More caravan

The evening of Friday had seen us all gathered again at 2CV Llew's caravan, all be it Mum slightly delayed by meeting a burning hedge in the lane and having to call out the Fire Brigade. Might have been just an excuse to entice hunky uniformed firemen into a leafy lane at night but we're saying no such thing. Mum arrives with all the ingredients for a nice risotto and the evening is warm enough for us to stay outside and fire up the log burning converted LPG cannister. Autumn does come, though, in terns of the change from chilled whites and Prosecco, to the more hearty reds. Dad cooks, we all relax into the evening, beds get wrangled and that's another evening gone.

On Saturday, Diamond is being to taken to favourite restaurant 'Le Cygne' in Saint Omer (Northern France) by John for a birthday meal, so we are babysitting Ragworth. Mum, Dad and I nip over to collect him mid morning, leaving the H asleep in the van. This lets Mum drop us all off at the Albion pub carpark from where Dad and we dogs can walk the nice hour's walk round the Creek bank to the Shipwrights' Arms and back to the boatyard that way. Dad has been warned that Rags can be a bit problematic with other dogs, but the footpath is crossed regularly by secure 'kissing gates' so Dad can let Rags off the lead and just grab him easily enough should any dog walkers come the other way. Not many do; most people time that walk to end up at the pub when it's open!

We then have a relaxing day around the caravan with all three dogs off the lead and mooching around. Diamond and John return at 6-ish to collect Rags and Diamond's comment is that never was a dog more fitted to the caravan lifestyle! He looks the part and definitely enjoys the day. Mum's cooking tonight so it's a bit more adventurous; a roast rack of lamb with vegetables and very nice too, judging by the bits of vertebrae we get at the end. Also it's a bit chilly in the wind so having got a good coal-assisted fire going in the burner for Diamond and John's visit, we now let that burn down low and retreat indoors for tonight's feast.

Sunday sees Dad get up on the alarm and vanish off to lead a Deer Walk for the Friends of Kings Wood in Challock Forest, showing the public the delights of the fallow deer rut. It goes well and they all see and hear plenty of deer and plenty of rutting buck behaviour. Dad returns and we decamp to Icklesham where there is a family meal at the Queen's Head involving Mum and Dad, Pud Lady and Dad's younger bro and sis-in-law. From there we all retreat back to Hastings where bro can show us all his holiday slides of Galway which include some of our tentative new house which bro tracked down on his way to/from the west coast.

Enough for this one, then. We are now back in the old routine of Hastings and Pud Lady's, of which more tomorrow.

Deefs

Moving the boat

It's been a busy weekend, which I'll tell you about over a couple of posts rather than try to squish it all on this one. Friday saw us all headed once more for Hollow Shore boatyard and another weekend of caravanning but first up we had work to do on Friday. We had to swap cars and take the 2CV down to Llew's workshop. The main mission was to be to shuffle all the cars in the place about to make space at the 'bottom end' for a rather tall boat and trailer combo which wouldn't quite fit through the door at the top end where there is a concrete ramp. This meant for we dogs, plenty of chance to chase about the outbuildings and rabbit-rich territory, and to play with Boris-the-barking-bastard (as he is now known by 2CV Llew).

Boris, pictured here was already filthy when we first arrived and is here wrangled to a length of rope to restrict his access to further dirt and oily sumps of cars but unfortunately when he runs out of string he gets frustrated at not being able to get at whatever is going on and sets up barking. We know from his nights here that this is persistent and loud; Llew is a bit ineffective at stopping him, so he just gets shouted at repeatedly to 'shut up' which has no effect whatso ever, hence the new name Boris-t-b-b.

The shot down the length of the green house gives you some idea of the layout - the cars are all down the far end in this shot. We had to move them all towards the camera - some of them, including a lovely old 'Hercules Poirot' Citroen Traction-Avant even started and ran under their own power (which surprised Llew more than it did Dad) and then take the big boat shown here all round the back way, Llew skillfully reversing the Volvo estate and this trailer round 4 narrow 90 degree bends in the process to get nearly there. The boys then manhandled the trailer the last few yards in, whereupon one of the trailer wheels collapsed an underground rabbit burrow inside the greenhouse, the cave-in stopping the trailer and canting it over alarmingly. They had to jack it back upright and slide a bit of ply under the wheel to continue.

With all that fun and games complete they savaged the leylandii hedge you can see in the boat picture and had a mahousive bonfire of the bits, they helped landowner Mike to move a big diesel tank with a mini-digger (Health and Safety?), and they whipped the last two remaining wheels off the 2CV for their anti-rust paint treatment.

After all that interesting day we were all rounded up and piled back into the 2CV and headed off to meet Mum at the caravan.

Deefs

Lucky Heather!

