Silverwoods Invasion

This year's Family Holiday is a change from the narrow boating of previous years for three very good reasons - 1) we're in a different country now, 2) we are in a different situation money-wise and 3) all the rivers and canals and locks we used for the last few years have been out of use for most of this year with too much water and flooding. Instead, the 6 Silverwoods plus a guest, best friend of Em-J, John the Bass Player (not her real name!) plus their 2 dogs, Maxwell and Lily and the one remaining pup, Goldie descend on us for a week.

The little ones, R (4) and M (6) have been obsessing about the chance to camp and live in a tent for weeks, so Mr and Mrs S bring the tent. We here, having survived months of on/off rain, are not 100% convinced of this as a plan and think they will be pitching it in a swamp, but, amazingly, as they confirm arrangements on Monday 6th the sun comes out and we get a week of scorcher, blue skies and hot hot hot. Talk about bringing the weather with you. We are able to erect the tent in the dry, on a dry bit of grass and R and M plus Mr and Mrs S get to spent at least that night under canvas.

The hot weather brings out the flying ants and a whole gang of them are attracted to the pale blue of the tent awning. Poor M is convinced they will eat him alive in his sleep and takes some persuading that they will be gone by night fall. Thankfully they are and he goes to bed easily enough. The teenage girls (Em-J, J-M and "John") take over the caravan as their den and sleeping pod, plus venue for Midnight Feasts and tuck parties. It's a no-go area for the boys and the little ones except for occasional deliveries of cocoa and, in Mr S's case a chance to creep over there and frighten them into squealing hysterics with torch-under-the-chin and funny voices.

This holiday is brilliant for me because I get to play for a week with my big mates Lily and Maxwell and it's great for Towser who gets to run, romp, fight and wrestle all week with his sister Goldie (pup of the orange collar colour). Lily and Max do not get total free rein because they are not quite trustworthy with the rabbits, hens, kittens and the lane outside, but they are free or supervised on the lead enough to enjoy their stay.

For the humans there are games on the front lawn with badminton set up, occasional volleyball and chasing games that Mrs S recalls from her youth - "What's the Time, Mr Wolf", "Mother, May I?" and "Blind Man's Buff" plus a lot of sitting around on the front terrace recovering in the heat, getting sunburnt.

There are outings so that we dogs actually get a walk, with leads on (!) We all go on a 'Bog Walk' (a Nature Trail through a turf cutting bog) down by Lough O'Flynn, just south of our own village (Lough Glynn). There's a trip to the National Museum of Country Life at Turlough near Castlebar, Co. Mayo where Dad loves being able to see 'live' the stuff described in the book he's just finished reading (FSL Lyons, "Ireland Since the Famine"), he loves the currachs and coracles and he loves the photos of raised bed and 'lazy-bed' agriculture which is what we're now up to out on the allotment.

Finally there is a trip to a petting zoo in Kilimagh, Co. Mayo. Here the kids buy grain to feed to a variety of hens, ducks, sheep, pigmy goats, llamas, pigs, ponies and (via a bucket because they bite) rheas. We find out that horses can have blue eyes and we all enjoy a well stocked reptile house with turtles, lizards, snakes, a skink, chameleon, dragons, and (you couldn't pick this one up) a tarantula. There are even swings and slides for the little ones and a nice hatchery bit where we can see tiny new-hatched chicks and ducklings. There are bunnies and guinea pigs.

All in all a brilliant week in lovely weather. A good holiday, if not quite as satisfying as Narrow Boating. Ah well.

Show Dogs

Just a couple of pictures of the competition looking very splendid after their professional grooming last week. Lily, the bitch (no offence meant) turns out to have quite a hard coat and grooms up like a proper show dog. Maxwell, the boy proves to have very soft hair with a goodly curl in it so there are dark mutterings about Bichon DNA getting mixed up in there somewhere! There I am, in the middle, doing a romantic back lit bonfire look. I manage to stay reasonably clean for most of the week but then go to some mystery place where in seconds my back gets lathered with black oily stuff, possibly sump oil. This friday that led to Mrs Silverwood taking one look at me and getting that shampoo look in her eye. I was barely in the door than I was wrangled into the sink / shower for the hair wash of my life. Mind you, Haggis, Coco and Maxwell got it too. The theory is that with Mum and Dad away much of this week in England, I might actually stay clean for a few days.

