April Showers

Back to the roots? This house was formerly owned
by Steak Lady and Theo.

My last post saw Australian cousins Dee and Luke head off from here on the final leg of their family-finding tour of this island. They were headed from here via Strokestown House and the Famine Museum to visit 'Sparks' and Kim, from there up to north of Dublin to call in on Auntie Mary, back to Dublin for some hotel-based exploring and then the lengthy flight home on Thursday (19th).

Good egg yields at present.

It has been good to be able to follow some of their adventures on Facebook where they regularly post pictures and update stories. Last time I looked there were 247 pics of the "Ireland Family" in an album. One bit I did enjoy was Dee and Luke's little diversion to try to look up a street in Dublin where both families lived in the 60s just prior to the emigration. Dee's family lived in house No.1, Elizabeth's family in No. 3.

Scrambled eggs don't come much yellower. Elizabeth had been
making meringues and there were 4 yolks left over. I added two
'whole' eggs to thin it out a bit. 

All the kids' playing was done out in the street in those days but it was a cul-de-sac and you were only allowed "down" as far as the line in the tarmac where it changed from the cul-de-sac to the MAIN road and all the Mums (or probably all the grown ups) were allowed to clip the ear of any child who strayed, no matter who 'owned' the child, and send it back up to the permitted area.

April Showers brewing up.

It turns out the street and the houses are still standing, although No. 1, being on the end, has seen some major extending. Dee was able to stand on the ground where she had once played and even spoke to the owner of No. 3 (The nicest garden in the street!) who had bought the place from Steak Lady and Theo all those 48+ years ago when they had sold up to move to the 'new estate' in Portmarnock (N. County Dublin). Top roots-chasing Dee and Luke!

Bottoms up.

Dee and Luke actually managed to time their visit here to perfection in terms of finding a gap between the wet bits. As they arrived we'd enjoyed a good week of drying weather after a very wet March and April, so they were able to explore and meet the livestock with minimal wellies involvement. As they left another huge Atlantic storm brewed up with all the associated warnings for rain all up the coast. This storm was subsequently named 'Irene' though not till after it had passed dumping huge amounts of rain on us, joining up all our puddles again. One heavy shower today even had the ducks running for shelter, which was a new one on me.

Luke found some good beers in his travels. I'd not met the stout
version of Galway Hooker, or this superbly labelled 'Hairy Goat'

None the less, we still believe in Spring. Our first swallow turned up on the 9th and I have since seen them in threes and fours every day diving about between the rain drops and wind gusts, fuelling up on flying insects. They don't usually nest here since our cats became too athletic and too good at snatching them from the air as they dived from the bright sunshine into a shaded barn (and were briefly blinded, presumably). I also saw today that the local pair of coal-tits have come back to their nest hole in the gable end of the goose house.

Light reading for the Birthday Boy.

Not too much else happening except that, having got through the family visits, we have re-opened the humble abode to the Help-X volunteer students. We were advised that to increase the chances of your 'farm' being spotted on the website by prospective helpers, you should update your sales pitch. The website apparently brings fresher updates to the top of its look-up queues. As ours has said for the last 6 months, we are "closed for Winter", the simplest update seemed to be just to change that to "now emerging from Winter" and we are suddenly of interest to a German lass, an older couple of bee keepers from Canada, a French lad who fancies August, and a German lad who wishes to come this month. More on these as and when they work out.

Oxford Sandy and Black Pig Group 'merch'.

I think I will leave it at that for now. Talk to you again when we have dried out a bit.

One Out, One In

The 'Wimmin'. Left to right, Cousin Cathy, Steak Lady and Lizzie

It is a bit like hand-over day at a guest house here today with one guest vacating the spare bedroom and, following a quick blitz by the 'Housekeeping' dept, a 2nd installed. On the way out was Mum in Law (Friend of the Blog, known as 'Steak Lady' here) who'd been up for a couple of nights and was now off home.

Cathy and Liz (snr.)

