall of rain went whooshing down the back of Dad's trousers (he says... drama queen?) as he lent into the car to unhitch my lead from my collar. Payback time!

Deefer

A Dog Too Far

Town Carnival last night and a good time was had by all. The carnival forms up outside our house and we, Mum and Dad always go out to chat to the people on the floats as they finish their displays and assemble their troops, occasionally helping out with lends of scissors, string, cups of tea or use-of-the-loo-for-the-little-ones before the "off". Last night it was a small army of Brownies dressed as Grannies, and their leaders, plus the Beauty Queens of a village "on the island"

We were allowed out too, on leads and milled about at the end of the drive, fascinated by all the lights and noise, music, chatter and the thrum of diesel generators, toffee apple sellers and bizarre-ly dressed humans. Plenty of them made a fuss of us as they went by or stopped to stroke us.

Then, once carnival had set off and our own evening-guests had arrived, we all adjourned indoors, and from here it got interesting. First, little Norfolk, Dylan decided to have a pop at the cats, so they had to be separated and the cats moved upstairs. Then, later my raeal Dad (Hector) and brother (Archie) decided to have a go at Dylan, so they had to be separated.

There were , briefly, two separate parties going on. Dad, First dad and First Mum plus we six westies were all out on the terrace (luckily warm, windless and dry), the other guests with Dylan in the front of the house, with people mingling between the two, carefully shutting the child-gate behind them as they came and went. I had a great time at this - made a big fuss of First-Mum and messed around with Archie who (someone has to do it) took a quick swim in the pond at one point.

Later, once the other westies had gone, we all moved indoors and fell asleep exhausted while the humans chatted and then, once Dylan had gone too, the cats were let back out and nornmality waas restored. Mum and Dad say we need to re-think the animal guest lists. These 7-dog do's sound great fun in theory, but probably we need to have Mollie, Archie and Hector over when they are the only dogs, and likewise Dylan. Maybe also, that old trick of a big long walk on neutral territory to wear everybody out and get them all used to each other, before we come back to one of the houses.

Deefer

Back to Skool

Poor ol' Mum. After what seems like a school summer-holiday's worth of time off (Narrow boating, then studying, then Greece, then more studying, then about 2 days of chillin') she's finally had to go back to work to earn an honest crust, to keep us in the manner. Fair play to her, though - gave us a nice walk in the morning and Meggie, deprived of the 6 miles yesterday was all spronging about and playful.

Salsify? The humans tell me that they have read that "its delicate flavour" means it's best not to spice it up with anything. Just boil or steam it. They do. Turns out to be reminiscent of (globe) artichokes. They are impressed. Good job - "we" have plenty up at the allotments. Dad will grow it again.

Archie (brother) is, meanwhile, in the doghouse for leaping onto a small white pup and trying to kill it, while out walking. Helped apparently by my Dad (Hector), so the two of them ended up on leads for the rest of the walk, and in deep disgrace. Real-Mum (Mollie) was no such problem, and nuzzled it, rolled it over to lick it and generally do mum-nursing type things. Ahhh sigh.

Tanking it down.

Deefer

Birthday Party

Happy Birthday to meee

Happy Birthday to meee

Happy Birthday Dear Deefer

Happy Birthday to Me (and Ellie and Archie)

One Year old today, and we celebrate with a joint walk at Leybourne Lakes in Maidstone, which is a venue big enough to cope with 6 mad charging westies and still allow space for a few walkers and cyclists. Once we'd caused enough chaos there we adjourned back to First Dad's (the place of my birth) for a romp about in the house and garden, and for the humans to eat.)

My pics are of , variously

1) Me with birthday present chew-toy (I also got 2 cards)

2) We 6 in the kitchen getting left over roast lamb - how to get the undivided attention of 6 westies, who are suddenly all on their best behaviour

3) Myself and brother / litter-mate, Archie. He was smallest when we were pups - now he's as big as Mollie and I'm still smaller than my Hector

4) Carpark shot, left to right - Me, Haggis, Hector's ears, Meggie, Archie and Mollie

5) In the lake. Meggie's the furthest in. I'm dancing around on the bank.