Deefs

Garryhinch Forest

On a beautiful, warm sunny day the whole family decide to take a walk in Garryhinch Forest to make a pleasant change for us from all the hard work of buildering; this was taking exercise for pure pleasure. Garryhinch is a big public forest, owned by "Coillte", the Irish equivalent of the Forestry Commission. Mixed pine blocks and broad leaved woodland, it is looped around and through by good hard based tracks, so no mud!

All the Silverwoods plus a house guest, Sarah, and Mum an Dad with our three dogs load up into 2 cars and head on out the short distance to the forest, which is on the Portarlington road out of here, actually in Co.Offaly. The newly groomed and beautiful Maxwell and Lily head off at speed with me in tow, closely chased by Coco, but Haggis only has one speed these days, and that's a slow, bouncy amble. Mum stays behind with him following us along as afr as a big river. We have all the Silverwoods and Dad in our group and we speed round a 3.2 km way-marked trail. We take about an hour and a half to complete with the little ones, M (6) and R (4) variously keeping up, lagging, or scrounging shoulder rides.

It makes a lovely change; we've not been for a forest walk since England and the Challock Forest, so it's good to remind ourselves of those woodland smells. The party returns home for a chicken risotto knocked up by Dad.

Tomorrow, we are back to Roscommon and once more away from the internet, so we will catch you all up again on Friday or Saturday, by which time the house will, we hope, have its new floors downstairs, freshly poured from the readymix lorry and then left to dry and harden over the weekend.

Deefs

Kitchen blitz

Just for fun a couple of pictures of the impressive pizza meal the Silverwood's laid on to reward us all for all the hard work decorating. It came from Mizzoni's of Portlaoise. Impressive. Impressive pile of debris left over too.

The decorating and kitchen-wrangling have now moved on from there. The need to clear round walls for the first cot of paint generated an amount of stuff, some of which is now redundant and Mrs S, excited about her new paint and the started de-clutter went completely bonkers on a kitchen blitz. Mr S was press-ganged into this and the two older girls roped in too.

This is a big kitchen-diner and Mrs S is a well equipped and frequent baker and cook so more than the normal amount of equipment is 'got through'. Food mixers die and get replaced with better ones. The baking trays and tins get replaced by modern flexible plastic(?) ones. Occasional glass or electrical parts of kit break or die and the surviving bits get hung on to in case 'we buy a spare' for the broken bit. Some bits of kit are bought with best intentions but gets used only a few times and then parked. It was all this kind of gear which was de-cluttered and sorted into tough rubble sacks and/or the caravan and/or the bin. All part-processed laundry from the dryer was folded. Em-J and J-M at one stage were balancing along the work tops to get stuff from the tops of upper cupboards.

Anything not glass was hauled down from the glasses cupboards. All cupboards were emptied and the empty cupboards re-assigned to new tidier tasks (this one is for pots and pans, this one for cleaning materials etc.) and the useful keeper stuff put back in its new assigned location. Finally, after everyone else had gone to bed, Mr and Mrs S cleared the worktops and wiped them down so that the place was transformed overnight. And today, finishing touch, the floor has been swept, hands-and-knees cleaned and hoovered. Coco, who likes a nice scavenge around the floor for lost toast etc. under the units, is bereft! Can we have a rest now, Mrs S?

My other picture is of Maxwell post haircut this morning. A bit funky but Dad says it was the best he could do with Mrs S's uncooperative clippers and a pair of scissors.

More soon.

Deefs

Shampoos all round

Major dog-wrangling last night when all three Silverwood dogs get shampoo'd to within an inch of their lives and then towelled dry before being allowed the run of the house for the evening while we all watched X Factor and X Factor USA on TV (That was a new one on Dad - never watched it before!). Here we have pics of all three enjoying the experience, especially Lily (middle pic) who looks like she has got a taste of the shampoo by mistake.