Creature comforts - Deefer lying in a patch of sunlight while
leaning her head on the warm lit range. 

Fuller's London Pride.

Collected from her Knock Flight at lunchtime today was Liz's cousin Cathy, a first time guest. Cathy was Liz's closest cousin when they were all young children together and 2 families briefly lived in the one house in Portmarnock. They are still the best of friends but Cathy is a busy lady (all that taxi-ing teenagers about that all Mothers are familiar with) and had not, till now, been persuaded to make the trip to Ireland to visit us in our new abode.

Regular visitor Danielle (as in Dan and Dan, recently wed on a cruise ship) is Cathy's eldest and Jacob, who visited recently (April 15th) is her 2nd child and oldest son. Cathy recently had a Birthday and Danielle plus Jake conspired to arrange her flights over here and time off the home duties to spring us on her as a nice surprise present. Cathy only found out yesterday that the true destination was here and the rest is history.

Bee hive.

We love that when asked by her children what she'd do here she said, quite simply "I am going to Stop!" Not stop as in stay here (though I think that is even a possibility!) , stop as in take your foot off the accelerator, stop fussing, stop worrying about anybody else, stop with the child-taxi service and all the demands of busy parenthood. All that stuff is catered for by the kids' Dad or the older 2 'children'. We love that we can provide the sort of accommodation where guests can really relax, no demands on them, lie in if they want, sleep during the day and so on. Cathy is surely a deserving case. It will be interesting to see whether she really does slow down. Liz is currently showing her how to make Mayonnaise. I guess that's a form of relaxation.

Part of Liz's Birthday 'haul', this metal and glass owl (and a
frog) for the outside walls. 

Less relaxing and rather more alarming a story comes to us from a friend and nearby smallholder (no names, no pack drill and some 'detail' redacted to protect the innocent and guilty. No pictures, obviously). This lady went out to milk her goats a couple of days ago and was attacked, badly and without warning by her Billy-goat. She was badly hurt - rammed, knocked down several times, stomped on and bitten.

Mum on the phone.

The boy intended to do her some serious damage. He managed to bruise her all round the arms and chest and gave her some bad scratches by slamming her into sharp edges. It started when she unbolted the door to go in for the first milking-Nanny and he slammed the door back past her so that he and all 3 Nannies got out into the yard. It was during her attempts to round up the Nannies that he kept coming at her. It seemed to go on for an hour, she says, though she has no idea really how long.

An interesting birthday present - a DNA testing kit.

She talked me through what she could remember - they'd gone all round and about and between a car, trailer, 2 wheel barrows, pallet sized water butts, stacks of tyres and a fruit cage frame. The Billy had moved the trailer in his efforts to get at her and banged it into the car. Eventually, scrabbling back up from lying on her back between two water butts on the gravel with the goat towering over her with "mad eyes", she was able to grab a pitchfork and manouvre him back into the shed door. There he went all quiet.

While we're looking out, these guys are
often looking in. 

To cut a long story short, Billy goat is no longer living at that address and our friend swears she will never own another male goat. On the plus side, dozens of people have raced around to her with sympathy, help and offers of cover while her partner is currently out of the country for a few days. Liz and Liz went round yesterday and me today. She is now recovering from the shock and is able to tell the story without the tears welling up.

Soldier. The shiny redness is a reflection off Mum's car bonnet,
 on which he was sitting

It is one of those things that all we live-stock folk have at the back of our minds - even if it is only roosters, stag-turkeys or buck-rabbits rather than the bigger, heavier, more powerful rams, boars, bullocks or protective females of these species with calves/lambs/piglets to protect. They can and do turn vicious and have enough teeth, jaws, hooves, horns and claws to do a soft-skinned human plenty of damage. Stay safe people. It's a jungle out there.

Treasure in the Dusty Shoe Box.

Your blogger in about 1959.

