Flying the Flag(s)

Deefer at 11

Happy Birthday, then Deefer, this blog's eponymous dog. She made it to 11 along with her sister, Ellie-Bezz back home in Kent. Sadly, her brother (Archie) did not make it and had to be put down back in February (bone cancer) but we send our condolences as well as our good wishes to Deef's Mother, Mollie who is still with us. Another year, perhaps, everybody?

The very last of the 2016 pork bits get cleared out of the freezer for
use as raw ribs (Doggie Birthday Cake) and then a Medieval meat
feast for us coated in peanut sauce. Finger licking good.

That was Sunday 17th but ask anyone here what that date was all about and they will swoop on by Deef's celebration without so much as a sideways glance, and land firmly on one answer, "The All Ireland". This the GAA Irish-rules football final played at 'National' stadium Croke Park (you Brits think 'Wembley'), this year between Mayo and Dublin again for, I think, the 3rd year running.

This 'Dub' always puts out a good display, all be it the "wrong"
colours. 

One of the first cultural things a Brit notices on moving here is the huge keenness for flying flags; be it the National tri-colour, or more commonly your sports team colours or county colours. Perhaps a quick 'Heath Warning' here for those who don't know me and need telling that I was born without the 'sport' genes in my DNA - I was always rubbish at football and had no interest in it despite working all by life with hundreds of soccer-mad warehouse-men forever teasing each other over the triumphs and crashes of Chelsea, The 'Ammers, Man-U, Liverpool and Spurs. I have brought this appalling ignorance with me and am only very slowly learning how to chat 'knowledgeably' about "The Rossies", Mayo and the Dubs. If I have gone wrong here, please do feel free to comment.

If you don't have a flag pole then a wheel
barrow be-decked with red and green shirts
and watering cans will do. This guy even
managed a turf-stack topped with a Rossies
scarf!

So a month or so back we were driving through a sea of 'primrose' and blue as our team, Roscommon (Go the Rossies!) battled their way through the Provincial stages of the competition to end up Champions of Connaught. I think this is a league type competition where everyone plays everyone else within Connaught (Rossies, Mayo, Galway, Sligo etc), so 'we' may have beaten Mayo back then, but maybe not; it might have been a 'play off' thing.

Someone hung a Mayo shirt on the new
Memorial stone. One of the Guards named
here was a former Mayo GAA star.

Either way, I felt quite cheated when I learned that winning Connaught did not automatically get us a place in the All Ireland semis. Each Province enters 2 teams, with a 'back door' route for one of the teams so suddenly Mayo were back in it and, because the final 8 is a random draw, we were picked against them and they knocked us out. I know. Unreasonable!

Bobtail brings her 4 new babies off the nest.

Ah well, all the yellow and blue Rossie flags came down and most of the local support switched to Mayo being the nearest county to us still 'in it' (green and red). The die-hard 'Dubs' of course would not be seen dead with green and red flags outside their houses and created some impressive showings of the dark and pale blue colours of the Capital. Pubs tend to try to stay neutral, so will often fly both flags AND an Irish Tri-Colour just for the look of it. Many people also fly those little side-roof-gutter flags on their cars. It all makes for a lovely, happy, party atmosphere and very pretty countryside.

Onion harvest. Small bulbs but very pretty.

Ah well. The day came and went and history will record that Dublin won again, this time by just one point in the last seconds of a very tense exciting match, breaking all the local hearts again. Maybe next year, lads. Liz (a Dub, obviously) just sent me a very restrained, jokey text saying "Tanks Be". A few days on I see most of the flags are down now, though that Dub with all the flags at the far end of Lough Glynn village still has his out in celebration. The trophy they are all chasing is called the Sam Maguire Cup, or "Sam" for short. I am always amused by the Dub's adopted slogan, "Dubs for Sam, Mayo for sandwiches!" But enough of the All Ireland. Enough, I say!

