Challock Forest (at last)

We got there at last! Dog Heaven. Challock Forest - about 5 square kms of English broad leaved forest. Historically a Royal deer-hunting forest and now owned by the Forestry Commission, it's mainly down to sweet chestnut coppice, although there are big tracts too of beech, larch, corsican pine and other stuff. There are ggod hard tracks all around and narrower muddier footpaths too. There are squirrels, pheasants and we reckon about 200 very dark-phase fallow deer.

Dad had the day off and, amazingkly after the gales and rain last night, the morning was sunny, warm and almost windless, certainly windless under the trees anyway. So we dropped Mum off at work (Poor Mum!) and headed for Challock. You can see from the pics , it was very sloppy underfoot, so we rapidly became "West Highland Black-Bellied Terriers", with our little majorette boots of shiny black. We are all let straight off the lead in Challock, so we can race about like lunatics.

We even saw some of the fallow deer - a small group of does, and led by Meggie, we tried to give chase, but deer are fast and long legged, and built for spronging through knee high brambles and bracken. Westies (especially pups) are only 4 inches long in the leg dept and built more for your mown lawns and shagpile carpet, so "gave chase" is a rather humorous optimistic description! Dad soon called us back

Fantastic place! We all love it, and it's Dad's absolute favourite dogwalk place. We'd reccommend it to anyone who lives in the Ashford / Sittingbourne / Charing area

Exhausted

Deefer

German Bight, Humber, Thames

GERMAN BIGHT HUMBER THAMES DOVER WIGHT WESTERLY BACKING SOUTHWESTERLY VIOLENT STORM 11 DECREASING 5 OR 6. ROUGH OR VERY ROUGH OCCASIONALLY HIGH. SQUALLY SHOWERS. MODERATE OR POOR BECOMING GOOD

Coo! There are whole big limbs of trees coming down on the Rec. Bigger than a pup can pee against. We went for a walk but we came back very "windswept and interesting". Dad has the day off tomorrow, so we are promised a walk, finally in "the forest" - Kings Wood in Challock, near Ashford, in Kent. 6 or so square miles of Chestnut coppice (well coppice up to 2006, but now the paper recycling has been so successful that the last remaining pulp mill taking chestnut (in Wales) has now shut, so Kingswood no longer has an outlet for it's chestnut, and the poor old coppicers have all been laid off. One man's green success story, is another man's unemployment)

More tomorrow, when I've been to this mythical wonderland. Dad promises to take the camera

Deefer

Wintry Showers

Ugh - Wintry showers, so we have all cried off a walk tonight. We had one this morning but tonight we all looked out of the door and quickly followed Megan back inside. She is a lady who likes her creature-comforts and, in particular, does not like the feel of rain falling on her head. We are all now curled up in front of the fire - Dad is burning the last of our Irish peat-turf sods, brought back from Silverwood's house. He was wondering whether the peat-fire smell, drifting across the road, might have stirred memories in any passing Irish people

Meanwhile out the back of our house, where there once stood (before my time) a big fruit pack-house and there has been, ever since, some fox-rich, rabbit infested and pheasant-owned wasteground, building has started in earnest. An enormous auger drill thing taller than all these houses, spends all day groaning and grinding beyond the back yard. Trucks and builder vehicles move about and men call to each other. We dogs can't concentrate on sleeping, and we have to be let out periodically to race down the garden to repel boarders. Tally Ho!

Deefer

Who you callin' "Gobby"?

Wow! For January 14th, amazing warm breezes, clear blue skies, sunshine. We arrange to meet Auntie Diamond and ASBO at reculver at 10 o'clock. That is, WE think we're meeting them at 10. They think we're picking them up from their front door at 10 to give them a lift to Reculver. 3 Humans and 4 dogs in a car (especially with 2 of them being Asbo and me), now that WOULD have been interesting! Ah well, we all got good walks, just not together.