I expect that in many families there is, in some dusty corner of an attic or a lost filing system, the "box of family photographs". Blow the dust off that old shoe-box and there are the packets of Kodak black and white prints and negatives, often of long departed and barely remembered relatives who your Mum or possibly Grand-Ma might still be able to recognise as "That's Alison, who used to visit Mrs Conquest, who lived next to us in Pilot Road" (or where-ever). Maybe like us, the number of pictures reduces with each child born - those keen new parents in the 50s keen to click away with the Kodak Brownie and capture every move and new clothes item of No.1 Son, had become a bit jaded by the time No.2 arrived and barely took any of No.3. Our shoe-box contains hundreds of pictures of my 'big brother', Tom, around a dozen of me and only a couple for younger bro', Mark.

All grown up? 1981 by now and allowed out to play in the
Research Station Land Rover

It was Mark though (and fair play to him!) who now has the time and technology to volunteer (crazy fool!) to scan in all these pictures, digitize them and then spread them around the family in the modern way. Liz had this job for all the old slides of the Dublin/Portmarnock tribe, but Mark is now on a mission to create an (electronic?) "photobook" which can be run through the projector at family gatherings now that most of those children and cousins are in their own 50s and the original photographers, if still with us, are into their Autumn years.

A sofa-load of cousins. I am far right.

The rest of us have seen the occasional one pinged out on Facebook for a sense-check. How old were you in this picture? Here is one of all three brothers - anyone know the date/ages? We've also been enjoying remembering all those "Nana-knit jumpers" and some dodgy haircuts. Mark has now assembled the prototype photo-book which he will air at as many family gatherings as he can get at so that everyone can comment, correct mis-captions and so on before he officially goes to press with the finished version. I am looking forward to it. Good luck with that project, Mark. The joys of retiring and suddenly, in theory anyway, having time to do all these things.

Our wooden bowls get the beeswax treatment.

That furniture polish we made from beeswax and coconut oil is proving to be excellent stuff altogether and we are using it all around the place, on furniture, wooden bowls and now also the handles of garden tools and the like. Because it is all food-grade we don't mind getting it on our skin and this is, without doubt, the easiest way to use it. You scoop out a finger-sized blob and briefly soften it with the warmth of your hands, then basically massage it in to the wood by getting palm and fingers all over it. It's a bit like buttering a baking tin but you try not to leave quite so much loose on the surface. Twenty minutes at room temperature sees all the oilier elements soak into the wood grain whereupon a good buff with the cloth gives you a lovely polished lustre

Talking of old family pictures, 2 of the bowls give us a special pleasure as they were made by my Uncle Barrie who got very keen on wood turning at one stage and kitted his workshop out with special lathes and other gear. He made beautiful bowls out of some special woods and then, rather helpfully, used to burn in (engrave?) with a soldering iron (?) the name of the wood and the year as well as his own name. So in the pic of three bowls above, I can tell you that the paler bowl on the right is of "spalted ash" in 1993. Spalting is the confused-grain scar-tissue which trees produce around wounds and broken off limbs.

Liz getting adventurous with the stripes.

Ash didn't mean anything special to me back in 1993 but now, in Ireland where we are cutting our own trees and logs for the fire, ash is the local 'weed' tree that grows everywhere but which I now love for it's bright white cut ends under the chain saw, its dense, hot-burning well seasoned logs and its co-operation under the axe and splitting wedge. It is also the wood used traditionally for the Irish 'Hurley stick' (the 'camán') and is now causing concern by coming under attack from a new fungal disease, Ash Die-Back (fungus Chalara fraxinea). The other bowl pictured is of 'Amazaque' wood about which I know even less - it is a Columbian forest tree, allegedly.

It's raining at ground level, but maybe
if I go out OVER the top of the back door
I won't get wet?

Meanwhile we seem to be in a brief return to winter. Our lovely warm spell of April is almost a lost memory as we wake up each morning to tanking rain and the huge puddles we know so well. The pond is brim full and all the animal feed bowls have to be tipped out of water before I can feed anyone - only the sheep trough stays dry under the shelter and the trees. The cat is very annoyed that we can't seem to find him an exit where it is not raining. He tries the front door (with his mewing and pleading looks) but then when it is opened for him he flicks his tail in indecision and retreats back in to try a different door or window.