The Silverwoods have a brilliant set up for such dog-wrangling where the kitchen sink mixer-tap pulls out into a hose long enough to use as a shower on the dogs, so you can do them at standing-up height. Back in Faversham we two were always showered in the bottom of the shower with Dad kneeling down outside and reaching in to grab us.

The evening was entertaining. Max and Coco are of that age and stage where they are both trying to be alpha-male so occasional fisticuffs develop. I am, as ever, a bit precious about protecting Dad's lap from boarders so there's occasional grumblings and snarliness. Lily is young enough and silly enough to romp around through all this, regardless and oblivious to the 'politics' of the grown-up dogs. Haggis tends to try to lie there asleep and occasionally gets bounced on by assorted dogs, so he wakes up with a gruff. The humans just mooch around trying to manage all this.

We all survived. We even went for a walk - Dad, Em-J and J-M plus 5 dogs!

Deefs

School Runs

Sorry we've done no pictures lately, but we still have a mess of 'junk' in the car and only part of the contents of the C4 are moved indoors. We are all settling into the Silverwood routine now here, with 'school mornings' filled with readying the little ones for school, getting some breakfast into them, making sure they have clothes, lunches, school bags etc. and getting them there. This will all be familiar stuff to anyone with children of their own, of course, but it's all 'different' and a bit exciting to us.

Dad is loving having something real to do after the stir-crazy inducing Pud Lady's routine and being properly helpful again. Mrs S is laid low with flu-ey symptoms, head aches and snuffling, sustained by cups of tea so she's not about to turn down the offer of taxi runs and shopping missions. Also, no-one has yet asked him to play them at Scrabble, which is a major bonus!

The local dogs are growing up fast - when Dad last saw Maxwell he was a boisterous 6 month old and Lily a tiny slip of a pup, just barely old enough to leave Mum. Coco the Yorkie was older but is very slightly built. Now Maxwell is coming up to full size, is a bit less mad but is now bigger than Coco and starting to think like the alpha-male. Their normal home is a nice comfy kennel on the decking in the back yard, around which is a wooden paling ranch fence, through which Coco can still slip if Maxwell gets a bit too much. Lily, being female does not get duffed up by Max but likes a good bark on occasions, so you generally know they are about. We've been out there a few times to say hello, but we are happy to stay 'indoor dogs'.

Ah well. Tommo the Builder is back in today laying laminate in the hall way, with his lad Owen. The two of them are chatting away in the hall among the clatter of sheets of laminate and the occasional rattle of the jig saw. Toddler R (now 4) follows Tommo round like a shadow up till the point one of the power tools start up. She doesn't like that noise so retreats to the kitchen with a pained expression till the saw stops and she can go back into admiring Tommo again.

Happy Days

Deefs

I did a Poo!

Unusually, and via the power of the internet, this post is being brought to you from Ireland, where Deefer's Dad is currently house hunting assisted by myself (Lily), and my co-workers Maxwell and Coco. That's us in the first pic - left to right Max, me and Coco. The 2nd pic might be of me trying to see how you get the dog sweets out of the jar. By the time I discovered the top was open, Mrs Silverwood (my Mum) was onto me! I (Lily) am doing this with full permission of Deefs who is taking a short break, looking after her Mum back in the UK.

Sorry about the complicated relationships but hopefully you and I can hang onto the plot. I will pass the reins back to Deefs on Friday.

So, Mrs S and Deef's Dad are off checking out some places found by Deef's Mum and Mrs S on the internet, but now they are doing it properly in the Irish rain in the company of proper Estate Agents. So far so good but I'll hold back from any detail till we know one way or the other.

Meanwhile let this image into your head. Little R Silverwood (3) is just at the potty training stage and she is getting on well and is very proud of her progress. So proud that she comes skipping into the room waving an unfamiliar yellow plastic bowl under Deef's Dad's nose, wobbling it alarmingly. Deef's Dad grabs it to steady it just in time to realise it is half full of yellow liquid, with a floater to be proud of slopping about in it. That's nothing, says Mrs S. When she was first doing them and it was all a bit sporadic R would stride into the room clutching the poo in the palm of her hand and say Look! I've done a Poo.

