Catch Up

A post to catch up a few loose ends and share some recent photos. Yesterday we headed for Blessington in County Wicklow and the superb "Charles Camping" shop, a veritable Aladdin's cave of a place containing every sort of camping gear you could possibly want from big stuff like caravans, tents and awnings, down to the smallest widget. From our point of view a complete success in terms of finally finding the toilet (Ha ha - a "Royal Potti"!), a nice warm sleeping bag for Mum, a table for the caravan, toilet chemical (blue for the loo) and meths for the heater. Lively town too, featuring one main street where everybody parks on rows at 90 degrees to the traffic and many many small-business shops. Not a trace of large-chain card shops, magazine shops, pharmacies or any other chain shops.

Second a picture of the kitchen once it had been blitzed and decorated. The picture of Haggis is also 'blitzed and decorated' or at least shampoo'd a couple of times as only Mrs S knows how so that he's whiter and floofier than he has been for ages. She rinses the dog first using her kitchen sink shower attachment thingy, then jugs diluted shampoo on and massages up to a good lather all over including round the face, eyes, feet and parts. Then the dog gets rinsed before the full strength 'posh' shampoo comes out and we go round again. Finally we are towelled dry in the huge Liverpool FC bath-sheet towels and set to dry in front of the log fire. Inevitably this last stage is via lots of charging round the house rubbing ourselves dry on all available surfaces and other dogs.

Finall a quick shot of Harry the Tortoise inside his tank, having just been given a bag of pillow-pack salad which was left over from one of the meals

That's all for now.

Deefs

Safely gathered in

For Dad, unfortunately another weekend of cover, but we still get to see plenty of him and have good walks. We are just back from a blast round the Cemetery and Rec where we met, and had a good run around with, 3 month old soppy Collie sisters, Misty and Poppy. They remind us a lot of the brother-sister combo Ben and Nellie who we meet on 2CV events, where you can tell them apart by the width of their facial stripe - Ben is broad, Nellie is Narrow. In this case Misty is the narrow one, and Poppy the wide stripe. Also present is Cavalier x Westie "Harry" - like a coarse haired Cav - very unusual.

Misty and Poppy's owner likes to carry a tin of sweets, so she commands our undivided attention at the Rec, but sadly the 'sweets' are doggie chocolate drops. I am in there, of course, but Haggis's face crumples with disappointment. "They are made with plants!" he wails. Dad has to give him extra 'proper' sweeties when we get home to restore his faith in human kind.

My pics show another shot of a Fallow doe in Challock Forest, this the one chased past Dad by a red and white collie. She (the doe) does not look as if she quite trusts the dog to have given up on chasing her. Plus a goodly pile of logs delivered today by Polish chums of 2CV Llew (Mum thought they were Greeks! Just as well she didn't say so.). We have that 'all is safely gathered in' feel and can cope with winter; all be it now the cold weather has relented and it is mild and warm.

Mum and Diamond have gone off to Rochester Cathedral to listen to a special Evensong service sung by a choir which includes a mate of theirs off the interwebby.

Good weekend so far

Deefer

Eddie, Freddy, Jack 'n' 'Arry

Another nice walk today in the warm breezy sunshine - we go down to the creek, then through the boat yard. En route we meet our mates, the Jack Russells Eddie and Freddy, and aged Doberman Jack. Poor Jack is showing his age now. As we westies chat with E+F, Jack goes off for a sit-down. Unfortunately, says his Mum, he can no longer get up by himself from his sit-downs, so when we've done, someone has to lift his back end into the standing position before he can continue

But he's a proud dog, and one with an interesting history, say Meg and Haggis. He was the star of a newspaper story long ago, where he was involved in the rescue of his Mum who had broken a leg falling over out in the fields beyond the allotments. Clever, brave boy. I think the air-ambulance had to be called in the end, she was so far off the beaten track.

In the boat yard we come upon collie-cross, boatyard dog 'Arry. We all think that is actually his name, as no-one has ever heard it pronounced with an "H", but it could just be the easy talk of boatyard folk!

The weekend continues in similar vein, Mum chugging on with the quince jam (which involves a series of boil-ups and then strains through muslin bags hanging from the window pole across the bay window), and shopping, Dad going in search of camping stuff (a good time of year, he says as everything's reduced!), and then up to the allotment for some digging. There's someone or other around at home all day. That's the way we like it.

Look after yourselves
Deefer