Blow the Wind Southerly

.. blow bonny breeze, my Daddy to me!

Daddy's home after a bit of an epic drive from the middle of Ireland back to Faversham, starting at 10:30, arriving 23:00. Thank you, Lily for taking up the arduous blogger's mantle while he was over there with you. You did a good job and I may call upon your services again but for now, I'll jump back in the chair if that's OK.

Dad had a whale of a time and thoroughly enjoyed his house hunting, assisted and supported by the Silverwoods, for whom many many thanks for phone calls, hassle, navigation, hospitality (see pic above of Mr S's fine first attempt at Yorkshires!), food, wine, bed and not to mention potties full of pee and poo which came rapidly and regularly (Thanks R).

Dad drove up from the Portlaoise area via Steak Lady's place near Dublin, stopping for a quick chat and a catch up, then headed, via the shiny new port tunnel, for the Irish Ferries hydrofoil 'Jonathan Swift' (of Gulliver's Travels fame, of course) at 14:30. The Swift is tiny compared to a ferry and was crammed to the very gunwales with vehicles and people. The sea was only a bit of swell, so the boat rocked and rolled a bit, but nothing to cause anyone any alarm. By 17:00 Dad was disembarked in Holyhead and headed home stopping only at Keele services on the M1 for a Ginsters pie, enjoying free passage over Dartford bridge (it was after 22:00) arriving back here at 23:00.

Mum welcomed him home with soup, bread and wine and everyone made a huge fuss of each other, with Mum and Dad catching up on how our buyers visit went that evening and on where we are in our own house hunting. The latter is 'on tenterhooks' waiting to see if the bank accepts Mum and Dad's offer on the first choice house. It's a single storey close to Timahoe, Co. Laois but nobody's giving out any details yet so as not to jinx the process. Time enough for that when we have some signatures on bits of paper and nobody can change their minds! Meanwhile Mum is till quietly eye-ing up a 'Plan-B' place in case it all goes Pete Tong and Mrs S is still hunting for more on t'internet.

Good to have Daddy home!

Deefs

T'was the Night before Christmas

Coo! Christmas Eve,yet! The adventure continues. We've left Portmarnock and headed westward to the next step of the journey,off to visit Mum's sister,"Silverwood", hubby Mr-Em and the neices, Em-J and J-M (There's lots of Em's and J's in this family). They have a collie-cross as old as Meggie, called Chance, and another young one called Sam. Yet again, amazingly enough, we stroll in and these dogs accept us straight away onto their turf.

That's great because we are soon playing and romping around in their house and garden.

There is just one fly in the ointment, and that's Megan. Silverwood has a couple of guinea pigs, one of which is heavily pregnant and about to give birth. Megan is Kent's No. 1 ratter, her deadly skills honed when Mum and Dad had chickens, before I was born. Spilt chicken food inevitably attracts rats (don't let anyone try to kid you different!) and Megan became quite adept at nailing these critters when they ran into the greenhouse to take cover, and found there was no way out. No problem- who wants rats anyway?

BUT , when they (Meg,H,Mum and Dad) were here (in Silverwood's house) a couple of years back, Meg's targetting system locked onto the family hamster cage, and she'd not leave it alone, spending hours looking up at it and whistling, just willing that hamster to leave the cage and come down and "play" with her. Then one day when M+D were not being particularly vigilant, Meg sussed that if she grabbed a corner of the tea-towel on which sat the cage and pulled, the whole lot might just fall on top of her and burst open. Ooops. Meg 1; Hamster nil

So this time the gang are fore-warned.The guinea pigs are 3 feet up on top of the dish washer,with no tea towel. Much to Meg's disgust

Ah well.... currently doing "Little orphan Annie" impression 3 steps up in the hall, due to extreme exhaustion (Sam loves me.... so many men, so little time! )

Merry Christmas One and All

Deefer