Hottest Easter

The hottest Easter for ages continues, all be it with a bit of a chilly evening last night, when Mum and Dad had been invited round to Diamond's for a superb roast lamb dinner. We dogs were left behind on the grounds that it was too hot, but I suspect that my 'ambivalent' feelings towards Rags may have been taken into account. Diamond jokes around with Mum and Dad about them 'deserting her' when Project Erroll comes off and cooks superb food to make sure they miss her! Dad's favourite gratin potatoes and Diamond's home made ice cream feature.

On these really hot days, Dad takes us for our main walk really early - we were out by 20 to 7 this morning when the dew is still all over the oil seed rape and the bunnies have not yet woken up to the fact that humans and dogs may be up and about. At one stage a rabbit runs away from me down the lane but then turns left into the waist (on Dad!) high rape. All Dad can see for a while is the tops of flowers twitching as I crash about out of sight in the field. He whistles and claps and shouts. Eventually, I am done, and I emerge looking like a drownded rat but with a superb bright yellow slick up my spine, of rape petals.

Dad's been down at the barge, of course, over the weekend, painting 'below decks' and re-oiling the top mast. The Creek is starting to empty of barges now, as each one emerges from its poly-tunnel cocoon, gets its gear up and slides down to the Swale on a Spring tide. Greta heads for Whitstable, Lady Daphne and Repertor for London. Only the infirm and locally-owned are still around, and of course the 'not-quite-ready' like Cambria herself.

It is a Spring tinged with sadness, as no-one is certain whether the over-wintering in Faversham will continue and the barges return in the autumn. The Landlord of the Standard Quay has not renewed the lease of the operating company, and looks like , in effect, turfing all the shipwrights, boat builders and dry-dock users with their noise, clutter, tools and piles of wood, off in favour of wine bars, restaurants and the like, keeping some barges in place just for show. Where they will go for repairs, servicing, winter refits, sail-dressing etc, nobody knows - maybe Essex? Medway? Iron Wharf? Whitstable?

It seems like the end of an era.

Deefs

ps - Dad is baking bread, so we have to keep putting down this keyboard and doing baker stuff. Mrs Silverwood would be proud of us.

Winter's back

Winter returns good and proper with an honest blizzard whiting out the sky, laying on roads and dropping a 3-4 inch picturesque blanket all over the town in the space of about 45 minutes. Dad's had to work this morning (it's "that" weekend, just before Christmas) but he's home again before the snow starts. He actually texts Mum telling her to hurry home before she gets cut off, which is not the normal way round.

Rather madly, though, he then decides we should all go for a walk in it down to the boat yard. I love it, and charge about like a lunatic. Haggis is not quite so sure, and starts to look a bit miserable as the frozen snowy klingons start to build up round his feet. Dad has to continuously break them away to give him a chance to walk. It's proper big-flake, sticky, snow-man snow.

Back home we have to be freed of the klingons and this involves a good bit of hand-crumbling, raking with the coarse comb, and finally dipping our feet in a washing-up bowl of warm water; finally we are passed in to Mum who is armed with a huge dog-towel and a roaring coal fire. It's all Christmassy indoors as Mum is 'baking' (none of us is sure that's the right word) the red cabbage. We were going to buy the tree today, but the prospect of choosing one from under 4 inches of snow and bringting it home, shaking all the snow off into one of the cars, was too unattractive. We will go out tomorrow all being well. We are running out of time. Only 7 more sleeps!

But let's not forget a bit of a bitter-sweet memorial day which was yesterday, the one year anniversary of the passing away of our old chum Megan. It snowed all around the 17th and 18th last year too. Dad has her cute face as his screen-wallpaper. We miss her still and she was Dad's first ever owned dog so she'll always be a bit special.

Ah well

Deefski