Ah well, not everyone loses. My 2015 'Million trees' batch went into lovely wet soil so there is no chance their roots will dry out - they should get away nicely. The return to chill has caused us a return to lighting the range every day which makes the spare room, with its radiator, right above the (Dining) room with the range, the warmest room in the house. We have been able to turn off the infra-red heater-lamp over the Hubbard chicks so that they can now learn about day and night and can get some proper rest and sleep when it is dark. And we are TRYING TO SLEEP. Bless them. If it just stopped raining we are even looking to let them feel a bit of warm Roscommon sunshine on their backs and the grass under their feet (though they'd obviously be rescued back indoors for the nights, they are barely 2 weeks old yet).

Buff Orpington broody hen

And finally our newest 'Mum', the broody Buff Orp is still hanging in there, sitting tight in her chosen location between some concrete blocks and a camping chemical toilet. We rescued her to a seed tray full of hay as she was almost on bare concrete, but she's now on day 11 of her 21 day sit and looking very focused and content.

50% Success

Anne and Simon's pigs ready to go. 

An early start this morning has me nipping round our own livestock doing 'breakfasts' and releases so that I can couple up the trailer and hit the road by 07:45. I am headed for Mentor Anne's (and Simon's). Their 2 cross (traditional) breed pigs are ready to go on their final journey and we are providing the haulage vehicle, our little Fiat and trailer.

See also Anne's blog if you like, on http://anirishalternative.blogspot.ie/2014/08/whoops.html?showComment=1408039916196#c4573968651786064362 .

Temporary pig 'race' through the hedge

The pigs' paddock is in the corner between their drive and the lane on which they live, but has been, up to now 'behind' a hedge. Coming in, small and in their crate, the pigs could be hauled up the 100 yards of driveway, round the end of the hedge and back down the garden to their paddock. It was not really feasible to walk them back all that way, so Simon had hatched a plan to cut a hole through the hedge, lining it with pallets to make a mini 'race' leading to the trailer parked at the drive/lane junction. We both knew that the pigs might not want to go where the electric fence had been even though it was now turned off, and that they might not want to cross Simon's wooden 'clippetty clop' bridge over a ditch made of pallets.

50% success - one loaded. 

In fact neither of these hazards fazed the piggies at all, and we quickly got one loaded using the bribery of a bucket of meal and boiled spuds. However as a professional display of good pig wrangling, it was at that point it stopped being our finest hour. The 2nd pig hated the idea of getting cornered in the confined narrow space of the 'race' and was having none of it. Three quarters of an hour of trying included some near misses where Simon's feed bucket almost almost almost coaxed her in but then she'd spook and bolt, and 120+ kg of pig is not anything you can stop of it decides to barge you out of the way at a squealing gallop. I was tied up keeping pig #1 in the trailer, so Simon was just working up a good sweat on his own and the pig leading him a merry dance.

Narrow delivery lane. Topp reversing skills needed.

Time was running out - we needed to be at the butcher's for ten and anyway, Simon had a 'date' for 10 a.m. We decided to go with just the one pig, block the hole in the fence and head for town. After that decision what remained of the 'mission' went back to being plain sailing, an easy drive into town, a successful reverse into the narrow delivery lane and a problem free release of pig #1 to trot happily down the concrete into the butcher's lairage. A 50% success then and Anne will re-book pig #2 for a later date at which we may well enroll some extra man (or woman) power, but Anne tells me that pig #2 will now ONLY be fed from a bucket and will be coaxed down the race a few times as practice for her own big day, possibly next Thursday.

Left to right, Steak Lady, Mr SL and Liz.

For me, then, a whizz back home where we were to receive a visit from Steak Lady, Mr SL and 'Auntie Mary' (sister of Mr SL), down to have a look round the place and see all the new 'lines' (bees, pigs, goslings, this year's sheep) as well as to give Liz her Birthday presents (a little early!). We also fed them of course with many of the ingredients being home grown and the bread home made; they were delighted with that. They had arrived bearing various other gifts too, including some empty jam jars, so when they left we packed them off with their own vegetable crate.

