Closing the Box

We've not heard anything from those Silverwoods lately; we wonder whether they got the Narrow Boating pictures.

Really good progress on the Sailing Barge Cambria lately - as you can see the shipwrights have almost finished with the side planking; they've now worked their way right up to the "wale" (top-of-the-sides; painted white here) at the Starb'd bow (as we Mariners like to say.... the more apostrophes the better). What with that and the bottom finished, decks getting there and hatch "coamings" (boards forming the lip of each hatch) we almost have a complete hull (bashing the last planks on is called "closing the box" in the trade) and there are rumours of dates being fixed for a re-float.

I am thinking this will be done with great ceremony and invited guests after all this work and Grant Money (£1.4m !) with the press gathered and no doubt a few "Great and Good", even though the real relaunch will not happen till she is fitted out and rigged.

We go a nice walk tonight round the Cemetery and Rec, part way round which Dad trips in a pot-hole and lays his ankle right over. He managed not to swear but it was a close thing.

Look after yourself,

Deefs

Are you down there, Henry?

If they bury you in this town,

be sure they dig you deep.

Cos the rabbits and the dogs will try

to interupt your sleep.

We're often in the graveyard

and we don't hang around

There's bunnies running everywhere

that should be underground.

We chase them fast as we both can

me and Haggis,my big bruvver

but under some ol' marble slab's

where they will find safe cover.

That's where the chase will have to end

we stand frustrated there

Head nose and ears are in the hole

and tails in the air

Our favourite grave is Henry Miles

Died 1923

There's two holes under that one

One for Haggis, one for me.

So Henry, sir, you lived so old,

now sleeping like a log,

unless you wake and wonder why

you're yelled at by a dog

Sleep on, old timer, pay no mind,

protect your rabbit's nest

Ignore the westies hunting 6 foot

up from your last rest.

Deefski-the-Bard

An elegant young Lady

We have young Em-J (11) with us at present, and Mum has decided that is is a chance (in a rather light hearted way) to train her into a Young Lady. She will taught the finer things in life, says Mum, etiquette, elegant table manners, deportment, how to get in and out of a 2CV (sorry, says Dad, no Maseratis currently on the fleet), how to conduct one's self at restaurants and so on.

A bit like "Gi-gi", says Mum; the 1958 film with Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevallier, although Mum wonders if that colours her the same colour as the Aunt Alicia character (Isabel Jeans) who is rich and sophistimacated on account of acquiring wealth in a dubious "demi-monde" way (look it up - but suffice to say she'd be a "lady of negotiable affection" in Terry Pratchett's books). So of course we have to watch the film, although dogs are persuaded not to join in the chorus of "Ze Night zay invented Champaiiiiiiiigne!".

It's a good day. Megan has been walked a short one in the morning, so Haggis and I are taken out by Dad and Em-J a nice route march all around the long-bridge route. We watch for trains over the bridge parapets, and enjoy the "Night Mail" poem and the train and historic building pictures painted along its panels (all be it most of them are now graffiti'd out of sight).

Back in the Rec the small female "herbert" escapes from the "Elegant Young Lady" persona and has to have a go on the swings, climbing pyramid, grown-up round abouts and a fancy circular rail thing which you try to walk on but which goes backwards as fast as you try to walk forwards. This generates enough challenges for Dad to get a bit bored watching and to strike up a good satisfying game of plastic-bottle throwing with me while we wait for Em-J to get sweaty and tired enough to need a drink and a shower.

Time enough for being Elegant tomorrow, says she, when Mum is taking her off to France for a look at St Omer and a practise of some new found skills in language.

I still think the best French word in her new books is Crapaud (pronounced Crappo) which means "toad"

Marvellous
Deefski

Mary Jo

A couple of fun pics tonight - couldn't resist this one of Meggie's eyes peering at the telephoto. We have in the house a similar shot of a Westie who lived in, we think, Hawaii, in the days when Mum and Dad used to frequent a Yahoo Westie chat forum. It's been photo-shopped (or 10-year-ago equivalent) till it looks like a water-colour done with a large brush, and it's almost impressionistic. We have it framed.