Bullace plums and sloes

So, what have we been up to when not glued to the telly watching sport (Yeah, right!). One nice task was to tour the local hedgerows picking nature's bounty - black berries, sloes and just down the lane from here a couple of trees of the small wild blue-black plums we are fairly sure are known as 'bullace'. They are ripe, soft and sweet like greengages. They are not, as someone suggested, 'damsons'. We KNOW damsons and we have a tree in or orchard and these are not they.

She made a very dark sticky puddle! Bullace 'cheese'. 

The sloes have not yet had the necessary first frost but we have picked them anyway and they will get a night or two in our freezer before being converted into sloe gin. The bullace plums got a whole new treatment - being used for 'cheese' and also for 'leather'. I'd heard of the former but not the latter. 'Cheese' in this sense is a clear, very firm, super-concentrated jelly. It is intensely flavoured and you cut the set slab into small rectangles which then get sliced at the table to have with your cheese-board. Nom nometty nom!

Our James Grieves apples and blackberries from local hedges

The 'leather' is a fun confection mainly for the kids. You smear smaller amounts of the hot (cheese) jelly onto grease-proof paper as thin as (you guessed it) leather. When the smear is set you peel the paper off the back and cut the thin jelly into strips so that the kids (or adults of course) can eat them like liquorice shoe-laces. The blackberries and apples became a rather lovely tart. It's all very 'mellow fruitfulness' round here at the moment.

A very sleepy bumble bee on Sedum spectabile

I think that'll do us for this one. Good Luck now.

Mum looks a bit weary about the eyes. 4 kids under a week old.

Oh Yusssss

More Spring sunshine, and the world and his wife is walking dogs on the rec tonight. We have an excellent ball throwing game with coarse-haired, short legged Jack Russell, "Smudge" followed by a big run in circles for me with same. Megan and the H content themselves with chatting to Smudge's companion, pristine white 10 year old Westie, Barney.

Also out there, a new dog (to us anyway), 18 month old British Bulldog "Sumo" (brilliant name) - all muscles and snuffly grunts as he gets all excited trying to say hello, but we're all on leads by that point. Looks like he'd be fun, but probably not very fast. Could you beat him, Churchill? Ho... Yussssss!

Then on the way home we meet beagle Mollie, our long term chum who lives in this same street. Finzi's out there, too, and "LB", plus (we see in the distance but don't cross paths with, tiny Patterday pup Sue.

It's buzzing!

Deefski

Long Leather Pouffe

Real Mum (Mollie) is upset and bereft. My real family spend a lot of their time up on the back of the sofa where they can look out of the window, nosey-ing passers by, shouting at the local foxes strolling down the road, and keeping an eye on things. This is thought to be where I got my own love of sleeping along the backs of sofas and settees, even though ours is against a wall, and we can't see the road. Mum and Dad say Meg and the H did enough damage to the back of the old sofa when they were young and the sofa was against the window.

The back of the sofa, says First-Dad, was shot to bits, by the scrabbling actions of multiple dog feet.

Well now the entire downstairs has been re-decorated, paint, wallpaper and new furniture, with the new sofa not being in the same place, so suddenly the dogs cannot see out. Hector and Arch are apparently fairly chilled about this and just crash out on the dog-bed, but real-Mum Mollie is stressed to the max. She paces the room chuntering to herself, moaning and groaning.

First-Dad's answer to this is to buy a "long leather pouffe" to go under the window so that the dogs can all see out again. Such devotion. Don't think there's any chance of my Dad buying me any leather furniture all to myself........

Meanwhile we need another Hallowe'en. One by-product of 4 small children racing round the neighbourhood being given small parcels and bags of sweeties was, when the sweeties were stripped out into the crate, a mountain of small poo-bag sized polythene bags! Almost all used up now, Mr Silverwood, so if you could arrange for another Hallowe'en soon, that'd be great.