Auntie Mary gets some 'tay' down her. 

They are currently in mid move, from Portmarnock down to near to the Silverwoods, with all the B+B students now 'evicted' to other homes and quite a lot of the furniture and 'stuff' already moved down to County Laois. The place they are buying has, allegedly, a rather fine and luxurious shed in the garden with heating, lighting and fancy worktops, so all the 'children' are full of curiosity as to the fate of that. Even more notable was that there was a fancy 'rabbitry' - a building also with heat and light, lined with rabbit hutches, but apparently the vendor is taking that one with him/her.

One of our honey bees on a leek flower

Meanwhile, no sooner had I posted bemoaning the lack of our bees using the flowers in our garden, than they suddenly are all over some leeks we left to go to seed over the winter. We have also seen them on hollyhocks and around the Kitchen Garden, so maybe the dearth of wild flowers is forcing them to look more locally.

That is it for this one. Catch up with you again soon.

Santa and the Bunny Rabbit

One little girl in the village is going to receive a nice surprise on the 25th; this little daughter of either Ginny or Padfoot. Money has changed hands to secure the deal but 'Santy' (as they call him in these parts) is hanging on to the little bunny for the moment and she will be collected on Christmas Eve once a hutch, a bag of food, some hay, a drinker and a book on how to keep rabbits has also been secured. I sense that these people intend to look after the rabbit properly. A pet is for life, not just for Christmas, as they say. I did not, however, manage to persuade Santa to take the other female bunny on a "Buy Two for the Price of One and a Half" deal even though I pleaded the case for not leaving the poor sister-doe all alone, but maybe Santa will relent on Christmas Eve.

Multi tasking. Plucking while
chatting to Diamond on the phone

Meanwhile there is one job that we will NOT be including in the portfolio of Enjoyable Tasks, Living the Dream and all that. That is Plucking Geese. We have got quite good and fast at the chickens by now - we can pluck and dress a chook in 45 minutes without breaking sweat. Geese turn out to be a whole different species (as you'd expect, I guess!). They have a gazillion feathers, many of which are very well glued in AND under that they have a complete layer of fluffy down which puffs chokingly into the air at every twitch of your feather collecting bag.

Oven ready at 3.8 and 4.0 kg respectively.

Now I can see Mentor Anne leaping for the keyboard at this stage to give out to us for our incompetence and we KNOW there are options around dipping the bird in hot water to loosen the feathers, and even using melted wax in the manner of a ladies' beauty treatment to de-fluff the carcass but we'd gone with cold straight plucking and it took AGES. We were easily into 2 and a half hours per bird including the gutting, our hands were raw and Liz at one stage resorted to gloves and a pair of pliers. If people can do a goose in less time then they are 'better men than us' and we are quite happy with that. So annoyed were we by the job that we both decided that it is not anything we want to get involved in long term, or to any great degree, into the future. If we do breed geese in the future (as opposed to just collecting the eggs) then we will be trying to sell them 'live' for finishing by someone else and most of what we keep will probably be skinned and cooked wrapped in bacon or some such. I went into this thinking the actual killing would be the worst part. We survived that but never dreamed the plucking could actually be worse!

We got through the plucking task in the end and the singe-ing and the gutting out and produced 2 nice looking, oven ready birds which weighed in at (we think) 3.8 and 4.0 kg respectively. The cat managed to knock our nice digital kitchen scales off the worktop and kill them, so I was weighing these by jumping on and off the bathroom scales with and without birds. Good weighty birds anyway, more than enough for our Christmas table, one staying here, the other being delivered to Steak Lady in Portmarnock (Co. Dublin) tomorrow. Other seasonal catering includes a huge batch of braised spicy red cabbage. Liz likes to do these kind of foods in big batches and freeze 4/5 of the product. Today's task is the first batch of mince pies.