We had a whale of a time. When first released from the leads Archie dived straight into a patch of burr-dock and got covered, while the rest of made sure all water-birds were safely on the water (geese, ducks, swans, grebes, coots etc - some of them had leaked onto the land, which will never do.)

We charged around the lake, all well behaved much to everyone's amazement and Archie and me fell in love all over again. Just wish he'd keep it "brotherly" - gets a bit over excited that boy! Most of us managed to stay out of the goose-poo, didn't we Arch'. Dad says getting pics of all 6 was a bit o a mare because dogs were heading in all directions, hence the cop-out ones in the carpark on leads.

Back at the house we carried on chasing each other about, and I rediscovered the hidey hole under the easy chair which we all used as pups, but now only I can fit in. Handy to escape from too much attention. Everyone much amused by me fussing up to real-Mum Mollie, trying to get under her, upside down so she could lick my belly. Very odd, they all said, It's a dog thing, Mum and Daughter

By home time we were all, like the best endings to childrens' party stories, exhausted and 2 minutes into the car journey home we are all flaked out on the back seat of the car.

Happy Birthday Archie

Happy Birthday Ellie - shame you couldn't make it.

Thanks fior the cards and the present

Deefer zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Happy Birthday, Mum

Happy Birthday, Mum!!! Even as I type she's out on the hot sunny terrace chillin' with a glass of Moet with a few fresh raspberries floating in the top. A purist would probably say "ruination of good Moet" and a pedant would say "Should be strawberries" but when it's your birthday, you get to choose.

News comes that bro' Archie and Real-Dad (Hector) are in the dwang again. On an early walk this morning (fortunately) they took agin' a small Yorkie in the park when they were all off the leads. They said a pleasant "Hello" apparently, but then the growling started, and the Yorkie fled. H and A took off in pursuit, and the Yorkie dashed under the park gate into the road, with H+A in full cry behind, and First-Dad charging along behind yelling!

Eventually the running stopped, and 1st-D caught up, grabbing westies under arms and on leads and Yorkie under the other arm ,returning to the Park and a very upset Yorkie-owner (with good reason!) Who should be sitting at the park gate, tail wagging and an expression that said "Please note, I was not involved in that show of unseemly behavior" but Real-Mum, Mollie, now known as "Miss Goody Two-Shoes".

Luckily (says 1st Dad) it was early becuause that road is quite a busy one.

This week the green Picasso goes back at the end of it's lease, so Dad has been today to try out one of those American-style car washes that are springing up, these days almost entirely staffed by non-English-speaking Eastern Europeans. Dad came back singing their praises - what a fantastic job. the car went in a real state - 4 years of dog transporting with very little cleaning (Dad's not a one for the Sunday morning homage to the God of Chammy Leather and Autoglym)

8 young lads descended on it in quick succession, soaked it, jetwashed it, soaped it and jetwashed it again, cleaned the wheels, hoovered it, polished windows inside and out, cleaned the dash, took out the rubber mats to jetwash them, swabbed them dry and even splashed some shiny stuff on the tyres. The list price for all that, in about half an hour was only £12 (though admittedly, Dad thought that deserved a reasonable tip). It's like a new car all over again. Shame to hand it in!

If any of my readers live in Canterbury - it's the one on the Ashford road out of town - highly reccommended.

Best go check on Mum before she dozes off!

Deefer

Digger Land

It's like Digger Land out the back of ours at the moment. A great big caterpillar tracked digger is screeching and rattling up and down just the other side of the beech hedge flattening a mini-mountain of crushed rubble to make a temporary carpark for the builders' cars, while they lay some road through the bit they're using at the moment. We are now so used to this racket and the dust (all the cars in our road are permanently pale brown!) that we don't even bother to race down the garden to shout at them any more. They should use some grease on those tracks though.