Deefer

Molly the Rottweiler

There we were, tired out from a good old session of chasing the yellow frisbee tonight and just on our way home, when we came upon my sister, Ellie, whose Mum is just back from Mexico. Exciting enough, but they'd just met up with "Mum's" daughter-in-law and grandson, who were out with 6 month old Rottie, Molly.

What a soppy dog! Only half grown and all soft and gangly, unco-ordinated and clumsy, like all young dogs are when their limbs are growing faster than their sense of how big they are. This called for an all in chase about and "give-as-good-as-you-get" bundle. Dad was delighted. Sometimes, he says, when we sisters get together, Ellie tends to do the submissive and lets me get away with beating the living daylights out of her, and sometimes (he also alleges) I have been bounced at by an unco-ordinated pup and have run off squealing like a stuck pig, doing my "drama queen" bit. It's gonna KILL me!!!!

Not this time. Balance seems to have been suddenly restored (maybe I've been practising on Rags). Ellie, Molly and I (plus Haggis while his tired old-boy strength holds out) run and chase and bark and wrestle as equals, no-one getting the better of any other, and no-one allowing anyone the peace to lie down and rest, racing in big figure-of-eight patterns, barging occasionally into human legs (mainly Molly there!), and carrying on when joined by Dad's allotment chum Stephanie, and her black collie cross Monty, and brown non-descript terrier Charlie. That just seemed to give us a new lease of life.

Tired? We've all collapsed back here after our supper, and we are rather hoping Dad will settle down with the TV and not move all evening.

Deefski

Challock 6 dogs

As promised, that pic of all 6 of us amongst the bluebells in Challock Forest. I'd hesitate tio say who's who without being able to see collar colours, but I am nearest to camera, with Meggie centre right on the path and Haggis centre right front end off the path. More importantly, look at that carpet of bluebells. Another warm week and they'll be fully out and truly gorgeous.

Have a great weekend

Deefer

Good guys and villains

We dogs are on a mission today to confuse the humans, inspired by Rags's rescinded "asbo" and angelic behaviour hospital visiting.

First-Dad had been having problems with my Bro (Archie) and real-Dad (Hector) getting a bit difficult with each other - part of the reason why Archie has now been "done". As part of this, First-Dad had been seeking advice from a lady who does dog-training, partly because first-Mum was looking to make sure those boys didn't start to think they were the bosses.

Well, the trainer lady was last Friday and you'll not believe how angelic those boys decided to be. Maybe it was the "op", maybe the dogs were tired from a walk and a visit to the grooming parlour, maybe First-Mum's new get-tough approach has convinced them, but whatever the reason, training lady was both delighted and baffled, wondering why she'd been called out in the first place.....

Meanwhile, at the other end of the family, sis' Ellie is now causing concern for her Mum, Trish, by kicking off at a young Westie we've seen a couple of times, called, I think, Fleur, first shouting from the end of her lead, then growling and snarling. Most unlike her - Ellie's always as good as gold.... I'll let you know how that develops - maybe Trish will need to borrow that trainer-lady!

We know that about Ellie because we all met at the Rec at the end of our walks, along with a lovely soft, fluffy 4 month collie pup called "Molly" - you know that age when collies are still all rounded, and short-faced, without the sharp-pointed snout. Haggis, Ellie and I had a good romp about, chasing in circles.

I get the worst of this, because normally I chase Haggis and give him grief, but when Ellie's about, and I chase Ellie, H takes his chance to ambush me and unbalance my back end. I end up with two attackers on my case - one at each end. Ellie never tries to batter Haggis, nor Haggis to batter Ellie. It's like they're ganging up on me, referee!

Deefer.... from a dodgy family...

Everything's Relative

A day for mixing it with the rels, if only via our sense of smell. Dad was working today, but First-Dad not. However, FD had come into work in the car to do a small job, and still had my Real-Mum, Real-Dad and Bro in the car (Mollie, Hector and Archie), so Dad came home smelling very much of them, where he'd made a fuss of them all through the car window.

Do you mind if we now dispense with all this "first Dad" stuff? From now on I will call First Dad "Steve" and First-Mum "Jean", for no better reason than those are their names (!).