We spend the night in 2CV Llew's caravan in the Hollow Shore boatyard close to Faversham. If the truth were known, Dad is going a leeeetle bit stir-crazy in Hastings. He doesn't want to appear ungracious or ungrateful but realistically he now knows no-one in Hastings and is not in any clubs or organisations to distract him, so short of dog walks and playing Scrabble with Pud Lady, there's not a lot to do and he was looking forward to the prospect of escaping for a while. Sorry, Pud Lady!

It was a lovely warm afternoon and evening as we drove up there after a roast lamb lunch (the lamb bones in our doggie bag for when we got there), and Dad texted Mum to say we were on the way. We all met up at the caravan and sat around on the 'patio' Llew has rigged up outside the door. We walked along to the Shipwright's Arms for Dad to have a couple of pints of Goacher's "Shipwreck", and then back to the caravan. Mum disappeared briefly in search of food, returning with pizzas and coleslaw and milk while Dad sussed out the electrics and the gas for the caravan. We are looking at buying a small, 2nd hand caravan to live in while we're making the Erroll house habitable, so Mum and Dad were kind of enjoying 'pretending' to be caravan dwellers.

The pizzas and salad, with coffee were eaten out on the patio as dusk fell, a candle doing the honours for relaxing lighting. Although there was a warm breeze this was mainly passing through at tree top height and did little to upset the candle flame. The Mum was gone, leaving we dogs and Dad to retreat into the caravan and sort out sleeping arrangements, basically Dad on one side bed, we two dogs on the other. We opened a window to keep airing the van through the night.

Dad woke early on the alarm, needing to link up with Mum again to take the 'big Citroen' into the main dealer's in Rainham for a service - Mum drove Dad back from the garage, dropping him at Oare Creek before heading for work. We mooched around for the morning waiting for 2CV Llew to arrive; he and friend Derek were hoping to lift Derek's sailing boat out of the water, but the tide never came in high enough to the crane-out slipway, so they'd have to put it off to Thursday. Anyway, the wind, in the opinion of the crane driver, was a bit borderline safe for hefting yacht hulls about.

So now we're back here in Hastings, Dad catching up on emails, facebook and barge-blogging, plus playing a couple games of Scrabble with Pud Lady, and I'm on here!

Deefs

The good ship Kestrel

Some pics then of the good ship Kestrel moored to her recent long-stay moorings at Hollow Shore down by the most excellent pub "The Shipwrights' Arms" (Dad reccommends the Goachers Ship Wreck if you are keen on real ales at all).

Sorry these are only mobile-phone pics.

In the dog pic, I am nearest the camera, Haggis is looking intrepidly out to sea (well out across the creek anyway). The guy in the cockpit earnestly scrubbing is 2CV Llew himself fitter-in-chief of Dad's own "Clara Bow" car.

I suspect Dad may get kinda involved in this boat and go on some sailing missions there-in. He used to whizz "Larks" about on gravel pits in Cambridgeshire as a student, so he knows his way around spinnakers, booms, cleats and gybing, but Kestrel has a load of bigger-boat stuff like coffee-grinder winches, shrouds, auto-helm and a little Mercury out-board (which Llew has yet to service). We'll see. Even Llew's dog Rosie (she of the beer and tea drinking fame) has never been out on a boat with him before, so it could be quite entertaining.

Watch this space

Deefski

Old Glory

We dogs are firmly convinced that Dad is entering the official ranks of "old gits" when he buys a copy of the steam traction engine magazine "Old Glory". Wannabee Fred Dibnah? He claims that it is only because this month's edition has a five page article on the SB Cambria restoration, but I'm not entirely sure I believe that.

Never mind - fair play to the old boy, another day off using up 2009 hols, so good news for us and we get a good walk in the dry but bitter wind. We park at the Three Mariners pub in Oare (a good pub if you're passing this way) http://www.thethreemarinersoare.co.uk/ and then walk down the lane to Harty Ferry. Here we head east along the sea wall then back along the Oare Creek path to the car. It's a chance to see the Hollow Shore and the Shipwright's Arms (another good pub!) from across the creek (main picture) and for Dad to hunt down some more old dead barges.

The Old Glory mission is really just a distraction while waiting for the garage to MOT Mum's car "Timbuktu" (don't ask) - it passes the test no problem but the whole show is running late, so we have time to kill and time to wander into Smith's. Not us actually, obviously - Dad.

Dad also gets a chance to mow for the first time up at the allotments, and finally gets fed up with the mower being pathetically under-powered and "hunting" really badly, so that gets taken to local mower-doctor for repair and service, plus a new blade. The allotments are getting treated to a new hard-surface path where the grass (and more often mud) public footpath goes through, and the contractor is also rolling some spare road-scalpings into the carpark. We shall be so posh we will have to charge for parking!

Hope tomorrow's as good

Deefski