Ah Sure, He had the Breathing...

Liz gets a good Radio 4 programme running and
loses herself in a bit of rooster plucking

With the Christmas and New Year shenanigans all over, we are back into the old groove. Liz has gone back to the 'proper work' and I have been back at the buildering, livestock management and homestead stuff. This meant that the stay of execution enjoyed by the June born lamb (Dylan) and the 'two-chick' roosters was all up and they variously went on their final journeys. This post may be a bit full of killing for some tastes. Dylan was man-handled into the trailer on Monday 11th Jan and off to our excellent local small-business slaughterman/butcher, Ignatius G Victualler.

There are 2 roosters to process today, so I get to pluck
one of them

We never enjoy that job and we don't know anyone who does, but in our opinion you should never keep these meat animals unless you are happy with the exit strategy and are comfortable with the end game; otherwise you'd end up knee deep in geriatric livestock. Heartbreaking though this time - it is no problem dropping off your beloved 'child' in the slaughterman's lairage if there are a few animals already in there from some other customer. The lamb struggles to avoid being penned but then suddenly looks up as if to say "Ooh - new friends! Must go meet them!". This time, no such luck. The pens were empty, so we had to drive away turning a blind eye (and ear) to Dylan's little face looking at us through the gate and calling for his Mum, alone for the first time in his little life. It is a wrench.

The dodgy looking 'witches' cauldron' of a haggis boil-up

We collect the offal (heart, kidneys, liver and 'lights' (lungs)) on the following day. The carcass hangs for a week in the cold store and we go down to collect it on the following Monday morning (18th). The liver and kidneys get used fresh for supper that day (and very nice they are too). The hearts and lights go into a rather dodgy looking 'witches' cauldron' boil up prior to being 'whizzed' and added to the oatmeal, 'lean' trimmings (of neck in this case, from an earlier lamb), mace, nutmeg and cumin; our home made haggis, of course. We don't actually pack this into a sheep's "paunch" as per the official recipes - Liz does a 'tray bake' version in a greased (lamb fat) Pyrex oven dish with foil and the lid pressed down to exclude air. It works very well. Roll on Burns' Night.

Two identically fed roosters, one white, one 'red' in feather
turn out to have very different skin colour in carcass form.

Regular readers may recall the 'two chick' roosters hatched under an elderberry bush in our woods last summer. These lads were becoming a nuisance and, hunting as a pair, they were 'nailing' rather too many of our hens and we already had the two official roo's here, both Buff Orpington pure-breds. Once New Year was gone I needed to cull them out but I wanted to do this in our usual minimum stress, quick style. If you set out to catch a bird on a given day and fail, you just end up winding the poor things up by chasing them till the carcass would be so full of adrenalin it would be like jelly.

Haggis under construction

I wander about going to my normal business and wait till one makes the mistake of getting himself cornered where I can grab him quickly and then 'cuddle' him under my arm to calm him down while I walk to where my bill hook is and then to the quiet, secret place out of sight of all the other birds. Both these guys obliged me on Weds 13th when they took shelter from a rain shower in the turkey-house, formerly a milking shed, a place full of corners and bays. Easy pickings. One of these lads will end up as a standard roast chicken but with the other Liz fancies having a go at the 'sous-vide' cookery we have seen talked about and for which you need the carcass to be vac-packed.

The south gable stonework finished

With the coming of January, Winter turned up with a yellow warning for Co Roscommon for snow (orange for Co. Sligo). As I said, I was back at the buildering and was helping finish the stone-mason-ing up to the top of the south gable end (the boss was laying the stones - I was keeping him supplied up on his scaffold with buckets of mortar and plenty of stones). We'd just finished at about midday when I noticed that the sunshine on the gable and the ominous black cloud behind would make a good picture, so I'd called out the Lady of the House and her camera to come take a few pics (one is shown here). Half an hour later we were in drinking coffee when the cloud decided to deliver the 'orange warning' snow; an impressive heavy blizzard which immediately called a stop to our outdoor efforts and had the gritter lorries and snowploughs out to keep the road drive-able.

Only a dusting of snow for us in Roscommon but a rather
pretty thaw.