Then a pic of Mum's chums, some mozzies, dancing around in the slanting evening sunshine, and seen against the dark of a honeysuckle growing up the fence. Poor old Mum is suffering at the moment having been bitten to death by one (or more) a couple of (warm) nights back. She must be very attractive and tasty to the mozzies - Dad has no such problems.

A sad day yesterday for Diamond and John (Rags's Mum and Dad) - they have lost at 97, John's old Mum, Mary Jo, and the funeral yesterday saw her laid to rest in the Cemetery where we often walk. So tonight we diverted over to pass by the grave and pay our respects. Well, Dad did - the cemetery to we dogs means only one thing - hot and cold running rabbits, so we were pulling every which way on the leads, while Dad tried to keep a semblance of "decorum in the forum" as he read the card(s) and the plaque.

Back through the Rec where we saw, at a distance, but didn't get to talk to, tiny black Patterdale Sue, from yesterday, but did get a good run around with my sister Ellie. Dad and Ellie's Mum now agree that we have become very similar in size, build, speed and boisterousness. We (Ellie and I) seem to have bulked up to the same degree. Mind you, she was, as always, whiter than white and splendidly groomed, while I go in for the lived in look. Go Ellie

Deefer

Going Equipped

Seriously worried about Dad last night, as he loads a dodgy looking bag with claw hammer, crow-bar, screwdrivers, rubber mallet and "cape hammer" (ask the fruit boys, the stevedores) and heads for the back entrance to Diamond's house (in her absence). He is meeting a bloke there we do not know. Are his intentions honest?

Yes, it turns out - he and fellow allotment holder Mike, are fixin' to dismantle the garden shed in Diamond's back garden. The shed was once Diamond's step-father (Denis)'s pride and joy (and Dad will tell you how precious blokes get about their sheds). But Denis (love him). is now pretty much confined to hospital and won't be needing the shed any more, so Mike gets it, and the flat, paved area which Diamond always thought was a bit too good to put a shed on, is freed up.

Diamond will enjoy this as a sun-trap terrace area, and has visions of painting the walls white, screwing on a blue trellis, and attaching the poor old rose , which up to now has been buried behind the shed, to the trellis. Diamond has always been a fan, since teenage years, of the Greek island of Poros, and she will re-create a small chunk of Poros in her back garden.

Mum sets out, once the terrace is cleared, a chair and a table fior Diamond to sit at. On the table she sets a rusty cat-food tin with some old carrot-flower tops "planted" in it. Diamond will enjoy this - Denis was a great one for keeping all manner of junk in the shed, and empty cat food tins were one of his favourites, and the sheer dodgy-ness of it will strike a chord with the Poros "barbecues made of old oil drums" etc.

Rags, needless to say, has a whale of a time while the boys are into the shed and taking it apart.

Today, we are back into walking. I am on the lead for vet-reasons (lead-only exercise for 10 days). We pass through the cemetery, and we are amazed by the huge pile of floral tributes to "Jimmy". We assume from the size of the display, and the fact that there are models of a caravan, a Land Rover and a horse made out of flowers, along with all the huge (expensive) tributes saying "Good Night Jimmy", that these are a traveller family. They know how to do a good funeral. here is even an old "single" vinyl record of Lonnie Donegan (Battle of New Orleans) tied up there.

RIP Jimmy, who ever you were. You were obviously very popular and had many children and Grandchildren. Good luck mate - and as the Irish say, "Slain Abhaile" (Good Journey)

We are in for a quiet weekend traffic-wise. The road outside is closed further up, and has now been dug up a cross its whole width while contractors install traffic islands, round-abouts and so on. For 3 weeks, no-one will be able to come whooshing down our street and whizzing past our house.

Have a great weekend

Deefer

Dukie and Theo

Dad home nice and early (Taking a "Poets" day) so we get a goodly walk, and in my case, another chance to escape in the Cemetery, when Dad is juggling 3 leads and a poo bag. I feel the flexi-lead handle thump onto the ground behind me. H and I have been pulling like mad anyway as we'd just seen a bunny dive for cover in one of the big shrubs (they're 10 feet+ diameter, so I guess they're more accurately "shrubberies" !). I'm off - racing for the bush and diving under it. Dad gives chase but is hampered by having to haul H and the unwilling Meggie along at ever increasing speed.