Meanwhile, excitement at Real-Dad's last night. Real dad (Hector) and bro Archie have been up to their old tricks hedgehog wrangling again. First-Dad reports that there was a real cacophony going on in the dark, and H+A charging around in the back garden with a hedgehog between them. They were barking and yelling, covered in mud and spattered with blood. First-Mum was having a fit trying to separate dogs and hedgehog with a broom

She eventually got the dogs inside (and the hedgehog outside), got everybody calmed down, and washed the dogs clean of blood and mud. Neither dog seemed to be at all injured, so she guesses that it was, in fact the hedgehog which had been wounded. But search the garden as they might they can find no sign of injured hogs, so they are hoping the injuries were more bloody than serious, and that hog skulked off to lick his wounds and fight another day.

What is it with those 2 and hogs? I've never met one, but Haggis tells me "we" just shout at them from 2 feet away. They are spiny, as every school boy knows, and not anything you'd want near your soft lips and tongue.

And, back at the ranch, although Meg is still licking her poorly foot, it's nearly back to normal flesh pink and she's putting a bit of weight onto it. Dad bathes it, and she promptly licks all the salty water off, but she is on the mend.

Have a great weekend
Deefer

Steer-able nose

Thought you might like this gorgeous picture taken by First-Dad of my brother Archie (front), Real-Dad Hector (left) and Real-Mum Mollie (right). These guys love a game of footie. The boys especially do a fine line in running themselves ragged (hence the lolling, hot tongues) dribbling the ball about. Mollie not so much, but she sometimes either runs at the boys shouting, or even runs to the ball, trapping it professionally under a forepaw and stopping the game till either First Dad boots it away, or the boys just start up again. Nice photo, I think you'll agree.

(New) Dad was taking the mick at the weekend, about my highly manouvre-able nose. He swears he has never seen a dog so able to twitch the black "button" bit of the nose, so far from side to side. By tightening muscles down eitgher side of my snout, he says, I can pull the nose so far round the cartilage septum up the middle must nearly break (or has already!). It looks like I am aiming the nose left or right to smell round corners without moving my head.

And why not?
Just part of my cunning plan
Deefer-of-the-Aim-able-Nose

Soggy Bluebell Walk

Fun weekend. Mum does a "Eurovision Song Contest Party" in which the humans seem to assemble to rip the mick out of the contest and worship at the throne of the TogMeister. At one stage it looked like there might be 9 dogs - we three, Old Dad's three (Hector, Mollie and Archie), Diamond's "Asbo", 2CV P+J's "Janey" and a cairn owned by ace guitarist chum of Mum and Dad, "Dylan". In the event (probably a good thing) we just had Janey, so mayhem didn't happen and the cats survived. Arguable whether they would have done had Hector and Mollie arrived (real Mum and Real Dad) - they like a good cat apparently !!

My pics today though, are of the Bluebell Walk in Challock Forest that finally happened. The bluebells were just about clinging on in places but definitely past their best. Best thing ever though was Old-Dad turning up with Hector, Mollie and the amazing Archie, my brother and litter-mate. I just stress that one because of how huge Archie has grown. Look at the pic of just the three (on leads) before we started. Mollie is left, Arch' in the middle and Hector (Dad) on the right. Arch is bigger than Hector already and about one and a half times the size of me!

What a time we had. It was chucking it down and the bluebells were disappearing rapidly as bramble grows up through and beech leaves expand to close up the canopy. But Archie and I had a whale of a time charging round and round. He may be bigger and more powerful but I am nippy and manouvre-able, and we're closely matched in straight line speed.

The other pics are of us out in the forest, one down by the abandonned riding school, and the other in a narrow path with still a few bluebells. Finally there are all 6 of us back at the cars, lathered up with mud and wet. From left to right we are (Front left Mollie (Mum), behind left Hector (Dad), Front centre Archie (look how big he is), behind him partly obscured, Haggis, then me and finally Meggie. We can't wait to get towelled off and home so that we can crash out. That was midday - it's now nearly 3 and we haven't stirred yet!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend

Deefs