Meanwhile, Sparks will be sad to note the passing of a real character from our own house build, 'Suicide Dog'. This collie cross from down the lane plagued us every time we drove off site, down to Castlerea. He would sit in wait for cars and then charge out as if to bite the tyres and chase you along the lane. Real name 'Junior', we never knew whether to carry on maintaining speed and direction so that he could predict us and miss us, or to slam on the brakes and swerve to avoid him. We named him 'Suicide Dog', he seemed Hell-bent on self destruction under one of our cars. Well, he was fairly long in the tooth then and in the four years since we have noticed a slowing down in him and a reluctance to chase us. Only when we had a sheep trailer on would he jump up and run after us. More recently I had not seen him at all so I asked after him when I met the owner in the Post Office. Sadly they had had to have the lad put down. The owner was typically quiet on the subject and only volunteered "Ah sure, he had the breathing". We assume some kind of respiratory complaint. RIP Junior (Suicide Dog). We will miss you.

Guinness trying out some of the old fashioned flavours. 

Just one more thing. The goats are now well settled into their routines here and feel quite at home. I was joking with their real owner, Carolyn (of the mini horses) that now that I have a goat herd number, she ought to transfer them to my smallholding to make it legal. She was (tongue in cheek) worried that I might be trying to claim them as my own goats and she wants to hang onto them. I was joking that if the (possible) kids are born here then I would have to ear tag them with MY numbers. Well, she won that game of chess when she read in her own book of regs that she can move them 'to temporary grazing' without involving me or my paperwork. Sneaky.

Winter Waffle (A Sense of Solstice)

I quite like this shot of myself and 3 dogs, which Lizzie took in
the monochrome mode on her phone. 

The 21st December, the Winter Solstice is probably now my absolute favourite single day in the calendar. This is probably because in this life 'over here' we spend so much time out of doors and the weather, the day length and the dark evenings matter more - when I was in Kent I'd be up at just gone 04:00 but then work all day inside a huge chilled warehouse with air-con offices and it didn't matter a hoot what the weather was doing outside. You would only meet it when running from covered reception area to your car across the car-park top storey.

I am on Christmas cake duties this
year. Here the cake gets its marzipan.

Now the 21st is the day on which the days stop getting shorter and start to get longer, the evenings brighter and the Springtime 'officially' closer. It is a definite turn-around in fortunes when all manner of aspects of life stop getting 'worse' and start to improve. Lately I have made it the day by which I make sure all the killing, the livestock harvest is done so that mentally I can now think of the current members of the menagerie as our 'fighting weight' from which we will start to build again for the new season. There are one or two more animals to finish, including our June-born lamb Dylan but we will get well through this season before we look at him. I can do the 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th, and so on, on a rising, creative trajectory; we are cooking meals, creating food and preparing for Christmas, making things rather than ending lives and 'destroying' or finishing things. Just me being sentimental perhaps.

The  final turkey 'harvest' gets it in the neck. 

This re-start has, this year, added extra facets. This year we got into turkeys which are probably the epitome of harvesting at the Solstice. I killed our last poult this morning and we had her plucked and 'dressed' in time for Vendor Anna to collect her at lunchtime. This one was unusual in that Anna only wanted a 'crown' (the breasts, sternum and underlying ribs) so we have a rather unusual looking breastless carcass in the freezer which we may try to roast spine-uppermost on a bed of spuds, parsnips etc at some stage. Luckily we are both partial to the red meat.

Spatchcocked young Silver Brahma rooster. 

Those roosters I described in the last post turn out to be a breed called "Silver Brahma". One of them was more than a year old and seemed very tough so he went for stock, but one of the young ones got spatchcocked and roasted last night and, despite his 'scrawny' looks, turned out to be a revelation in terms of being meaty enough to feed 2 of us with left overs and having a flavour up there alongside the Hubbard meat birds we do each summer.

Liz coming to of a morning armed with Kindle,
 cat, onesie and the red flame of a fire in the
range

From my own point of view (I can only speak for myself here) I am also including the unexpectedly solid closure I got from the Theo funeral - my Theo era ended pre Solstice and I am now able to start the post-Theo synchronised with this turning point in the year. Down at the Sligo house-build we have also pretty much done with demolition, so the post-Sostice jobs are mainly going to be building and creating. We do actually have a chimney to pull down -  it was central to the old roof ridge but the new roof will sit back a couple of feet and be a tiny bit higher, so we need to create a new stack on that new line.

15 bales of straw for JD's cattle. 

We have been getting into this buildering with the new block-walls at the back of the house and, most recently, what is known as a 'ring beam'. I had not heard of this, but it is a continuously poured beam of concrete reinforced with steel bars (rebar) running all around the tops of your walls at roof height. You create wooden shuttering up from the outside and inside of the walls and heft buckets of wet concrete up ladders to pour into the channel you created. Loads of fun. Tiring, too!

A tree in the nick of time.

