Dogs, we fondly imagine, are all derived from some ravening wild beastie, living as a hunting pack and roaming the Savannah plains in search of prey to bring down and kill. In Megan's case, she may well have come from a strain which roamed the savannah in search of..... broad beans.
Only this can explain her love for them and her doe-eyed look of longing when seated at her Master's feet while he pods out the latest carrier bag full from the allotment. Every dozen or so he takes pity and hands her a particularly big, greyish skinned, not-particularly-tender looking bean (Mum doesn't like these - if there are too many grey ones she starts to think in terms of blanching them and hulling them, only using the inner (cotyledon) leaves to cook with).
These she chews up deliciously, thoroughly enjoying every morsel. If Dad doesn't give her another bean frequently enough she will go hunting the few which inevitably escape between pod and bowl, and zing off onto the garden, landing hidden between leaves of Knifophia (but not hidden well enough to evade Megan's hunter-killer nose)
Either that or she's from the strain of wilde dogge which exists by barking up at the plastic tupperware box full of pigs' ears till some superior force opens the box and hands her one.
Gotta love that Meggie
Deefer
Monday, 30 June 2008
Sunday, 29 June 2008
Black and White
New kid on the block we meet out walking this morning, a Scottie named Pip. Lots of people we meet seem to think it would "be great" to own one of each - a Westie and a Scottie, like the little black and white dogs on the whisky logo..
http://www.scotchwhisky.net/blended/black_n_white.htm
In practise we meet very few Scotties, so they must be quite a rare breed around here, although we know of quite a few people who have multiple westies. Anyway, Pip's a good lad and we all have a nice chat with and sniff of each other, as we're mooching about the Rec.
Talking of black and white, and neatly segue-ing across to "pied" (ah - these radio-4 links), Dad is down all day at the Cambria sailing barge project, alternately manning the Visitor centre, and the barge itself. The barge sits in an old Thames "lighter" as a 3-year dry-dock while the restoration takes place.
Members of the public would not be insured to clamber all over the half-built barge, so the project has rigged up a solid viewing platform which is welded to the structure of the lighter, enabling people to get above the bow of the barge and look inside , down the length of her, through to the stern.
As Dad was showing a batch of people up the platform, the slight movement caught his eye - a pied wagtail nipping about down in the barge. It turns out that this bird has nested in between the inner and outer "wale" planking on the starboard bow, quite near to the viewers on the platform (but well away from the current position of the shipwrights, who are shaping the curved bits of serious oak which make up the stern.
Dad mentioned this to one of the guys ( he said they knew, and were avoiding the area, as well as thinking there is a wren nipping about, possibly also nesting on the boat). Hopefully this will not interfere with the proposed "Open-House" sessions coming soon.
It's all go!
Deefer
http://www.scotchwhisky.net/blended/black_n_white.htm
In practise we meet very few Scotties, so they must be quite a rare breed around here, although we know of quite a few people who have multiple westies. Anyway, Pip's a good lad and we all have a nice chat with and sniff of each other, as we're mooching about the Rec.
Talking of black and white, and neatly segue-ing across to "pied" (ah - these radio-4 links), Dad is down all day at the Cambria sailing barge project, alternately manning the Visitor centre, and the barge itself. The barge sits in an old Thames "lighter" as a 3-year dry-dock while the restoration takes place.
Members of the public would not be insured to clamber all over the half-built barge, so the project has rigged up a solid viewing platform which is welded to the structure of the lighter, enabling people to get above the bow of the barge and look inside , down the length of her, through to the stern.
As Dad was showing a batch of people up the platform, the slight movement caught his eye - a pied wagtail nipping about down in the barge. It turns out that this bird has nested in between the inner and outer "wale" planking on the starboard bow, quite near to the viewers on the platform (but well away from the current position of the shipwrights, who are shaping the curved bits of serious oak which make up the stern.
Dad mentioned this to one of the guys ( he said they knew, and were avoiding the area, as well as thinking there is a wren nipping about, possibly also nesting on the boat). Hopefully this will not interfere with the proposed "Open-House" sessions coming soon.
It's all go!
Deefer
Saturday, 28 June 2008
Best Plot
A full Saturday, for all of us. For Dad the main event is the Summer Barbeque up at the allotments and the vote counting and prize giving for the "best plot" competition. Dad's lot have done this entirely democratically, with every tenant and member of the waiting list allowed to put in a voting slip for their first, second and third preferences.