But then on our good walk round the boat yard and back through town, we came upon my Sister Ellie, out with her Mum ('Trish'). Dad had his camera as we'd been out to photo the sailing barge Cambria, so here are some pics of Ellie to enjoy.

Ellie is easy to identify in all these as she is bright white (always!) and long haired, still not having had a Spring cut. She also has a rather smart be-jewelled red collar, but I don'r think my Parisian Emelio Pucci one is that far short, do you?

Pic 1) Me, grubby, tail up, left, Ellie Right

Pic 2) Ellie alone, sniffing ground

Pic 3) Meggie left, Ellie centre, Trish's leg right.....

...at least, that's how I think they'll appear.

Have a great weekend

Deefer

Penny, Bobby and Mollie

The snow didn't arrive (well, not this far down south anyway) so we woke up to a frost - the Rec as hard as concrete and the pond frozen over, all be it thinly.

The Rec was a-buzz with dogs, so that I barely got time to play with my yellow frisbee. We also made a new freind, Bobby the rescue Jack Russell whose Mum is despairing of ever curing him of jumping up at exciting new people. Dad doesn't mind but we can see that it'd be a trial.

Then we met Penny the small black poodle - extremely smart in a very recent, but not too pom-pom-ish cut. More of a "standard road-going" clip. Also Mollie the soft-pale long haired retriever who must take hours of brushing as she always looks like she's just been groomed. Immaculate.

Even we had a tidy up today - ears, eyes and bums, and toe-nails. Plus we live worryingly near to the Wahl (clippers) factory shop, which is in Herne Bay, and Dad dropped in today to pick up an 8mm comb to give us a bit of a long winter clip. Normally we wait till March and get buzzed quite short, but we are (allegedly) looking exceptionally scruffy just now and I think there'll be an interim cut. Dad is wondering if Asbo, too, might fancy one....

Deefer

Jabbed up!

Megan! I'm never gonna talk to you again. You had it all kept quiet what "annual inocculations" meant, so I went all unsuspecting into that dark night. Now, of course, I know that an apparently nice sweet young lady in a white coat fusses you all over, lets you sniff her face, prods and probes gently to get your trust, then ZAP! (Eeee! EEk! Yip YIP ! EEeeeeeeee-eeee!) ... Ahh, stop being such a drama queen (Dad says). Searing pain between my shoulder blades. She stuck something sharp in me!

I hear that Archie and Mollie are suffering the same fate tonight too, and Archie is reckonned to be as much a drama queen as me.

Worse part was that at the exact moment Dad was leading me round the side of the house to the car the heavens opened and a full waterfall of rain went whooshing down the back of Dad's trousers (he says... drama queen?) as he lent into the car to unhitch my lead from my collar. Payback time!

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

Birthday Party

Happy Birthday to meee

Happy Birthday to meee

Happy Birthday Dear Deefer

Happy Birthday to Me (and Ellie and Archie)

One Year old today, and we celebrate with a joint walk at Leybourne Lakes in Maidstone, which is a venue big enough to cope with 6 mad charging westies and still allow space for a few walkers and cyclists. Once we'd caused enough chaos there we adjourned back to First Dad's (the place of my birth) for a romp about in the house and garden, and for the humans to eat.)

My pics are of , variously

1) Me with birthday present chew-toy (I also got 2 cards)

2) We 6 in the kitchen getting left over roast lamb - how to get the undivided attention of 6 westies, who are suddenly all on their best behaviour

3) Myself and brother / litter-mate, Archie. He was smallest when we were pups - now he's as big as Mollie and I'm still smaller than my Hector

4) Carpark shot, left to right - Me, Haggis, Hector's ears, Meggie, Archie and Mollie

5) In the lake. Meggie's the furthest in. I'm dancing around on the bank.

We had a whale of a time. When first released from the leads Archie dived straight into a patch of burr-dock and got covered, while the rest of made sure all water-birds were safely on the water (geese, ducks, swans, grebes, coots etc - some of them had leaked onto the land, which will never do.)