He sees me, then 8 foot of lead, then the handle, all disappear under the bush, and hears the handle clack-clack off a few trunks as I go by. Fearing that I'd easily become tangled inside the bush, he races round the bushes, only to see me emerge, unscathed, lead still in tow, behind, neatly traps the handle between a free ankle and a gravestone, he brings me to an invioluntary stop. Fun while it lasted though

In the Rec, we meet up with a magnificent, handsome young standard poodle called Dukie, and I am accused of being a "tart" (not sure what one of those is) when I roll around writhing on the ground under his nose, and bounce and run flirtatiously (whatever that is) all around him. He is out with his chum, a lovely shiny, beautifully groomed red setter called Theo. By comparison with these scrubbed, clean chaps, we are looking decidedly beige and Mum has been heard to utter the words "minging" and "shampoo" in the same sentences. This is a worrying development.

Of, course, on the way to the cemetery, we pass my Sister's house, Ellie Bezel, and as usual we see her though the net curtains. She's up on the back of a chair looking out of the bay windows, but sadly no humans are about, so we can only look in through the gate with our tails wagging tentatively, while she looks out a bit forlornly. It seems an age since our schedules co-incided - that's winter for you and all the humans grabbing dog walks in the short daylight, while they can

Have a great weekend

Deefs

Red Mist

Did I mention that I am now "wrangled" securely onto a lead well before we ever reach the Cemetery? This is due to a (briefly successful) cunning escape attempt engineered a couple of weeks ago. The Cemetery is a "dogs under close control" area, but the tarmac path alongside, coming down from the Long Bridge is not, and I was dancing ahead of Dad, knowing that once in the Cemetery there were free running bunnies.

On this occasion I was a good 50 yards ahead when we were a good distance still from the gate, and Dad thought he had ample time to stop me, grab me and hook me on, before we got there. Ha! Without warning I raced for the gate and was through. Hot rabbits scattered in all directions, and Dad could only look on helplessly as I chased one first to the right (no problem), then scything round to the left, towards the end fence.

It's one of those galvanised metal paling fences, 6 foot tall, and topped with each paling cut into a trident of sharp metal. It comes right to the ground. Mostly. But not in odd little bits, where the ground dips and there are 3-4 inch gaps. Just big enough for a young bunny to squeeze under. Normally enough to stop a Westie. A young lady Westie though, of fairly petite frame, and seeing only the white scut of a bunny through a red devil-mist, will risk a scalping and serious abrasions all along her back to get under that fence too, squeaking and yipping all the way. You try to stop her!

The other side of the fence is just a bramble thicket, all across the rough ground under the Long Bridge. Bunnies can zip through this without harm ,but a Westie, even with red mist in front of her eyes, can only get a few yards before she's a tangle mass of upset thorns and spiked paws. The chase over. The red mist clears, the bunny is long gone and a girl can now hear Dad whistling from the Cemetery behind.

It would be bad form to scurry back to Dad, so we take a bit of time to sniff about and bimble around among the brambles biding our time, as Dad starts to sound more and more anxious. Eventually, when it starts to sound like there might be killings, I try to get back to the fence and re-find the hole. I work my way towards the whislte till I can just see Dad and he keeps glimpsing me between the thick tangle of brambles. I yip in reply but have to backtrack several times and find another route. Dad is near where I got through in the first place.

Eventually, before Dad passes out from the stress, I do get back to the "hole". Dad slides a hand through the fence and grabs collar. He manouvres me to the hole and tries to pull me nack under. But the "hole" without the bunny as encouragement is now suddenly way too small and to drag me through would involve pushing me flat to the floor and scraping my head and back all along the bottom of the fence to get me under. No way, and Dad can quickly see that this is no good. For a while I think he is going to put two hands through and try to lift me up "the wrong side", somehow hand-over-handing me past the horizontal rungs. But there are brambles above me too.