On the day, Pauline wins (Yea Pauline - free rent for 2009!), with Tim 2nd and Derek 3rd - we know all these people and they regularly make a fuss of us as we walk through the site, so we're happy for them. Well done all three - it was a tough call with lots of good allotments to choose from. The best three now go forward to the town-wide competition, up against the best three from each of the town's other sites, to be judged by the "In-Bloom" judges as part of their tour.
Meanwhile at home, Mum is hosting a summer lunch and pink wine spree for a gang from her work, as part of a farewell to one of their number, moving to St Ives in Cambridgeshire. The lady who is moving is famous for a silly story in which she was here, and rather tiddly once, with her 2 year old son who was rapidly learning new words and expressions. Dad, mischievously, taught him to say "Mummy's Trolleyed", which he picked up with scary alacrity, and now remembers it and trots it out whenever Mummy reaches for the wine.
He'd be on great form tonight - the house is full of drunken women - though the lad himself is not here to pass comment! The pink wine has obviously been a-flowing freely. Mind you, Dad may also have had a couple of bottles of Shep's rather nice "Goldings" beer.
Every-one's trolleyed
Deefer
On the day, Pauline wins (Yea Pauline - free rent for 2009!), with Tim 2nd and Derek 3rd - we know all these people and they regularly make a fuss of us as we walk through the site, so we're happy for them. Well done all three - it was a tough call with lots of good allotments to choose from. The best three now go forward to the town-wide competition, up against the best three from each of the town's other sites, to be judged by the "In-Bloom" judges as part of their tour.
Meanwhile at home, Mum is hosting a summer lunch and pink wine spree for a gang from her work, as part of a farewell to one of their number, moving to St Ives in Cambridgeshire. The lady who is moving is famous for a silly story in which she was here, and rather tiddly once, with her 2 year old son who was rapidly learning new words and expressions. Dad, mischievously, taught him to say "Mummy's Trolleyed", which he picked up with scary alacrity, and now remembers it and trots it out whenever Mummy reaches for the wine.
He'd be on great form tonight - the house is full of drunken women - though the lad himself is not here to pass comment! The pink wine has obviously been a-flowing freely. Mind you, Dad may also have had a couple of bottles of Shep's rather nice "Goldings" beer.
Every-one's trolleyed
Deefer
Friday, 27 June 2008
Mademoiselle
Here's a rather nice pic of the H resting in the shade of the project car "Mademoiselle d'Armentieres" at the recent 2CV camp. As you can see , she's almost completed (I don't know what Dad and the cronies will do with all their spare time when they've finished), although look carefully and you'll see filler that needs sanding out just behind the left front wing.
She isn't actually finished, but she's incomplete in ways you can't easily see. No back lights, for instance, is symptomatic of the need to replace chunks of wiring loom, and then there's all the registration and MOT-ing. Still, the boys have delicately scraped away some over-spray on the bulkhead and found the body/paint codes which tell us the exact year of manufacture of the shell, so registration will be easier.
Looking at the picture, the back suspension looks way too high, so that'll need adjusting too.
Meanwhile they've trailered her down to JJ's, and he's happily tinkering around with filler and wiring, so she could be on the road soon.
Our own 2CV ("Clara Bow") is now MOT'd and resplendent in a new navy blue canvas roof. Why do all these 2CV's have to have names?
And in the back garden , the view is still dominated by the 90 foot crane, swinging the flat pack wall sections of the H-f-t-B into place, and, tonight, great bundles of what looked like MDF planks. We can believe Bruce's predictions of the 3 weeks to the roof is on timescales. Tonight, as they park the crane up for the weekend, the wind is round in the NW, and quite strong (It's meant to be June, for Heaven's sake!) so the great long (100'?) jib is pointed away from the houses. The Angel B will sleep more happily in her bed tonight.
Uncle Jim, being mean and knowing B is nervous of the great tall crane "in the back garden", has been teasing Angel with his "Mmmm... the wind's getting up". Give him a good hard slap, Angel. You don't have to put up with that! :-))
Deefs
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Dad proposes
Mmmmm... Dad likes a tub of yogurt after his supper. It was a late one tonight because they were out again judging villages, so the yogurt was Greek natural, tonight, and (Oh Joy!) Dad is singing around because he discovers a jar of Diamond's home made Rhubarb and Ginger jam, "we" didn't know we had.
He is half way through this when he decides it is so delicious he needs to text Diamond and propose to her. Immediately the phone rings and Mum (who claims to recognise her ring) answers without waiting for the caller to speak "Hello, Diamond. This is the home for abandoned wives!"
