a new puppy

Went to visit Jill & family yesterday - they've got a Golden Retriever puppy called Tully - at 11 weeks old he's SOOOOO cute! Curled up in exact,y the same position as Murphy used to when he was tat age, except Tully's that almost white colour whereas obis. Murphy's a mid-dark colour.

Murphy pretty much ignored him (except when Tully showed an interest in his stick, when he semi-growled at him) other than helping himself to Tully's rawhide bone chews within the first 2 minutes of arriving in the house!

We had Sally and Haggis with us too, and Haggis (a 2 year-old Westie for those of you not paying attention) and is about the same size as Tully! So they had a few runs around.

Once I find the photos I'll upload them.

- and here they are!

In the first picture the wee-est is Haggis. In the other one, Tully is fast asleep with the soft toy he thinks is his mum - aww, cute!

latest

Hello world, once more! So -

what's been happening? Well, we had to go to a funeral on Wednesday. It was very strange - not like a Scottish funeral at all. Probably because it wasn't! Although I suppose I haven't been to a non-religious funeral, well, ever… so who knows? An old family friend of Richard's. He was the same age as Richard. We arranged for care for the dogs and flew down to London.

It turned out to be a long day with not much breaks. We got to the crematorium about 15 minutes early to join the queue for Rory's "Barbecue" (as he called it, apparently) - and that was a measure of his attitude and sense of humour. As his brother said - always irreverent but never malicious. His coffin had a police strip round it, an L sticker on the back ands several other signs attached - "Marinated in beer, sherry and red wine", "Toxic Waste" and "Sponsored by SAGA".

It all took and hour and half (I guess that's why they had the last slot at the Crem.) and I've never seen so many men in business suits cry. It's a reflection of the affection Rory was universally held in that there were way too many people for the crem "room" (is that what you all them?) and about 30 people had to crowd outside - unfortunately that meant they couldn't really hear much of the service and it included us! We're really glad we made the effort to go, but given that we had to heard back to the airport immediately after, it does seem a hell of a long way to go to stand for an hour and a half and listen to some vague murmerings!

Luckily for everyone the one hymn they sang was "Jerusalem" - which I don't know.

Isn't it always the people who are larger than life that go too soon? Is that one of the ironies of life?Maybe one we could do without.

Sigh

The truth is coming out, literally.

Richard says it's clear that Maddie WAS the sweetie culprit after all (no further details needed, thank you!)

I still don't understand how she got them out my handbag on the table, without knocking the bag over. I have a picture in my mind - the Tom Cruise-style lowering of her in a harness from the ceiling, "left a bit, right a bit..." Who was the accomplice on the other end - Murphy? Surely he'd have taken the loot. Gizzy? She'd probably have dropped Maddie half way down just to annoy her. Guess we'll never know...

Whodunnit?

Well it's a complete mystery - I have no idea what happened to those chocolates.

We had some chocolates left over from Guides so I took them home for Richard to eat. The remainder - ones he doesn't like - I dumped in my handbag and left on the dining room table to take to work. This morning I bethought myself to put em in a wee bag so they didn't get mushed at the bottom on the way in, but lo and behold - there was no sign of them!

The handbag was still upright on the table, there were no wrappers anywhere (and yes I checked Maddie's bed and her bush). But no chocolates. They have disappeared into thin air!

Surely even Maddie couldn't delicately remove all the sweeties without knocking over the handbag and leaving chewed wrappers scattered about the place?

Perhaps the mystery will solve itself over the next day or so. Until then...

Holiday Summary

In summary, it was a good holiday and went very quickly. Part of that was maybe cos we had to leave a day early and went down to visit Bev & Ruth on the south coast, then headed up to the Lake District on the Saturday then home on the Sunday. Some good memories - the train from Exeter (and them attempting to not take my money!), Murphy & the wasp in Clovelly, Maddie and the grouse, the sunglasses in the river, recognition of my accent in Tescos in Barnstaple, Maddie in the pub in the Lake District (see below about seats) - and Richard's shock that petrol in Devon is dearer than petrol in Scotland!

I think Maddie needs to have a travelling crate with lowerable curtain as she has on about half a dozen occasions this trip, either had to be put back in the car since she was determined to go back there (scared by something obviously), crawled under chairs in pubs, trains, the B & B room (!) etc - and never the chair WE'RE sitting on! - or snuck into the car and ended up sitting in the driver's seat, waiting for us.

Poor wee thing. I don't think she copes well with change. On the plus side there were no sheep incidents and only one grouse incident, no chickens encountered and a couple of wasps tangled with, so here's to next year! Cornwall, anyone?

Lately

We've had a few interesting times on our holiday this year - like on Tuesday when I dropped my sunglasses down a riverbank while picking up a stick to throw for Maddie who was in the water waiting for it. 

We were on the point of going over a footbridge by a railway line over the stream and the bank was about 3 feet high (& pretty sheer). After some debate as to how forgettable (& expensive) the sunglasses were we decided I would go wading for em - so off with my shoes and socks and having given Richard my phone to look after in case I fell in the river, down I went - it actually wasn't too deep and as I shuffled along calf deep in the (cold!) water I found the sunnies - they had caught on a plant so hadn't even hit the water, result!

Grabbed them and got Richard to pull me back up. Then had to rescue my phone which had fallen out his pocket and nearly into the river (!!) and a few agonising minutes tiptoeing over the chuckies lining the path over the bridge with me in bare feet and then we were over, there was a nice field with grass and I could dry my feet and put my shoes back on. We won!

Then there was today, where Murphy caused consternation in the pub when he ate a wasp, whacking his head off the table as he snapped at it and barging over to press against my legs under the table - we guessed it had stung him and the landlady went off to get him a tub of water to drink, just in case. The rest of the pub was attracted when he cracked his head off the table but he seems to have no ill-effects from it. And nobody arrested us for taking him into wasp-bearing environments. Phew!

Holidays

How am I enjoying this year's dog walking holiday so far? Well, we're in the hills of North Devon so all those awful wee narrow roads with 10 foot high hedges on either side, but traffic's been light so far so I haven't met much coming the other way.

And at about 4am this morning I believe I heard the words "This is shit, I want to go home" emerge from me as I groggily got up to let the dogs out AGAIN to see if they needed to relieve themselves. This because Murphy had barked - we'd have ignored it if it was Maddie (who'd already been shouted at for trying to break down our bedroom door). Of course the dogs didn't need to go out, they just fancied a midnight (ish) perambulation round the back lawn while I stood in me PJ's trying not to get too cold and awake.

Then we left it til after today's walk to do the big supermarket shop - forgetting England has weird opening hours and everything shut at 4pm. So we ended up at KFC's for a carry out for dinner - a first for me and probably a last, too. I liked the popcorn chicken, just nothing else particularly!

On the plus side we had lovely weather today and the house is quite the nicest we've stayed in so it's mostly good. And will be better once we get a long piece of rope to attach Maddie to so she can be left in the back garden without fear of her leaping the fence and going off to find the sheep which are two fields away!