Topsy turvey at the moment as Dad has to do a couple of night shifts, so we're working through the night and trying to sleep in the daytime. That's a joke - it's not easy to sleep with that amount of builder noise going on, especially now they've started on the foundations of the "Home for the Bewildered" right out behind us so there are, as we see when we wake up at 4.30 pm, no less than 5 big diggers within 100m of the house, plus a lorry craning a big gen-set onto it's bed.
No matter. It does mean Dad is around and (a bit) awake during the daylight hours, so we benefit from some nice walks. Today's was to Challock Forest where the bluebells are all but over. The chestnut and beech are in full leaf, the bracken is 2-3 feet high and unfurling fast, and the bluebells are green seed heads with just a few powder-blue bells left intact.
Talking of walking - a small dog can fill even a simple walk with drama. Take the footpath round the back of those houses on the North side of town, leading to the allotments. To Dad, Meg and the H it is a straight path from A to B, with occasional interesting grass tufts worth a sniff at either side (M and H, not so much Dad).
I can make it a veritable adventure playground and obstacle course. The fences either side are not that good, so every few yards I can scoot right, through a hole and onto someone's back garden - there are cats to chase and bark at, there are occasional children looking over back fences as we pass, which take me by surprise, so they deserve a bark too. Those cats occasionally stroll across the path 50 yards ahead, necessitating a headlong dash along the path and back. Squirrels chatter from the trees above. Dogs and dog walkers to meet and greet too. A girl is exhausted time she gets to the allotments!
Deefer.
Showing posts with label Diggers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diggers. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Rumbling Closer
Despite me voicing my protests in the most strident, loud manner to the builders, they insist on rumbling ever closer. Just beyond our beech hedge a big tracked hydraulic digger is scooping off the top 2 feet of the old hard-standing carpark into big 8-wheeler lorries, and another is laying a new foot of finer stuff, which is being smoothed by a road roller.
I have already mentioned that an enourmous estate behind our house is currently being developed to include 390 dwellings and a Home for the Bewildered. the Home is right at our backs, and as the houses gradually encroach on us the space is being cleared for the car parking for the Home.
Dad is impressed tonight on the dog walk when a small shaggy terrier is let out of the front of his house on our busy road by a bloke in a white van, and trots 50 yards down the pavement to the van looking up adoringly at the bloke, before leaping in as soon as the guy opens the door, and sits on the passenger seat looking out of the windscreen, waiting quietly while the guy belts in and fires up.
Dad comments to the bloke that he wishes he could trust us to do that (theory is we'd take off after a cat or stroll about aimlessly across the lanes), and says that H for one, has never voluntarily got into a vehicle in all his (almost) 11 years.
Ah so.
I have already mentioned that an enourmous estate behind our house is currently being developed to include 390 dwellings and a Home for the Bewildered. the Home is right at our backs, and as the houses gradually encroach on us the space is being cleared for the car parking for the Home.
Dad is impressed tonight on the dog walk when a small shaggy terrier is let out of the front of his house on our busy road by a bloke in a white van, and trots 50 yards down the pavement to the van looking up adoringly at the bloke, before leaping in as soon as the guy opens the door, and sits on the passenger seat looking out of the windscreen, waiting quietly while the guy belts in and fires up.
Dad comments to the bloke that he wishes he could trust us to do that (theory is we'd take off after a cat or stroll about aimlessly across the lanes), and says that H for one, has never voluntarily got into a vehicle in all his (almost) 11 years.
Ah so.
Friday, 10 August 2007
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
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
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