Falling like Flies

Now Dad's given his Man flu to Mum, but it seems to have hit her hard and fast, so she's taken to her bed with the lap-top, newspapers and plentiful supplies of tissues, strepsils and coffee. Dad is thinking his is now on the mend - there are whole chunks of day when he doesn't cough and moop pathetically. We've just been for a rather good walk in one of them - all down the Iron Wharf and back up through town and across the Rec.

It's all very sloppy and wet underfoot, so every dog we meet and ourselves, all look ready for a bath, especially below the plimsoll line. Dad's been on weekend cover and reports that while it might be mild down here in Kent, much of the Midlands has a fair dump of snow this morning.

The local bird population is doing rather well for sultanas and stuff at present. While Diamond is in the hospital in London, John seems to be either clearing out the kitchen, or maybe decorating. What ever the truth of that, John appeared on pancake day with a carrier bag full of time-expired bakery bits - apricots, dried fruit, candied peel, almonds, coconut shavings etc.

They are sell by 2008, so we expect they're quite safe, and certainly the birds don't mind. The blackbirds definitely appreciate a sprinkling of sultanas or currants on the ground, and the starlings move across the garden like a police finger-tip search or a sanitation crew mopping up every single one.

Deefski

POETS

Dad blags a "poets", feeling like he's probably done enough hours this week and claiming that working with man-flu is worth more in hours anyway. Good news for us, as we can have a nice long walk in the melting, sloppy snow. We come back relatively clean, which is more than can be said for Springer LB, who was totally lathered up in slushy mud in the middle of a Rec, from chasing a tennis ball round and round, lobbed great distances by LB's Dad's human daughter.

For our Mum and Dad the prospect of the final weekend when wine may be allowed prior to Lent, which Mum and Dad are going to try and do without a drop taken. Not religious particularly, although Mum claims to be a "collapsed Catholic", but the 6 weeks of Lent is a suitably iconic and testing lump of abstention. Sometimes it works, and they stay the distance, other times they crash and burn. I will keep you up to date.

Other than that, one of those superb free weekends, when no-one is booked to visit us, and we're not booked to go anywhere or do anything. Snow, cold and wet are still preventing Dad getting out on the allotment, so I suspect a weekend of leisurely awakenings and maybe some sporadic garden tidying. Dad, I know, has his eyes on the old horned-poppy seed heads and dead Californian poppy foliage out front, and Mum is thinking she must prune the roses.

Have a good weekend
Deefski

Get Fresh at the Weekend

Spring is sprung - the grass is Ris'
(I wonder where the birdies is....)

We're out nice and early because it is, at last, a lovely, Sunny Spring morning. We get a nice long walk all around the Iron Wharf and back up through town, across the Rec, before breakfast

Dad can, at last, mow up at the allotments, so he's happy. We also harvest purple sprouting broccoli, carrots, cabbage, chard, black kale and leeks (euch - Human food). More interesting is dad's decision to finally clean up the two fallow deer skulls from the February "gruesome finds" story - scrubbing brush, hot soapy bleachy water, and then the blighter leaves them to dry out of dog reach! Mean

First-dad is asking whether we've seen my sister (Ellie) lately, and I must admit we haven't. Dad's tried texting a couple of times, but maybe her new Mum is like ours - phone is always either out of credit, or on "discrete" in the bottom of the cavernous hand-bag

At last - Terrier day on Crufts tonight

Go Westies!

Deefer