Do I come here often?

Time for a bargee update, I feel. Here is a photo in through the front entrance of the lighter / polytunnel, which gives you an immediate idea of how the restoration is coming on. Visit the Cambria Trust website www.cambriatrust.org.uk and one of the first pics you'll see on the home page is the tired old bow and the splintering, rotten wood of the stem as the old girl languishes in the lighter and is brought back to Faversham for her restoration.

Contrast that with the smart new white-painted (for the moment) stem post which is clearly visible in the pic, and the crisp smart curves of the (also white) "wale" planks (top of the sides of the hull) and you'll be queueing to get on trains down here to gape, mesmerised at the brilliant progress. OK maybe not.

Dad blags another "poets" so we (the "H" and myself) get another good vigorous daylight walk, down past the water works to the creek, east along the levee and then back in land from Nagden, to the allotments, where we stop off to admire the broad bean plants but also to be appalled by the shaggy wet grass. Dad has not been able to get on the plot for a month, it seems like - continuous tilting rain.

All the other plot holders seem to be out there , too, walking around morosely with their dogs, frustrated by the inability to get on the site and dig. Nobody does "morose" quite like an allotment holder in the rain.

Meanwhile, Dad is getting all "togg"-ish on us, swearing he has read a specific bargee article in a mag, but then being unable to find the article again. Silly old git.

Rumour has it both Mum and Dad are off work all week next week. Have a great weekend.

Deefski

Kess and a rescue

An eventful day. Dad is down at the Cambria where they are now back into real volunteer-work, after almost 12 months where "volunteer work" has meant manning the volunteer centre and explaining the project to the public. Today the boys are glad to get back into overalls and rigger boots, gloved up to paint really black sticky paint onto the rolled-steel "keelson" girder which will run the length of the barge along the midline, bolted to the floor. We dogs are not allowed anywhere near, although barge-dog Kess (we've mentioned her before in this blog) gets herself into a pic looking particularly demented, with a nice out-of-focus bargey background.

At one stage Dad has to rescue another Jack Russel (Fran) from the creek. It's high tide and Fran is playing with a ball a bit near the edge, when she puts the ball down on the slope and it rolls in. Plop! Fran is most concerned at this and slithers down the bank to rescue it, and falls in too. Splosh! She grabs the ball and turns back for the bank, but the sides are steep and muddy, and she can't get a grip. The owner starts to fret, so Dad clambers down the quay-side woodwork and hoiks her out by the harness. She is wet, cold and shaken but not harmed. Muppet. (Not clear if Dad's talking about the owner here, or the dog).

Also, for good measure, an nice pic of an orchid which the humans have TLC'd back into flower after we all thought it was a goner. And one of the three of us on the early morning bed, where we have romped and play-fought till it was no longer possible for the humans to relax and read the papers. This shows the H (left), the Megster (centre) and my good self (r).

Hope you had a good weekend

Deefski

Lola, India and Bacchus

Finally it rains, after a run of hot sunny (but breezy) days. This seems to send all the normal dog owners scurrying for cover, so we meet precisely nobody out on our dog walk.

Dad and Mum have more luck out after supper, assessing gardens for "Gardening for Wildlife", and come home smelling strongly of Creek and even more strongly of Lhasa Apso. They were down by the creek at a garden and welcomed enthusiastically by Lola (She was a show girl), India and Bacchus.

The lady, unusually, got the "Deefer" thing straight away. Most people look at Mum or Dad a bit strangely, and try out pronounciations around "Diva" just in case "we" are saying it wrongly. Not this lady - she was straight in with "Ah... as in "D" for Dog ?"

That's the garden assessing all done for 2008. Now just one village to go in Village of the Year (Environmental Action), and we can have the undivided attention of Mum and Dad back!

Deefski

Levee and the Creek

Great walk tonight, and a first for me. What Dad calls the levee-loop. About an hour and a bit North from here through the Abbey Fields to the Creek bank, which is a small levee - most of the fields round here are below sea level at high tide! The eastward along the levee and back inland, through Dad's allotment site, home. Rabbits a-plenty to sniff and chase. Bit sticky underfoot but drying out since the really wet weather

Mum and Dad having a laugh. You know how most people create the odd recipe from stuff left over in the fridge. M+D call theirs "Bottom of the Fridge Suppers". Only our fridge seems to be weirder than most. We have a fantastic local fishmonger (called Herman's Plaice - what a brilliant name!) which always has an impressive range, and Dad is on a mission, when ever he goes there, to get, as well as the usual stuff, something we've never had before - swordfish, barramundi, red tilapia, you name it, and this time a tub of baby octopusses preserved in oil. (Octopi?).

So we had some of them in the fridge, plus some cold roast pheasant, and some thawed frozen prawns. So, would you believe we had "Pheasant, Octopus and Prawn Risotto". How many people d'you reckon were eating that on Tuesday night? Indeed, how many freezers do you think have a portion of it left over in them tonight?

Good ol' beef stew tonight though, and we got some gravy. Yum

Deefer