Moving the boat

It's been a busy weekend, which I'll tell you about over a couple of posts rather than try to squish it all on this one. Friday saw us all headed once more for Hollow Shore boatyard and another weekend of caravanning but first up we had work to do on Friday. We had to swap cars and take the 2CV down to Llew's workshop. The main mission was to be to shuffle all the cars in the place about to make space at the 'bottom end' for a rather tall boat and trailer combo which wouldn't quite fit through the door at the top end where there is a concrete ramp. This meant for we dogs, plenty of chance to chase about the outbuildings and rabbit-rich territory, and to play with Boris-the-barking-bastard (as he is now known by 2CV Llew).

Boris, pictured here was already filthy when we first arrived and is here wrangled to a length of rope to restrict his access to further dirt and oily sumps of cars but unfortunately when he runs out of string he gets frustrated at not being able to get at whatever is going on and sets up barking. We know from his nights here that this is persistent and loud; Llew is a bit ineffective at stopping him, so he just gets shouted at repeatedly to 'shut up' which has no effect whatso ever, hence the new name Boris-t-b-b.

The shot down the length of the green house gives you some idea of the layout - the cars are all down the far end in this shot. We had to move them all towards the camera - some of them, including a lovely old 'Hercules Poirot' Citroen Traction-Avant even started and ran under their own power (which surprised Llew more than it did Dad) and then take the big boat shown here all round the back way, Llew skillfully reversing the Volvo estate and this trailer round 4 narrow 90 degree bends in the process to get nearly there. The boys then manhandled the trailer the last few yards in, whereupon one of the trailer wheels collapsed an underground rabbit burrow inside the greenhouse, the cave-in stopping the trailer and canting it over alarmingly. They had to jack it back upright and slide a bit of ply under the wheel to continue.

With all that fun and games complete they savaged the leylandii hedge you can see in the boat picture and had a mahousive bonfire of the bits, they helped landowner Mike to move a big diesel tank with a mini-digger (Health and Safety?), and they whipped the last two remaining wheels off the 2CV for their anti-rust paint treatment.

After all that interesting day we were all rounded up and piled back into the 2CV and headed off to meet Mum at the caravan.

Deefs

Windfall

As Dad slides into his last couple of weeks before Project Erroll kicks off properly, and it's all getting a bit scary, a significant financial event (let's call it a windfall, for want of a more detailed description) happens today. This is roughly a month earlier than estimated and predicted, so we all suspect this may be yet another foul-up by those who have become known as "Human Remains", but on this occasion, we cannot hear Mum and Dad complaining. Party time?

Boris is now so well settled in that we will all miss him when he goes home, and probably he will miss us. Morning and evening, mad , loud, scurrying playtime kicks off and all three dogs charge about in and out of the house, round the ground floor rooms, sometimes up and down the stairs and often up and down the garden. Haggis seems to have been rejuvenated by all this and enthusiastically joins in, as well as sometimes attempting to mount Boris and doing a few pelvic thrusts just to make the point that, at 14, he's still young and virile enough for Deefer (Thank You very much, Boris!). This is something no-one's seen him do for about 10 years!

We are all getting nice long walks and Boris's mission on these is to stick to me like glue, so that the two leads are the same length, the four shoulders are in perfect line abreast, and two tails wag in synchronicity, as one. Boris though, is showing a variety of bizarre behaviours which reminds the humans that he is yet, a silly young Pup. These include a desire to rip up white toilet tissue rolls under the main bed leaving them roughly spherical in shape and lying in a snow drift of tissue snow flakes under said bed. He is also prone to pup accidents, and the landing carpet may well get replaced as soon as his back is turned. There have also been similar 'events' on the spare bed.

Have a good weekend

Deefs