Rolo (l) and Blue (r) looking handsome at 18 months

We love a good Olde Fashioned cook book in this house, and Liz finds good ones on the internet, recently also downloading them from 'Project Gutenburg' down to her Kindle e-book. One is old enough to include instructions like "Smite thee the lamb into gobbets" (I love that!) but today's is by one Elizabeth Moxon who in 1764 wrote the snappily titled  "English Housewifery exemplified (in above 450 receipts giving directions for most part of cookery)". From this tome comes the rather breathlessly punctuated "To Make Apricock Pudding:" as follows "Take ten apricocks, pare, stone, and cut them in two, put them into a pan with a quarter of a pound of loaf sugar, boil them pretty quick whilst they look clear, so let them stand whilst they are cold; then take six eggs, (leave out half of the whites) beat them very well, add to them a pint of cream, mix the cream and eggs well together with a spoon full of rose water, then put in your apricocks, and beat them very well together, with four ounces of clarified butter, then put it into your dish with a thin paste under it; half an hour will bake it". From reading these in the context we know that 'whilst' would be written 'until' nowadays, and the 'paste' is a 'pastry case'.

Big wild mountainy trout. 

In a previous post, I spoke of a high quality fine porcelain table cruet in sheepy form, generously given to us by the Silverwoods. We actually came away well laden with gifts for which we are very grateful. As well as the cruet sheep, we were handed a 2CV badge for my collection of 2CV bits and pieces, two orange tear-drop shaped squashes which we need to identify and find a "receipt" for (Perhaps E Moxon can help?), and three very fine, big wild river trout caught by one of the Silverwoods' neighbours in the nearby mountains. One of these has been used up already and was so big when cooked that we managed only 3/4 of the 'meat' between 2 of us at Dinner.

All safely home

Mum is safely returned to us and we have heard all the tales and stories of what sounded like a traumatic week around Portmarnock, but no detail here I'm afraid. All those who need to know are in the picture already. Suffice to say Mum's had a chance to catch up with the Silverwoods (Toddler-M now very tall and cheeky, and wondering where is (Dad's) boat? "Baby"-R is now turning into Toddler-R as she's mastered the basic walking skills, and now just needs to hone the finer balancing abilities....whooops-a-daisy!

Mum has spent time with some long-lost cousins (Hi Cathy) and a niece whom she first knew as a bump (Hi Danielle), plus Mum and Dad's own Best Man Billy (How do you spell that?), and his son Keith. She's linked up with Steak Lady and Mum's Dad and they've been to Howth to visit George the Seal (pics in an earlier posting, but you might have to search back a year or so) and had plenty of gossip with the "Late Lady" and the "Artist".

But now she's back and the standard of cookery has returned to its normal heights. Tonight (get us!) our normal stuff is supplemented by some rib cage and pelvis bits from Guinea Fowl. The fridge is stocked with goodies, and we no longer get breakfast at 04:30. A girl can relax a bit in the morning - get up and see Dad off, but then climb back onto the duvet (never "under") for the next 3 hours till Mum's alarm goes off.

The snow's all gone now and we're all wet from melt water. Today we head for Conyer again where there are hard paths, so that we don't get all muddy. Mind you, I am a bit sparse undernieth at present due to Dad having to cut a fair amount of "feather" away when trimming off the many frozen balls of snow hanging off my undercart after a walk like Christmas Tree baubles. Amusingly, these were chucked out on the terrace and when the snow melted there was a little pile of sad whispy tufts of Deefer-fir left.

Meanwhile, thoughts with Diamond, who is back into Hospital this week for yet another medical procedure. We're rooting for you Diamond. This is a bit of a serious one we gather, so courage, Sister!

Yo! Deefski

Em-J

Diamond Update : Diamond is through her most recent crisis, and sitting up in bed able to joke and argue with all the visitors. Relief all round, although we are by no means out of the woods. Hang in there, Diamond - everyone is rooting for you.