As is the way of these things, busy Mrs S is not always in a position to attend straight way to each insistent child and on one occasion, the Mummy.... Mummy..... MUMMY! was followed up by R thrusting the thing so far under Mummy's nose that the little brown-coated fingers went in past Mummy's lips and actually behind her teeth before Mummy realised what message was trying to come across!

Lily (for the Deefs)

Pictures of Lily

Meet Lily, latest addition to the Silverwoods family. Currently only 8 weeks old and fairly new. Bit of a girlie name but me and Maxwell will probably toughen her up. It's what big brothers and cousins are for!

Our lovely sunshine gives way to rain. It's just starting to very gently drizzle as we set out for our walk this morning and we decide to do the boat yard and back through town route which is, unfortunately not one with any obvious shortcuts home. Fairly soon it's drizzling very convincingly and then just plain tanking down. 3 days off his 15th birthday, Haggis is not inclined to be hurried anywhere and, anyway, his dense felty old fur sheds water like the proverbial duck, so he ain't rushin for no-one, rain or not. Dad and me end up looking like drowned rats.

Diamond, now largely through her medical dramas is exploring the idea of getting back to work (No Diamond! Lady of Leisure! Keep the Faith!) and has sought and got a job at Mum's 'firm'. Diamond is a keen Greece-ophile and annual visitor to the same village in the same island for decades, knows lots of locals, seen the current crop of café owners grow up having bounced them on her knee when they were babies, never has to sit in the 'tourist' seats, you get the idea. So she's delighted that her new boss is also Greek (well, Crete actually). Today is her first day. Mum may come back with tales of how she got on. Good luck Diamond!

Deefs

Bundle

Here are a couple of pics of we two dogs and Maxwell, both from the recent holiday. In the top one we are all waiting outside a delicatessen called "Say Cheese" in Stalybridge while Mum buys some superb cheeses, meats and something called "Duck Balls" (which turn out to be a duck based meat loaf which you can slice into salad or base a delicious pasta sauce on). That's H having a lie down, me facing the camera centre and Max to the right.

In the other picture we are all three indulging in a doggie bundle which was quite a common form of riot on the boat. This is, I think, me coming off worst (left) while the H is wrestling me and Max is behind, trying to get involved. The H loved the extra attention he was getting from Max (Didn't he just!) and seemed to be rejuvenated like when Boris came to stay. There's life in the old boy yet.

We have both parents at home at present, Dad doing some decorating and Mum resting and elevating a poorly leg (nasty insect bites which blistered up rather gruesomely). Dad is applying top coat emulsion to walls and de-snagging various bits of worktop and plumbing. Those of you who also read Dad's barge-blog on http://www.cambriatrust.org.uk/ will know of the red-toned grey barge undercoat which was known affectionately known by the painting volunteers as "Rosie Glow". They all joked that it was such a good colour and so evocative of barge hulls that they'd use it on their houses. At one point during the decorating here Mum came downstairs, poked her head in rather nervously and joked "Thank Heavens for That - you are using the pale lemon... I was worried you'd be slapping on Rosie Glow!"

The Deefs

Falling Royd Tunnel

Days 2 and 3 of the narrow boating saga and the adventure begins in earnest. Our first choice to do the Pennine Ring of canals clockwise is thwarted by a broken lock cill (more accurately the threshold of the cill) near Huddersfield which will have closed the canal just when we wanted to ascend through it, so we are on plan B, the same route anticlockwise. We must ascend to the summit of the Rochdale canal where we are booked through on Thursday.

But first, let me introduce young Maxwell who readers nwill have only seen as a small ball of white fluff curled up among the cats at Steak Lady's abode. Look at him now - a fine figure of a man at only 7 months old, almost the same size as me. That's him on the right. He's good fun and great company, all be it I have to shout at him now and again when he gets a bit too uppity or tries to take over my Dad's lap or his bit of the seats. Green Eye? Moi?