We charged around the lake, all well behaved much to everyone's amazement and Archie and me fell in love all over again. Just wish he'd keep it "brotherly" - gets a bit over excited that boy! Most of us managed to stay out of the goose-poo, didn't we Arch'. Dad says getting pics of all 6 was a bit o a mare because dogs were heading in all directions, hence the cop-out ones in the carpark on leads.

Back at the house we carried on chasing each other about, and I rediscovered the hidey hole under the easy chair which we all used as pups, but now only I can fit in. Handy to escape from too much attention. Everyone much amused by me fussing up to real-Mum Mollie, trying to get under her, upside down so she could lick my belly. Very odd, they all said, It's a dog thing, Mum and Daughter

By home time we were all, like the best endings to childrens' party stories, exhausted and 2 minutes into the car journey home we are all flaked out on the back seat of the car.

Happy Birthday Archie

Happy Birthday Ellie - shame you couldn't make it.

Thanks fior the cards and the present

Deefer zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Steer-able nose

Thought you might like this gorgeous picture taken by First-Dad of my brother Archie (front), Real-Dad Hector (left) and Real-Mum Mollie (right). These guys love a game of footie. The boys especially do a fine line in running themselves ragged (hence the lolling, hot tongues) dribbling the ball about. Mollie not so much, but she sometimes either runs at the boys shouting, or even runs to the ball, trapping it professionally under a forepaw and stopping the game till either First Dad boots it away, or the boys just start up again. Nice photo, I think you'll agree.

(New) Dad was taking the mick at the weekend, about my highly manouvre-able nose. He swears he has never seen a dog so able to twitch the black "button" bit of the nose, so far from side to side. By tightening muscles down eitgher side of my snout, he says, I can pull the nose so far round the cartilage septum up the middle must nearly break (or has already!). It looks like I am aiming the nose left or right to smell round corners without moving my head.

And why not?
Just part of my cunning plan
Deefer-of-the-Aim-able-Nose

Soggy Bluebell Walk

Fun weekend. Mum does a "Eurovision Song Contest Party" in which the humans seem to assemble to rip the mick out of the contest and worship at the throne of the TogMeister. At one stage it looked like there might be 9 dogs - we three, Old Dad's three (Hector, Mollie and Archie), Diamond's "Asbo", 2CV P+J's "Janey" and a cairn owned by ace guitarist chum of Mum and Dad, "Dylan". In the event (probably a good thing) we just had Janey, so mayhem didn't happen and the cats survived. Arguable whether they would have done had Hector and Mollie arrived (real Mum and Real Dad) - they like a good cat apparently !!

My pics today though, are of the Bluebell Walk in Challock Forest that finally happened. The bluebells were just about clinging on in places but definitely past their best. Best thing ever though was Old-Dad turning up with Hector, Mollie and the amazing Archie, my brother and litter-mate. I just stress that one because of how huge Archie has grown. Look at the pic of just the three (on leads) before we started. Mollie is left, Arch' in the middle and Hector (Dad) on the right. Arch is bigger than Hector already and about one and a half times the size of me!

What a time we had. It was chucking it down and the bluebells were disappearing rapidly as bramble grows up through and beech leaves expand to close up the canopy. But Archie and I had a whale of a time charging round and round. He may be bigger and more powerful but I am nippy and manouvre-able, and we're closely matched in straight line speed.

The other pics are of us out in the forest, one down by the abandonned riding school, and the other in a narrow path with still a few bluebells. Finally there are all 6 of us back at the cars, lathered up with mud and wet. From left to right we are (Front left Mollie (Mum), behind left Hector (Dad), Front centre Archie (look how big he is), behind him partly obscured, Haggis, then me and finally Meggie. We can't wait to get towelled off and home so that we can crash out. That was midday - it's now nearly 3 and we haven't stirred yet!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend

Deefs