Mum disappears over to Ireland, to collect our neice Em-J (Silverwood) and bring her back over here for a treat. She will live with us for a week, and Mum will attempt to turn her into an elegant Lady. (I'm no one to judge, having had to have a bath this morning due to rolling in some skank out on the Rec, but my new boyfriend Jasper loves me!) .

We have to say that Mum managed to be delayed both on the way out and on the way back. The outbound plane got into Dublin at 02:00, and Mum was met by night-owl friend Teresa, so there was not going too much sleep had that night. Portmarnock supplied an irish fried breakfast and pink champagne (uh huh?) , before Mum rounded up Em-J and headed back to the airport. Am I allowed to say she lost her car in the car park Em ? (Shhhhh - OK we'll keep it as a secret between us then).

Have a great weekend
Deefski

Tayto Crisps

Dad and his English compatriots may hanker after the taste of the old Smiths Crisps, with the twist of blue paper containing the salt (Smiths tried to re-introduce it once, says Dad, with a sachet you had to tear the top off, but it was never the same). "Ready salted" was a new and bold innovation once! Can you believe it? (Says Dad, pitching his tent firmly in the "Old Gits" camp!)

But to Mum, the flavours of childhood carry a different brand name "Tayto". Along with "TK" red lemonade (it's a golden red a bit like Lucozade) it evokes a childhood spent in the Liberties area of Dublin, seriously dodgy at the time but now, of course, very chi-chi. It's near what is now the South Circular "behind the cathedral", Dublin 8.

Like Dad's "St Helen's", now very much part of Hastings, Elphinstone Road and the "Pilot Field" is gets them both talking of being able to play in the street, but if you went beyond that line in the concrete any of the local Mums could come out and clip you round the ear and send you back into the allowed bit.

The packet in my pic is one Mum brought home from her recent (homesick) visit to Ireland, where the family now live in Portmarnock. We got to taste some and Meggie and I approved, but to Haggis, crisps are "plants" and the H doesn't do plants. Remember George? The seal, celebrity and long time resident of Howth Harbour? Mum went to visit him, and he's now proudly showing off his harem of 6 female seals. Good Man, George!

Have a great weekend

Deefski

A whole week!

Yeah I know - it's been a whole week since I last posted. There's so much going on! For a start the humans deserted us from Thursday round to Sunday, airborne to Ireland to visit the Steak Lady in Portmarnock, and the Silverwoods in Co. Laois. The occasion was the First Holy Communion of "our" youngest neice, J-M, daughter of the Silverwoods.

The function itself happened in the church in their home town but then everyone adjourned to Portmarnock where the Steak Lady held a big party celebration. That's why Mum and Dad came home smelling gorgeously of the two tiny Yorkies, Cracker (red-head, top of picture, licking her lips) and Rosie (front of picture (always!)) and the very elegant Siamese, Seti.

More of that visit later - Mum and Dad were no sooner back than the abandonned us again to head for the Big Smoke to see Dad's hero Mark Knopfler at the Albert Hall.

I may have been a week without you, but I promise I will make it up by posting more stuff on this today.

Deefs

Cracker and Seti

Readers who were with me a year ago might recall the time we passed through Portmarnock (Co. Dublin, Rep. of Ireland) early in the morning and called in on the house of the Steak lady. Here I, as a pup in those days raced around the house unearthing all bones and toys buried by the house dog "Cracker" (a tiny Yorkie who was, in the absence of Steak Lady (holiday in N Africa) being house sat "en famille" by the neighbours; the house was deserted!).

I brought them all proudly back to the kitchen, where Mum or Dad would take them off me with "That's Cracker's" and put them in a wooden bowl on the worktop. I nipped off to find another, and another, and another, till the bowl was full of stuff, and Dad had to leave a message for Steak Lady explaining why there was a bowl full of old bones and chewed toys!

Well, Cracker, the tiny Yorkie has now been joined by a Siamese (Seal point?). The family has always had Siameses, the most recent being called Piewacket, who lived to a ripe old age (20 plus I think) and passed away only a couple of years ago. This new cat is named Seti, following Steak Lady's fascination with all things Egyptological - Pharoahs, Pyramids, the Nile etc. Google it and you'll find that....