Here too, we meet two human characters and another dog, who will be very much part of this circumnavigation. "Commander Dave" and his wife Fran, plus collie cross Bonnie are in a baby-sister ship the "Oxford" and are doing the same route as us with the same bookings through pinch points, so the rules are we should pair up through locks to save water. It is brilliant, in these cases, if the paired boat crew are good, nice people as you are going to spend a fair amount of time with them and co-operate. Conversely it is a real pain if they are incompatible, as we have seen in the past but superbly, this time, we get lucky and Dave and Fran are great fun, easy to work with, a lovely couple, and we dogs quickly get on with Bonnie, who is a natural at hopping on and off boats and nipping round locks, bridges, towpaths etc.

So, on Tuesday we leave Brearly and chug gently upwards in good weather through Mytholmroyd (where Dad is proud to have not hit anything in the first big helming challenge, Falling Royd Tunnel - from blazing sun to pitch black just as the canal, in the dark does 4 turns inside the narrow tunnel!) and Hebden Bridge as far as Todmorden, where we moor by the "Great Wall". On Wednesday we move on again up through Gauxholm to the pre-summit pound from where we can walk back to the famous Grandma Pollards chippie (an annual treat).

This pond is very low, with great dry mud banks either side on top of one of which is perched a cruiser completely high and dry. We plough the mud and manage to get our bow against the bank so that we can get on and off, but the stern has to sit out mid channel on a long rope and we all sleep the night at a rather jaunty angle, bows high and listing considerably to port!

At one stage both Maxwell and Bonnie try swimming for a laugh, Max lepping unseen from the back deck into a lock so that Dad, helming, is only aware of his going from the sploosh noise, but can quickly wrangle him back onto the deck, grabbing him by the collar - no harm done. Bonnie does hers trying to leap from boat to boat and we all see her go.

Lucky we brought dog towels

Deefs

Sofa Back

Here is a girl who knows how to relaaaxxxxx, in this case in my favourite place, the back of the sofa while Mum and Dad are both in the room preferably watching a nice long TV programme or film. Only then do we (Haggis and I) seem to truly relax. Any other activities or positions, or having Mum and Dad not in the same room render us a bit fraught in case we miss something or one of them sneaks out without telling us.

I have to admit, I look a bit disreputable here but that was yesterday. She whos word is Law round here didst sniff of Haggis's ears and did declare unto Dad "These dogs ming and need a shampoo". That was it. No arguments are brooked. As soon as we got back from a run down to visit Pud Lady in Hastings, Dad laid the fire (so that we will be warm and dry out quickly after our bath) and then nabbed us one after the other for a trim of the aforementioned manky hair in our ears and then a shampoo to within an inch of our lives. Now we are white, fluffy and fragrant. It'll never catch on.

We hear that following the daring commando raid by Mr Silverwood and the abduction of Maxwell in the dead of Dublin night, Max's former owner may have been having a re-think and is possibly going to ask for the puppy back. Given that the pup is still only 10 weeks old and therefore as capable of pooing and peeing everywhere and eating the house, it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Hope you had a good weekend.

Yours, Fragrantly and Lovelililily

Deefs

More on Maxwell

What kind of a sleeping position is that, Maxwell? Are you sure you are not letting the cats get away with a bit of mickey taking here?
Actually it’s a dog eat dog world out there and a boy has to learn fast how to survive and how to write a good email. Blimey – the chap is only 10 weeks old and he’s nearly as good as me.

“HELP!!!!!” (He writes) Baby R has me tied up in the top tower of her play house and when not there I am being guarded by Thomas the black and white cat and Jasper the white cat, who I am beginning to think is either really rude or just plain deaf. No matter how much I bark at him he just blinks at me, unless I get to close then I get a scratch to the nose, they keep saying something about white cats with blue eyes but I'm not buying that I think he is just rude, SEND HELP NOW, PLEASE”
Don’t kid a kidder, Maxwell. You wouldn’t come away with us even if we did come out and try to rescue you. You wouldn’t get out past Em-J, J-M and M Silverwood!
Maxwell continues, “Just a point to note as well, the basket is actually MINE, the cats (Thomas and Jasper) seemed to take to MY new dog blanket, but I did put up a fight when they tried to take it over completely.