We dogs don't mind. We've already had some left over pasta sauce (mmmm creme fraiche, yogurt, salmon, lemon juice), and now Dad sneakily passes me the yogurt tub, unseen by Meg or the H. This way I can nip it between my teeth and scurry off to my out-of-the-way bed to give it a proper licking out.
The up-side of being small and insignificant....
Deefer
He is half way through this when he decides it is so delicious he needs to text Diamond and propose to her. Immediately the phone rings and Mum (who claims to recognise her ring) answers without waiting for the caller to speak "Hello, Diamond. This is the home for abandoned wives!"
We dogs don't mind. We've already had some left over pasta sauce (mmmm creme fraiche, yogurt, salmon, lemon juice), and now Dad sneakily passes me the yogurt tub, unseen by Meg or the H. This way I can nip it between my teeth and scurry off to my out-of-the-way bed to give it a proper licking out.
The up-side of being small and insignificant....
Deefer
Night Caller
What we have, at the bottom of the garden, throwing the Ikea flat-pack Home-for-the-Bewildered sections about is, by all accounts, a "Spierings" crane from City Lifting (http://www.citylifting.co.uk/citylifting.html) - nip onto that site and watch the freeze-frame movie of the beast being erected in about 16 minutes. Impressive. Dad has texted our on-site expert, Bruce, to see how actually tall it is, but the chap has not got back to us yet.
Meanwhile, at 02:30 last night our hedgehog comes a-calling again, undetected by Mum, Dad, Haggis or me, but picked up on Meg's radar. She was asleep downstairs (does she ever sleep?) and knew that he was on the terrace , and set up the required racket of woofing to wake the house. The noive!
We race downstairs but don't actually stop to look how close the hedgehog might be. Dad opens the door and we shoot out, accelerating hard, fixin' to get to the bottom fence, 100 feet away, as quickly as possible, treading over each other if need be.
Dad nearly wee'd himself laughing when we all had to stop 3 feet outside the door, nearly standing on our noses to brake in time, as the hog curled into a ball.
It's good to have him back and Dad can quickly call us off the "attack" but we wonder how many times a hedgehog will put up with nearly being swept away in a tide of white furry dog.
Have a great evening
Deefer
Meanwhile, at 02:30 last night our hedgehog comes a-calling again, undetected by Mum, Dad, Haggis or me, but picked up on Meg's radar. She was asleep downstairs (does she ever sleep?) and knew that he was on the terrace , and set up the required racket of woofing to wake the house. The noive!
We race downstairs but don't actually stop to look how close the hedgehog might be. Dad opens the door and we shoot out, accelerating hard, fixin' to get to the bottom fence, 100 feet away, as quickly as possible, treading over each other if need be.
Dad nearly wee'd himself laughing when we all had to stop 3 feet outside the door, nearly standing on our noses to brake in time, as the hog curled into a ball.
It's good to have him back and Dad can quickly call us off the "attack" but we wonder how many times a hedgehog will put up with nearly being swept away in a tide of white furry dog.
Have a great evening
Deefer
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Garden Feature
Our garden has an impressive new feature - a huge red tower crane looming over our trees. Here for the constructing of the flat-pack Home-for-the-Bewildered (which our man on site Bruce says will only take 3 weeks till the roof is on) it is at least 4 times as tall as the Paulownia, so probably 80 foot!
We watched it unravel from it's neat HGV sized lorry, as if it was some kind of "Transformer" toy, the main tower being jacked into the vertical and telescoped out, and the long horizontal "jib" being swung out, seemingly over the houses, into it's final position.
Uncle Jim let us out at that point, so I had to race down the garden and shout at it. Well, you would, wouldn't you? Now it's being swung about hither and yon moving bits of H-f-t-B into position. Impressive.
Meanwhile we have Googled "Kes" and find she is an attractive blue eyed blond of alleged elf extraction.
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/character/1112400.html
We are not entirely sure why you'd name a scruffy long haired Jack Russell after her, but it kinda works.
Deefer
We watched it unravel from it's neat HGV sized lorry, as if it was some kind of "Transformer" toy, the main tower being jacked into the vertical and telescoped out, and the long horizontal "jib" being swung out, seemingly over the houses, into it's final position.
Uncle Jim let us out at that point, so I had to race down the garden and shout at it. Well, you would, wouldn't you? Now it's being swung about hither and yon moving bits of H-f-t-B into position. Impressive.
Meanwhile we have Googled "Kes" and find she is an attractive blue eyed blond of alleged elf extraction.
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/VOY/character/1112400.html
We are not entirely sure why you'd name a scruffy long haired Jack Russell after her, but it kinda works.
Deefer
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