"Seti I was the father of perhaps Egypt's greatest rulers, Ramesses II, and was in his own right also a great leader. His birth name is Seti Mery-en-ptah, etc"

Today's pic is of Cracker and Seti curled up in the bed.

Scrap Metal

You know what a nut Dad is for his 2CV. We had to laugh today when in an article in the local paper describing the antics of a volunteer group restoring a run down allotments site, featured his beloved car behind a caption which said "The scrap metal which had to be removed from the site" ROFLMAO!

We have over to stay the Steak Lady's husband, "T", (= Mum's Dad) from Portmarnock, where we all were just before Christmas. He (T) is a lovely, dog-friendly man, who is missing his own little Yorkie, "Cracker" so he has lots of time for we dogs. Mum collected him from the airport yesterday, and he's been here since, joining in our comings and goings. We showed him the Challock Forest this morning - the bluebells are full on, and by the looks, stand a chance of still being good for dad's walk, which is a relieif.

Looks like it's gonna be a lovely weekend. We're all off to Hastings tomorrow for T to meet Dad's parents. Ahhh Human re-unions. Better than a walk on the Rec!

Have a great weekend

Deefs

Portmarnock Beach

A couple of pics of Portmarnock Beach for you - you can see what a Heaven it is for dogs.

In the one pic you can see us all trotting along behind Mum, with the huge sand dunes in the background. She looks like Mother Hen, with all her chicks scurrying along behind! For anyone who knows the area, we're out towards Baldoyle end looking back towards the Country Club. In the other pic, with Megan on the left, me on the right, the small uninhabited island of Ireland's Eye in the background. The locals have it that the island in profile from over here, looks like a short fat man lying on his back with his arms folded across his chest.

You can see what they mean

Ah well - next stage of the adventure starts now. We move on from Portmarnock, down to wards the middle of the country, and Mum's Sister. We are all quaking with fear at what Megan might do to the pregnant Guinea Pig, but more of that later

Deefs

The Late Lady and the Artist

This is Puppy-Heaven! Portmarnock beach, now I've seen it in daylight is massive - acres of flat sand backed by sand dunes and walked on by dozens of nice people and their friendly dogs! (Well, so far anyway, I've not got into any arguments, but I guess there's still plenty of time!).

All that night driving and ferry stuff left us all a bit tired, so we crashed out and slept till mid morning, before venturing out onto the beach. Dad has some pics on the camera which we'll put up if we can suss out this strange PC. We walked out from the Portmarnock town end, all along the sand spit towards Baldoyle and Howth, and we met a labrador cross pup with eyes different colours, various terriers, spaniels, greyhounds and cross breeds and said nice hello's to all of them. We ran in and out of the sea and we three westies charged about occasionally play-attacking each other or chasing through the waves (We don't do proper swimming, but everyone likes a paddle!)

We've also been to see Mum's longest standing friend, the "Late-Lady" and hubby "The Artist". Don't worry, she's only "late" in the sense of having a very relaxed attitude to dead-lines. She always gets there at the last minute (or soon after) but drives everyone crazy in the process. They say, never to rely on her for a lift to the airport - she'll get you there in time to sprint on board, but your nerves will be frazzled. In one story, she actually took the family on holiday with a dustbin liner of wet clothes in her luggage, where she'd not got organised soon enough to dry and iron them by the departure minute!.

The LL and the A (he paints in oils - Mum and Dad have a couple of his pics up in our house) have a lovely old Cocker Spaniel called Jack. Jack's feet are about 4 inches across, like human hands, and he has big floppy-down ears and doleful eyes. He is 10, same age as Megan, and they've known each other since puppy-days. Jack generally doesn't tolerate other dogs on his turf, but he's always made an exception for Meg, and then for Haggis, and not (to everyone's amazement) for me. So we had a great time playing and charging round the house

More soon
Deefer