For some reason I was in one this morning and decided to shout at a couple of people, in an attempt to preserve the westie's reputation for being "yappy dogs". Mum and Dad had other ideas. They prefer preserving the westie's reputation for being calm, well socialised dogs who don't yap and don't bark at anyone (see smug Megan and Haggis for details). Even so I had a try

One was an angler wheeling a great trolley of fishing gear and lugging umpteen fishing rods over his shoulder. No problem when he was behind us catching us up, or indeed as he overtook. It was when he was about 10 yards in front (safe distance?) I suddenly started shouting at him. Even when I was shut up I still wuffed and chuffed as we climbed onto the sea-wall and he dived into the bullrushes to find his fishing position, 100 yards away

A little later we came a cross 2 guys in hi-vis jackets, by a car, apparently waiting to marshall a 400-person run along the sea wall from Minnis Bay to Reculver. The one by the car was OK, but this other guy stood 30 yards off suddenly looked dangerous to me so I had a shout at him too. I got shut up, and stomped off huffing and gruffing, then looked across the sea wall at the other guy, who smiled and said "Yeah? What's up with you, Gobby?". Mum and Dad cracked up laughing. Gobby? I ask you. Dad said, "If the cap fits....."

Gobby

Blackcurrant Fields

The weekend! Up nice and early (that is, "we got Dad up nice and early") for a nice long walk - dry but breezy. We headed south across the Rec and through the grounds of Macknade Farm shop, ending up on what they've all called "the blackcurrant fields" till now. Megan had told me in excited tones about 300 yard row upon row of blackcurrant bushes, with eager rabbits dashing up between the rows and sneaking through gaps into the next row.

She and Haggis could lose themeselves for hours racing up one row, nipping through gaps and down another row, with Dad charging up and down the head-land, trying to guess which row they'd emerge from. Sometimes they'd get so disorientated they'd go to the wrong end of the field trying to find Dad (which was a bit anxious for him, as the "other end" was yards from the M2 motorway)

But no more. All the bushes have been grubbed up over winter, along with the apple trees in a neighbouring orchard, the whole lot (25 acres?) fenced in as one field and ploughed. Neat, tidy, boring. I guess it's the economics of fruit growing in Kent. A man at the allotments this afternoon said that most local growers had their fruit, which is grown under contract, rejected anyway by Ribena after the hot dry summer, as being not fit for purpose, so I don't suppose that helped the economics

I've spent the day "helping" Mum and Dad who have been going crazy working thier way through a list of jobs. I've "helped" pull up the hall carpet (some say I'm the reason it has been pulled up, but that's another story!), "helped" wash the floor, "helped" with the laundry, "helped" dig the bed in the greenhouse, "helped" laying out spuds for chitting, "helped" lay a fire - ahh I'm so helpful I wonder how they ever did without me!

Deefer

Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger

Cyclonic 7 to severe gale 8, occasionally Storm 10. It's sooooo windy! The rain is not so much "falling" as travelling horizontally and occasionally hitting the ground - more often hitting the sides of westies, who are ruffty tuffty Scottish dogs and can handle it. Unlike their Mum who is a wuss and tends to hide indoors. A couple of very recent photo's for you. Remember those earlier photo's of me beating up the H-man ? Look how big I am now! More like a 1/2 scale model of a westie, than a pup. The face-on pic gives you a little inkling of the Hercule Poirot moustache, but Mum had just brushed me so I'm not as scruffy as usual

Off to the vets yesterday, but just along for the ride, accompanying Meg and Haggis (and the c*t Mississippi) who were up for their annual jabs, in case they needed their hands holding. Spent the entire visit standing on the floor looking up at the succession of bro's and sis's being poked and prodded on the table, whimpering for when it would be my turn. Did get a turn on the weighing machine though, so can tell you I'm 4.08 kgs

Dad turned quite pale writing the cheque afterwards - as well as all the jabs, Meggie has something called Cushings, which means a pill a day for the rest of her life. (Dad got a bit stressed one morning, when he dropped that day;s pill and I grabbed it and ran off with it. Didn't need to scruff me quite so hard to get it back. I'm sure I would not have choked on it!). He says - God bless Pet-Plan

It's the weekend

Deefer

Hercule Poirot

Ah bonjour mais amis! Zere eez talk around zees 'ouse at present zat I am growing ze big long moustachio's, and zat I look a little like Hercule Poirot

So be it. I am currently investigating this entire toilet roll for clues. This involves the most minute dissection there-of (Oy Dad! Give it back! It is a vital clue!)

Tell me why, when she comes in from work, Mum says "Hello, Pretty Girl" (to Megan) ... "hullo, handsome boy" to Haggis, and then "hullo rat" to me? She says it very affectionately, so I guess it's a term of endearment, but "rat" ????

Deefer