Mademoiselle

For Dad an "old Citroen" flavoured day. One of their project team who have been doing up the old 1961 twinning-gift 2CV (Mademoiselle d'Armentieres) wants out - he wants Dad and the other 2 to buy out his share. They decide to meet to talk about how to achieve this. They decide to meet at the lock up where the car is kept, and take her for a spin; maybe to "one of our houses??".

Mum offers to cook home-made soup for them, and suddenly they have an event. They are joined by Andy's new Hungarian love interest, ZsuZsa (that's easy for you to say!) plus then Cliff and Shelley from the Hoppers, with their brother and sister collies, whom we know very well from the camping, Ben and Nellie.

Dad drives his normal 2CV over to the lock up, and then gets to drive Mmlle back here in convoy with Andy's 2CV van, to proudly park her on our drive while she gets photo'd and admired by the neighbours. The humans come in to do soup, while we dogs play and get to know each other again. Dad the gets to drive the 2CV van back to the lock-up so that Ian can get a turn in Mmlle. Finally he drives his own car home. 3 different old citroens in one day. He is dead chuffed.

We are just closing up, getting washing in and dog bowls out, and Dad standing by the back door, when there is a whoosh over our heads and the k-chishhh of something heavy hitting the foliage of the bay tree, 4 or 5 feet away. Every body jumps, and the sparrows in the tree start cheeping loudly in protest at the disturbance, just when they were getting comfortably roosted up for the night. At first we all think it's a squirrel leaping from the Albertine on the back of the house, but there's another k-chish and curving back out of the tree comes our old mate the female sparrowhawk with a small bird in her talons - maybe a sparrow? Fresh warm supper, anyway.

Which reminds me. We are off to Diamond's tonight for a bite with Ragworth.

Deefer

Ben and Nellie

These pair are Ben and Nellie, 2 more camping dogs, and probably our oldest camping friends. At 14 they are older than even Meggie, and Meg and Haggis have known them since they've been camping.

They are brother and sister from the same litter, so look very similar, but there's a good way to tell them apart, which Dad has to use. Each has a white flash (blaze?) down their forehead and nose - Ben's is Broad, Nell's is Narrow, so that's Ben on the right of the pic, Nellie on the left.

This is one from that series we described where Dad was trying to re-create the first shoulder-to-shoulder run back to their own Dad, by means of their own Dad throwing Ben's ball much further than Nellie's. Nell , being a bit more arthriticky and slow, could then loop out gently and be back in front of the camera as Ben streaking out and back, caught up and overtook her. Kinda worked.

Last night at 01:30, we dogs are all rousted from our beds by a hedgehog in the back garden. You'd be amazed how noisy hedgehogs can be, with their unforgiving spines rustling against all the dried leaves and grass. Stealthy silent hunters they are not. Even so, although doggie ears could hear, and knew something was out there, humans sleep on oblivious, so have to be prodded into wakefulness (or at least, a kind of numb, dazed verticalness). to come down stairs and let us out.

Dad did the honours, Mum slept on. We raced off down the garden and didn't re-appear. Dad got concerned, grabbed torch and ventured out into the garden in his jocks (not a pretty sight). That's when he discovered the hedgehog, by now curled into a safe ball of prickles, surrounded by confused, frustrated westies, pawing at the gravel and wuffing. Not for us the Hector trick of grabbing a mouthful and bringing it indoors!

Ah well, Dad rounded us all up and bribed us back in with a sweetie, but it took a lot of sitting back up on the bed and whimpering before I'd settle back to sleep.

Have a great weekend

Deefer

12 dog; 12 2CV

What an adventure we've all had. It's 2CV camp time of year again, and we've just spent the last 3 nights living "en famille" with a whole group of 2CV owners and their multitudinous dogs and vehicles. Some have named it the 12 dog 12 2CV camp because the dogs almost out numbered the cars.

There were, in no particular order

We three
Collie crosses "Ben" and "Nellie"
Red Setter "Murphy"
Alsatian cross "Socks"
Staffie cross Jack Russell "Barney"
Staffie cross "Scooter"
Collie cross "Badger"
Brindled greyhound "Janie"
Elderly mongrel from Yorkshire, "Kaira"

More of all these guys, and the camp in future posts. Now it's Sunday morning and we are back indoors because Dad is off to play on Sailing Barge "Cambria". It's been a real blast. Rained hard Thursday and had some pessimists saying "Oh, no.... not another Hoppers Camp with typical weather.... gloom gloom". But the sun burst through on Friday morning and the rest of Friday and Saturday were blazing hot sunshine.

The humans all have healthy tans and I have the traditional well oiled (sump oil) back from creeping under old French cars to find shade from the heat. Superb barbecue yesterday, too. The humans all cook communally on a big barbie cobbled together from (among other things) a 2CV bonnet and a shopping trolley, and they always cook too much, so we can schmooze them up into giving us the end bits of sausages and nibbles of burger. The non dog-owner ones anyway. Dog people seem to "know" dogs and can be very un co-operative

More soon
Deefer