Sinking into the Swamp

A couple more nice snowy pics, the first just a bike in the boat yard which we liked the look of, the second taken a few seconds before yesterday's 'miserable Haggis' one. You can see the H trotting off to stage-right (picture left) to check out the iron paling fence. More snow is forecast for tonight.

Meanwhile, those interested in Project Erroll may be wondering what's going on and why you have had no updates. This is bacause at least one aspect of the possible future is sinking into the swamp, and all the moves and official notices have been put on hold. Dad is therefore carrying on regardless and battling through the normal Christmas peak in business, uncertain when the top bananas will make a move and firm up on any arrangements. Watch this space - there's not a lot any of us can do.....

Having worked both days at the weekend he is, though, able to skank and early finish this afternoon and gets home in time to walk us in the daylight round the Rec where we can have a run around in the snow with old friends Patch and Bindy, and 2 black labs who we see a lot but Dad can't recall the names of.

Deefs

Dublin Bus (Bus atha Cliath)

Dad arrives home tonight to be met with a red London Routemaster bus parked almost blocking the driveway. That's all he sees first. He nips in, grabs us and our collars and we are off for a walk, heading up past the bus.

The bus proves to be two buses, the London bus blocking a bright purple double decker behind it which is, amazingly Dublin registered. It even has the 'Out of Service' banner in Irish language at the front. It is therefore presumably one of 'Dublin Bus's green ones now taken out of service and repainted.

The Irish bus has broken down and the boys have come out to repair it in the Routemaster. This is not unusual in our town because we have the renowned South East Coachworks company here who are for ever restoring old double deckers and converting them into rock band tour buses, political campaign buses and even the Union Jack one used in the Spice Girls movie.

Mum thinks the Dublin bus is a sign pertaining to the current uncertain nature of Dad's work and the possibility of a move to the Emerald Isle. Her chums off the internet, who are from Dublin are joking that the Dublin Buses were so often 'out of service' that the Dublin kids grew up thinking that there must be a destination out back of Steven's Green called "As Seirbhís".

Meanwhile, as the shrinking evenings start to compress dog walking into the short gap between 'end of work' and darkness, we are starting to meet up again with all the usual suspects from '1630 Dog Clubs' of old - springers 'LB and 'DK', Jack Russell Bindy, 'blue' shar pei Monty, cavalier Louis, my sis Ellie and so on. We are, inevitably, also joined by some new kids on the block, like 3 month old gorgeous Tibetan Terrier 'Lily'.

And, finally, our contact from the Cinnamon Trust, who shall be known as Moira rings to say she's sorry she's not been in touch but has been on holiday. The JR who may be known as Daisy is still available and we will be contacted over the next few days to arrange our house vetting visit

It's all go

(Slan abhaile)

Deefski

1630 Club

Now that all the dog walkers are squoze into the gap between end-of-work and it-gets-dark, our 16:30 pm unofficial dog club has started to re-form. Anyone who's anyone goes, and we all look out for each other. First we are spotted from afar by eagle-eyed Luca the Lurcher, who steams across the Rec towards us, and we straight way commence our game of Luca nicks my dirty, saliva soaked tennis ball, and I nick his bright pink sponge-ball.

Together we wander across the Rec diagonally, soon spotting solid Jack Russell Patch out with his Mum. We are soon joined by black collie cross Ben, a shaggy brown lab called Archie and old chum who we've not seen for what seems like a year, slim, nippy JR bitch Bindy. Finally tonight we come across a lady Dad doesn't quite recognise, out with a choc-brown pointer and a tiny JR. The lady turns out to be Daughter-in-Law of the Angel B - she recognises Dad and introduces herself.

Nice pack - good socialising and plenty of running around. That's what I call a dog walk!

Deefski

5-4-3-2-1

The Rec again tonight and again we meet shaggy nearly-all-black alsatian, Battersea rescue dog, Lucy. Tonight we only shout at each other for 5 seconds or so before we realise no-one is impressed and we should maybe talk to each other. Yesterday, Dad reckons, that was 6 seconds.

Dad and Lucy's owner now have a theory, that if we all meet up the same time each evening, we might only shout for 4 seconds tomorrow, then 3 on Saturday, then 2, and by Monday we'll be able to greet each other in a reasonably decorous fashion.......

Yeah - right-oh Dad!

Also on the Rec tonight, fit young JR "Bindy", who we like to have a charge about with, but who we haven't seen lately. Another evening for getting muddy then!

Never mind - he obviously still loves us, as some raw pork ribs fall into his shopping on the way home tonight, and we have them for a treat for supper

Look after yourselves. Weekend's comin'

Deefski

Bindy's Back

Now that we are all back home, it's been good to get back into some of the old walking routines. We've been to the Rec, where there's been a funfair over the weekend, but out of no-where we came across old friend (and adversary!) little Jack Russell "Bindy" and JR of more senior years and portly stature, "Patch".

Always after a long gap Bindy and I, who are roughly the same size, speed, nippiness and strength, have to have a "set-to" just to re-establish who is top dog, (for some reason I won this one), but after that we're greatest mates again, and run around together chasing Bindy's plastic frisbee.

I mentionned that Mum and Dad had been to the Mark Knopfler concert. This was at the Albert Hall and was a birthday present from Mum to Dad. They came back bubbling (well, Dad did.... Mum was fairly enthusiastic about that, but bowled over by the guest appearance of Joe Brown for a couple of numbers ("Picture of You" being, inevitably, one of them).