Attaboy, Max! C*ts – we’ll show you what to do with them, when we’re over!
Deefs

Maxwell's Silver Hammer

I regret to inform my readers that the pup Maxwell, rescued so heroically by Mr S in his SAS drive through the night, in order to save him from a life of um..... abuse.... is now being abused egregiously by the Silverwoods, as you can see from this picture. Not only is he forced to live out his days in a PINK doll's house (believed to belong to J-M as she has cornered the market in all things pink), but also he is forced to sleep in a tiny corner of the cat basket, partly on top of the black and white cat (sorry - we do not currently know the names of these felines, so Mr S needs to enlighten us).

Seriously though, young Maxwell does seem to have fallen on his feet here, doesn't he (PINKness aside) and is obviously settling in quite nicely in his new home. We gather he was named Maxwell because at the time of his arrival, Mr S happened to be singing "Bang Bang Maxwell's Silver Hammer came down upon his head".

A treat for us tonight, as we all dash off down to Hastings to check on the Pud Lady, recently bereaved of the Stamp Man. She is OK and coping OK. We dogs get to chase about in her superb wild wooded garden in the dark - mmmmm... Badger smells!

Deefs

Brand New Life

Dad finally gets given the letter he's been waiting for by his work, which signifies Project Erroll and what is now being called "Brand New Life" (BNL) has a green light. We have a significant date of Thursday 30th June (the significance of which will already be known by those who need to know). It's going to be an interesting 6 months, for sure but from June onwards everything is possible.

He admits to feeling quite relieved at this stage, to have a fixed date after all the shambolic uncertainty and scatalogical stuff produced since the first announcement over 6 months ago and the disappointing and completely disorganised ineptness of certain parties since, it is not a scene he wants too much to do with. 'Nuff said on that subject.

Meanwhile, we hear that the Silverwoods have inherited, at least temporarily (yeah, right), a westie pup. Again, can't say too much, but the dog comes to them from one in Dublin's Fair City whom we shall call Mr Tester. Mr T acquired the pup to "give comfort to his wife and small child while he worked abroad 6 months" and delivered it (surprise!) a few days before leppin' on an aeroplane and leaving Mrs T to it.

Mrs T may have thought this was a nice sweet thing to do, but Mrs T is one of those who keeps an immaculate house with white carpets and obsessive tidiness, like something out of vogue magazine. She doesn't "do" dogs and has no experience of pups, no idea how much potential for mess they can create, and not the first inkling on how to train them or how long it takes.

Only a couple of days into this project, therefore, she realised that the pup was A BAD IDEA but could not realistically change things while Mr T was still around. So she plotted with Mr Silverwood for him to kidnap the pup the minute Mr T's back was turned, and were this blog the plot of a film, there would now follow a superb sequence of military planning and skulduggery, cloak and dagger stuff, cars racing through the night along the darkened rain lashed streets of the city, secret assignations to hand over house keys, guilt-stricken mother distracting small son with trips to the shops so he'd be out of the house at the crucial time and more secret rendezvous to get the keys back. Your mission Mr S, should you choose to accept it......

Suffice to say the cunning plan went off successfully and the small white fluffy 9-week-old parcel is now in the Silverwoods's house being loved up by Em-J, J-M, M and R (plus, no doubt Mr and Mrs S and the 1-year old Yorkie, 'Coco'. He will definitely feel he has landed firmly on his feet. It is not reported how small-boy feels about this or, indeed, how the "phoning from abroad, missing you" conversations will go, or how long it will take Mr T to suss the cuckolding. The plot was so hurriedly executed that Mr Silverwood did not get time to ask name of small white fluffy pup, so on arrival he was renamed Maxwell.

...That's just between these 4 walls, right?

Deefs