It has, though, been an unusually 'close to the wire' Christmas. It is the 21st today and we have a long list of things not yet done or only just done what with delays related to Liz now working, Liz heading for Silverwood land to child-mind while the adults headed for the UK, and the funeral. Things like buying the tree and decorating it, we like to do as a couple, so it was not as if I could have nipped off, bagged our tree and presented it to Liz on her return 'ta-daaaa!' So it was not till Sunday that we bought the thing and tonight we put it up. This was almost too close - Supervalue where we buy the tree had started with hundreds back in early December but by now they only had 4 left. We were lucky to find a decent one among them. Today, too, I have been marzipanning the cake and Liz has been doing Domestic Goddess. We have nipped out with the trailer for 15 bales of straw for some nearby cattle - they have the 'all is safely gathered in' feeling too. We may, between us all, actually be ready on the 25th to enjoy the day. I hope you are too. Now, where's that ruby port?

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.

...and After

Here we all are again - and look at us now! We are sparkly white, silky, fragrant and clipped to within an inch of our lives. Everyone says we look beautiful and The Groomer, we know, is delighted with the results. We are not so sure - of course, you know that a Westie's natural condition is kind of beige with muck and gruft, and redolent of squirrel sh**e, but we always know we can get back to that some day, and it makes the humans happy.

You have, in order, my head, on the frozen Rec', Megan's head, reclining on a brown cushion at the Groomer's (and the Guitarist's) house, where we all had supper last night), the three of us (l-r Meggie, me and the H) on the Groomer's sofa, with one of their Norfolks, (our friend Mollie) completing the line-up. Then, finally, there's the H, also stretched out on the furniture.

That frozen walk on the Rec in the morning was just to give Megan a breath of fresh air. With Haggis clipped off, Mum was worried to note that his usual skinny frame and definite waist and "cut" behind the ribs, seems to have submerged under a slightly portly layer of fat. In short, she described him as a bit of a porker. Nothing for it, then but to push on with these planned "leave Meggie behind" walks. So today we are loaded in to car and buzzed off to Reculver, for one of Dad's route-marches. Haggis feels much better for that, thanks - he's now asleep. The frozen ground is good for keeping westies clean, but the wind don't 'alf cut through your clipped fur!

Brrrrr

Deefer

Groomer and the Guitar Man

Our electric power suppliers, British Gas, via distributor EDF (mais oui!) seem to have lost the plot lately. 6 times since the 4th of Dec, the house has been plunged into darkness and the humans, who have poor night vision compared to we dogs, have been reduced to candle light and early nights. Fun and romantic the first time - candle lit supper, coal fire, chatting etc (weh heh!), this has now lost its novelty value. I can't get on here, and Mum can't get on with the fast-encroaching Open Univ assignment deadline.

This leads to Mum on the phone last night giving out (politely and sweetly, natch) to 6 different "Customer Services" (Hah!) types of increasing rank and decreasing ability to pass the buck. The buck, in this case, a feisty human female with her posh voice turned on, and her previous studies with the OU concerning contract law, Provision of Goods and Services Act, the Sale of Goods Act and a raft of case law with names like "Bloggs Electricity supply company vs. Forsyth, 1992" etc. Go Mum! Lambs to the slaughter.

We're off out that night anyway, over to visit Mum and Dad's chums Guitar Man and "The Groomer", plus Norfolk terriers Dylan (who we've met and has featured in this blog before) and newer pup Molly, 9 months old. The Groomer (as I can now call her) was formerly "The Refrigeration Plant in Supermarkets Service Consultant" (not such a snappy title), but we're happy to report that she's now jacked all that in and set up in business as a dog groomer / dog creche in their village.

She is rapidly building a client base and has many pics of poshly groomed dogs, including westies, on the cork-board. There is hope for me yet! The Groomer has a newly fitted out extensive summer-house as a workshop with hydraulic tables, huge-dog sized bath with walk-in ramp at one end, along with racks of lotions and potions, clippers, combs and scissors plus, of course, dog treats.

Mum and Dad have promised us that we will be treated to a pampering day after Christmas, as soon as the weather starts to warm up. We will, of course, let you know how you get on. Diamond, too, is interested on behalf of Rags, though if Groomer can make either Ragworth or myself look like posh show-dogs, then she will come heartily reccommended, and we will shout her name from the roof tops.