He ties me to the fence and walks along his side to find a place where the hole under it is bigger. Then comes back for me, unties me and drags me sideways, hand-over-hand, never letting go of my collar, his hands getting lacerated by brambles and stung by nettles his side, till we get to the hole when, at last, he can steer me (relieved and very happy to be back "home") through. On the lead now, I am walked over to where Megan and Haggis have been, patiently all this time, tied to a chair. Happy reunion. Don't know what all the fuss was about. I'd have got back eventually.

For some reason Dad now puts me on a lead about a quarter mile from the Cemetery gate, when we're still up on the Long Bridge. There's no accounting.

Have a great weekend

Deefer

Round and round the mulberry bush

The cemetery again and the three of us on flexi leads. Rabbits everywhere. But Dad's hanging on tight this time and the mobile doesn't go off (though we almost got away when Dad tried to juggle the three leads and a poo-bag to pick up Meggie's donation). Never mind - we get a good run around up the "far end" while there's nobody about

So, frustrated by this lack of escape, I am taking up the baton of squirrel chasing, moving the skill on from Megan's tutor-ship. While Meggie chases a squirrel to the tree and then, when it disappears upwards she hops around indecisively, I run at the tree aiming to be drawn in by the gravity towards the trunk and then run around the tree in a full circle (or even two) checking out all angles in quick succession.

I further aim to score bonus points relative to the Meg and the H, by being a prim and proper Miss when it comes to the one muddy puddle on the Rec. Both M and H are drawn inexorably towards this as moths to a candle flame, and invariably come away with black majorette boots. My mission is to return from every walk with immaculate feet. as white and fluffy as when I set out. (OK, as beige and no more scruffy).

Have a lovely evening
Deefs

Hugo the Dane

Dad comes home smelling of big ol' brown Dane, Hugo ("Hughie" for short). Dad's giving a guy lifts to work at present, and stopped for tea and cookies, met the folks and met the Great Dane. He's a big boy. His head is as big as I am, and he's as soft and friendly as you'd want. Doesn't like to be ignored though, so he tends to shout if you stop fussing him or leave him indoors when you're in the garden - big bellowy bass barks. You'd know he was there!

When Megan and Haggis were young they made friends with 2 danes who walked regularly on the Rec, Rudolph and Valentine. They'd run in circles and dive under the danes' bellies, causing those big ol' gangling, unco-ordinated, over-sized pups to trip over as they tried to chase the disappearing westie tail under their own self. Looks of confusion on their faces, and if westies could hide behind their hands and giggle.....

Our walk tonight is round the cemetery, where hot and cold running rabbits are provided for terrier entertainment. The rabbits are lazy and unfazed by mere terriers. The can scurry off twice as fast as even a young fit (ahem) terrier, and are always in range of the vertical cast metal paling boundary fence - the pales wide enough to take a rabbit at gallop speed, but too narrow for a westie (even a young svelt, slim, good looking one!).

Good fun trying though

Deefer

Ellie's bigger than me!

Sometimes Dad wishes he had his camera with him. Tonight we sneaked a quick walk round via the cemetery, in between wintry showers, and we were delighted when we met Ellie, my sister, out with her Mum. She's gorgeous! She's a s big as Archie, but has not had the hair cut yet, so with all the thickness of bright white fur, she looks bigger still - about one and a quarter times my size in any direction

We were both off the lead, so we had a superb race about. Gone was the wee cowering submissive thing of our first visit - here's a dog who is confident, fast, manouvre-able, full of beans and who loves to rough-and-tumble. She was easily my equal and often got the better of me, bowling me over! We loved it!. Dad and her Mum watched grinning to see the change, and enjoyed (meanies!) me not getting the upper hand all the time. We ran and ran and ran, and back in the Rec Haggis also decided to join in, so three dogs were racing about, cannoning into each other and trying to roll each other over. Quite a sight

Dad has told Ellie's Mum about Leybourne Lakes too, so maybe next time we'll have 7 dogs gathered!

Meanwhile, Meg's guts are all sorted, and Dad has her on Chum "Senior" to see how that goes.

Look after yourselves

Deefer