5000 visits

Hey! We made it. Site meter is recording the fact that this blog scored 5000 visits by Friday 25th which is quite neat timing.

We were off down to visit Pud-Lady and Stamp-Man, where Mum and Dad were due to cook the turkey dinner. In the event, Mum got so focussed in the small kitchen and was enjoying herself so much that, except for lifting heavy turkeys out of the oven and the carving itself, she rebuffed all offers of assistance. Dad was left to chat with the other guests, T-Fer and friend-of-the-family, Jane.

I caused a quick flurry of excitement myself, of course, when I found that a badger dig under the fence meant I could get out of the Steak Lady's garden, and then off across 3 or 4 more gardens. This was much too exciting for me to worry about Dad whistling and calling (won't be a minute Dad; I just have to check out these hutched rabbits and these Dogs going mad barking at me strolling around because they are inside a fenced cage).

I was very good - I always knew where Dad was, and I made sure to keep giving him glimpses of me in various gardens, but eventually he clambered over a few fences and cornered me. There after I was only allowed out in the garden on a lead, which seems a bit mean.

Meal eaten, prezzies exchanged and opened, we headed back to home with a pleasing amount of cold turkey left overs, via a nice sighting in the headlights, of Fallow Deer in Challock Forest, to chill out with our bloated stomachs, to watch Doctor Who. It's been a very good Christmas all round. I hope yours was as nice.

My pic shows a recent Cambria shot, just for an update, deck-beams almost complete and the start of deck planking going on, as we headed in to Christmas.

Enjoy the weekend

Deefer

Dad's old room

What a day! We're up fresh and early and whizzed off to the frozen Rec to let off steam, running around in the frozen grass. Unfortunately I lose yet another favourite "toy", a fairly dense sponge rubber ball which I have loved to death - chewed all the outer colour off it so that it is mainly white, which means it gets lost in the frost.

But we're off to Hastings to the Pud Lady. Stamp Man is still in hospital and the Occupational Therapy types have got all involved, so now when he comes home it has to be to a hospital-style bed, not to Pud-Lady's saggy mattress, dark carved oak angels too-tall-for-a-westie-to-jump-up-on ancient one. So it has been decreed that Dad's old room will be cleared of the build up of 25 years of boxes of second hand books, cleaned and completely redecorated.

Walls and floors that have not seen the light of day since before Meggie was born will be swept, de-cobwebbed, sugar-soaped, scraped, sanded and painted to within an inch of their lives. We are all loaded into the 2CV and high tailing it to help. Dad's other brother and his good lady, the family that "don't do dogs" will be there (we mentioned them a couple of blogs ago, I recall) and so will T-fer. Pud Lady (on the instructions of Mum) will be forcibly restrained, sat in an easy chair and fed sherry, and denied all chance to lift a finger.

Even lunch will be bought-in salads and stuff (plus Pizza and quiche at the request of Pud-Lady, who is rather mischievously varying her diet away from things that Stamp-Man would like in his absence at Hospital. Go Pud-Lady! You Rebel, you!

We are excluded from the room at some stages (something about gloss paint on skirting boards) but that's OK. We entertain Pud-Lady and enjoy chasing round the mature wooded garden. Dad spoils the fun a bit by telling everyone not to feed us when we scrounge. Spoilsport!

All done by 3.30 pm, and it's still a lovely sunny day, so Dad rolls the 2CV roof back and we cruise home again. I spend some of the trip standing up on the back seat. leaning heavily on Dad's shoulder, with my nose raised into the airflow coming across the top of the car. Lots of sheep to look at across Romney Marsh, but as yet they are all fat fat Ewes - not a lamb to be seen yet!

Have a good weekend
Deefski.

Bitter Wind

After a succession of lovely Spring-like days and sunshine, it's a big shock tonight when out of no where comes a bitterly cold wind that cuts through a dogs fur and has all the humans at the "terrier club" on the Rec tonight wearing gloves and buttoning up their coats to the chin. It's not an official terrier club - it just so happens that the half dozen dogs who accumulate in the middle of the Rec are all terrier sized - we three, Misha, Bobby, Mindy.

I've not been on for a couple of days - we've been down to Hastings in the interim to visit the Steak Lady at her lovely, mature, wooded garden. It's a gathering of the Clan for Dad's family, so the Swindon lot (who don't "do" dogs are there) as well as Steak Lady's sis and bro-in-law who normally have big boy Dalmatian "Milo" (but not today - he's at home with one of Dad's cousins)

The Swindon lot are most curious and confuse us no end. They are the only humans we meet regularly who don't like dogs. The mother has always hated them, so the father avoids them out of loyalty, and the daughter has been brought up to shoo them (us) away. Nothing personal, and I'm sure they'd never lift a finger to hurt a dog, but no matter how much charm we turn on, we can make no headway.

Stamp-Man is actually in hospital at present having a series of tests to see if he has a heart or a brain (apparently he does, and they are both fine). We divert over to the big Conquest Hospital on the way home so that Mum and Dad can go visit him. He is bright enough but fed up with hospital life as he heads into his 2nd week, and is very rude about the veggie sausages they tried to feed him - they taste like sawdust, he says. We're with you there Stamp-Man, you hurry and get well soon. You look after yourself, too (and him) "T-Fer" (Human with the name nearest to mine!)

Deefski

Knick Knack Paddy-Whack

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday, you Deefer-Dawg Blog
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuu!
(Cheers, cries of "Speech! speech!" etc)

Yes, this blog is 2 years old today, so in celebration we have been tried out on a new chew food-stuff, going by the name of "paddy whack". Possibly it's only known as paddy-whack by canny dog food marketing men cashing in on the "give the dog a bone" context, but that's what it's called at our animal feeds store, Gillett Cook's, just outside Teynham

http://www.agregister.co.uk/company-82247485.html

It looks like it might be the tendonny, sinewy bits of beef, cut away into 1-2" wide, 6 inch long "battens". Very tough, anyway - where you can cut down tripe sticks and pigs ears with a garden secateurs, you don't make much impression on this stuff. As a result, we dogs LOVE it, and it keeps us amused for hours a-chewing.

As to the 2 year anniversary, is that enough do you think? Is now a sensible time to run out of steam and call it a day? I don't know - watch this space. I may return as and when things inspire me.

Meanwhile, down in Hastings, the T-fer mobile is not well after its tete-a-tete with the 5-up car. As T-fer texts to say repairs would be £4750, only minutely less than the vehicle was worth, "so it's good bye from her". T-fer will be out hunting down a replacement.

Ah well, readers - just in case this is the last posting, thank you all for your interest, and your kind comments. It's been fun to write this, and take and choose the photo's for it, to go with the adventures. In truth, I am a bit of a diary addict, so I'll probably crack and sneak in every now and again to add a post here and there. Watch this space.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's paddy-whack to work on.

Fare well
Deefer, and love too from all the other characters I've featured.