Mark K was brilliant, says Dad, and played a goodly range of stuff from the early Dire Straits days right up to the most recent album. Dad hasn't got that, so I daresay there'll be some Googling towards WWW.Amazon.co.uk imminently.

More soon - probably even some more tonight

Look after yourself

Deefer

Stormy Weather

Gales and driving rain blast through Kent and we have to sneak walk in between the worst of it. Meg chooses this moment to have a change of heart from a) Not wanting anything to do with the outside world if it is raining, to b) Ahh... come on Dad, it's stopped raining now, I want to zip along to the Rec and scamper about like a young one. There's no accounting for the Megster

The walk we snatch tonight as big black clouds roll in, but before they dump their load on us, is a well-populated one - lots of old chums are out including fast brown and white Jack Russell, Bindy, even faster, be-red-bandana'd brown Lakeland cross Bobby, beautiful goldie Chloe and the black collie cross with white toes and white chest-flash, Ben.

Meanwhile, news comes that it has come time to have bro' Archie "done". His day is Thursday, so good luck Arch - hang in there. Haggis survived - just a bit sore for a few days and licking the site as if licking could restore the former glory..... Won't work, Bro, but it's for the best.

Poor ol' boys. I guess my time will come too in the end, but no-one's talking about that yet.
By the way - latest site meter stats have this having been visited 1244 times and viewed 2180 times, with visits currently running at 14 per day. Nearly a best-seller!

Deefer

Football

At last, a nice warm sunny day and Dad's home nice and early, so we can go a good walk to the Rec, armed with yellow frisbee which keeps me amused for a while... until I discover.... enormous adult sized, semi deflated football! What a treat. It is just deflated enough for me to pinch up enough of a "side" to grab it with my teeth and carry it.

I can not really lift it but I struggle to wrestle it around and get all protective over it. We play for a while with Bindy, but I won't let her anywhere near it. Then comes the time to get it home. I must carry it all the way - the only bit I can't manage is jumping down the low wall onto the pavement. Here I stop and drop it, and look hopefully up at Dad. "Ah!", he says, "You're gonna let me near it now you need help, are you?"

No need for that sarcasm, I thought. Anyway, he drops it down the drop, and I grab it again and strut off down the pavement. I brought it all the way home. Mum will be over-joyed! So proud!

Deefs

Long Throw

Excellent time at the Rec this evening - our arrival coincided with those of our good friends Bindy (young female Jack Russell), Patch (old stout male JR) and Luca (extremely speedy lurcher whose Mum uses one of those 2 foot long spoon shaped launchers to fire day-glo orange balls great distances.

Dad had a try with it and could nearly launch them the full diagonal of the Rec, which had Luca looking up at him admiringly. Meanwhile Luca's mum used her ordinary arms to launch treats in the direction of us terriers which caused us to look up at her admiringly! Ever seen a motley line of 5 terriers all sitting in perfect obedience.

Well, Haggis did till he realised the treats were "dog-chocolate". The H does not "do plants" and chocolate counts as a plant. He is only interested if the treats are meat-based, so he soon wandered off and started killing the 2nd orange ball while Luca was distracted with Dad's 200 yard trajectories.

Go Dad! Go Luca!

Deefer

Battling Bindy, Dodging Dudley

Dad's home a bit late again, so it's almost dark again we get to the Rec. But not so dark we can't see Bindy, our little Jack Russell friend crouching down in sheep-dog position, trying to stalk us through the close-mown grass.

There follows the usual mad charge about with Bindy at high speed whizzing between the three of us and bouncing off the humans' legs. At one point we cannon into one another and have to have a bit of a snarl and growl. (I won, I think - I ended up on top anyway with Bind on her back under me and my tail well forward... Yay Me! Why was Dad not so delighted with this outcome? ). But it's only a quick spat and we go back to playing as we wander round the top of the Rec and the upper path

Here we all meet up with a new kid on the block - handsome black Lakeland terrier 2 year old called Dudley. He has a very smart white chest marking but even so is almost invisible in the dark, so he's on the lead. His Mum says she's getting one of those hi-vis jackets for him or a flashy red collar. But we've seen a staffie out here with a dangly torch-light LED thing hanging from the collare alongside the ID-tag.

Deefs

Terrier Heaven

Heaven! We were just setting off on our walk tonight, headed for the allotments when, coming down the side of the house, we were hailed by Ellie, (my sis) and her Mum, and all four of us immediately decided to head for the Rec where we sisters could have a long overdue run-around together. It's been ages.

We are still similar in size, even though Ellie's a bit shaggier, so she looks a bit bigger. No sooner were we off the leads than we were tearing round in small circles bowling each other over, with Haggis piling in occasionally to unbalance anyone who was still standing up.

We were joined by a lady who knew Ellie's Mum, and her young Jack Russell, Bindy. Next arrived another lady out with a black collie cross, Ben, and then the young jack Russell Mac, who we met the other day. Last came another JR, Patch and a young spaniel, Molly. 4 westies, 3 JR's and 3 other dogs all variously running about, chasing each other, or mooching round the humans. It was great fun - best gas for ages!

Bindy had appeared with a soft, hollow-centred luminous green frizbee, and we soon started chasing that, with Dad lobbing it huge distances, so that we young ones all got really tired

It was dark by the time we were done, and we met Mum walking back across the Rec towards the house.

Terrier Heaven!

Guy Fawkes night coming up, so fireworks to shout at. Not sure I'll have the energy!

Deefer