It was a good evening. We three dogs packed it with Dylan and Molly (I only had one scrap with Molly, but you do, don't you. Can't have everyone thinking I have become an angel), while Mum and Dad, plus Guitar Man, Groomer and a couple of chums of our hosts, ate, drank, crossed the road to join in the proper carol singing on the church green and wandered down to a superb micro-pub called the Butcher's Arms (Real Ales are us!) - they weren't even too rude in there about Dad's Shepherd Neame sweatshirt !

http://www.micropub.co.uk/

Back at the house all dogs collapsed on furniture while Dad and Guitar Man played guitar (brilliantly) and sang (badly), while Mum attempted to master the intricacies of the computer game Wii Sport (Tennis). Apart from wanting to call it "Why -Aye!" instead of "Wee", it was amusing to see Mum thrashing at thin-air with her gadget, while the player on the screen completely missed the incoming baseline volley. The screen even did the whistle of the "racket" through the air like a Zorro sword-slash, without the accompanying "thwack" of ball on catgut.

Wet weekend on the cards, though there is talk of us buying our Christmas Tree.

Have a good one
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

Feel the Breeze

Just for fun, a couple more pics from our trip to Dylan's a couple of weekends ago. The first is on the steps of the summer house, me on the left, Meggie on the right, and you may be able to spot Mum's skirt and a bit of bag behind us. In the other pic, Dylan himself. Ahhhh sigh!

In that pic we are looking quite shaggy. We had, allegedly, also started itching and scratching too much for comfort, so today we have all three been blitzed to within an inch (or more accurately 5mm). Despite temperatures soaring up towards 28 degrees, Dad wrestled all three of us into submission. We are buzzed over with the No 5's, and then we were serially showered and shampood with the old "8 in 1, "White Pearl" with pearlescent whiteners" No less. Only the best for us (Says Dad, although I suspect he grabbed it in Pets Are Us just 'coz it had a westie on the front) - made in Hauppauge, NY 11788 ( see www.eightinonepet.com ). Aren't we the posh ones.

I strongly suspect that this white scented brilliance may be shortly replaced by the stench of "Frontline" and it's parrafin-y solvent, but for now I'm swanking around dazzling everybody with my immaculateness.

Mum and Dad are soon off to Diamond's for a bite of lunch. It's too hot to walk, so I expect we'll be abandonned.... AGAIN.

Deefs, Designer Babe

Metal Dog

Coo - twice in one day. trying to make up for the missing days no doubt. The Neice is now collected by her gang and we have the house back and the terrace to ourselves to chill out in.

My pic today is of a superb scrap metal dog who "lives" in the garden of my new chum Dylan, and his Dad the Guitar Man (Wham a lam a lam a lam a Rock and Roll is King!). His legs are made of bent copper pipe and his neck is a long twangy spring, so it nods gently in the breeze.

Had to laugh today. Megan, when relaxing on the terrace, before she rolls over on her side and falls asleep completely, sags down onto her belly with her back legs forward (unlike H and myself who stick our back legs out behind). Only Meggie, as she's got more ancient and venerable, and of rather more "solid" proportions (OK, some of it's to do with the Cushings), her belly is now a tad pear-shaped, so the legs, instead of sticking truly forwards, end up splayed around her belly, a bit like a frog.

Neice's Mum commented that she looked like a spatchcocked chicken. Dad was delighted, and thinks this description may well stick, and be added to the canon of dog positions.

For example

"Baby seal" - where the dog curls up one way but then lies their neck in the opposite direction, ending up looking like one of those baby fur seals about to be clubbed in the anti-cull posters

"Flat Dog" - where the dog is on the top step or landing with chin and both front paws at the edge, looking down at you.

"Hot Rocks" - the afore-mentionned hot day, after a run, collapse on some shady ground with front legs forward and back legs backwards, the better to cool those parts of the under-carriage that only Heiniken can reach.

Hot innit?

Have a great weekend

Deefer

Staying Over, at Dylan's

I'm in love! There is a new man in my life. Slightly portly, and under the vet for his diet, he's now regaining his trim puppy good looks. He is Norfolk terrier Dylan (15 months), whose humans are friends of Mum and Dad. We were all invited to stay over last night at their house, and to sleep in the big, well appointed Summer House.

We were already a bit tired, the three of us, from a busy day helping Mum and Dad in the garden (especially me, who helped by digging a big hole between the tubs of old, spent daffs and tulips in the chicken run), but it was great to have a run up and down Dylan's garden. Then as the evening wore on and the humans got fed and lubricated, we all of us invaded various of Dylan's beds, till when the humans were rattling out "Brown Eyed Girl" and "Rock and Roll is King" on the guitars, or lazing in the outdoor hot spa-bath, there were sleeping dogs in every possible corner of the rooms.

A brilliant night, and many thanks to Dylan and his people for entertaining us all. Now it's breakfast time and Mum and Dad are off to find Diamond for bit of eggs and bacon.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend

Deefs