a visitor from other shores...

dear readers, yesterday was a day of great portent. that is to say it was a very importent day. my lady friend and i, and of necessity herself, on account of us needing a driver, met mrs deb! herself has been corresponding with mrs deb for some time. she reads mrs deb's blog avidly, and unlike most other blogs, sometimes goes back and reads it again. so the meeting with mrs deb was eagerly awaited.

we did not get off to that good a start on the navigation front. herself is in the habit of driving to a place near to where she is aiming to end up and then phoning the person to ask to be talked in, rather like a pilot on a runway. this strategy is bound to fail when the person concerned comes from another country and therefore does not actually know where they are, other than that there are a lot of trees. not that herself actually managed to phone mrs deb. so we used google maps on herself's phone. this is a neat little program developed by a colleague of the extreme programmer which has tiny maps and even gives you directions. the downside is that if you need glasses to see your phone and they are not glasses you can drive in you will come unstuck unless you have a passenger to call out where to turn. while my lady friend and i were only too happy to assist, our paws just will not work the keypad.

so we ended up quite some way from our destination. but eventually we found mrs deb. she was walking up the road near the cottage where she and her mum are staying. herself did a double take and jammed on the brakes.

"are you deb?" she asked, hoping that she was right. a wild lady leaping out of a car containing two lurchers on a country road and accosting a passer-by might be cause for concern.

"yes!" replied the wonderful mrs deb. my lady friend and i took to her at once. she has lovely twinkly eyes and a smile that would melt the heart of anyone. here is a picture of her.



herself threw her arms around mrs deb for a hug. in my book this is a risky strategy. if you tried it with my lady friend you would get bitten. but mrs deb has much better manners and returned the hug. we went back to the house where mrs deb and her mum are staying and had a bowl of water and then headed off for an outing.

first stop was a place called battle. it is called battle because it is the site of a battle. luckily this happened some time ago so there were no dead bodies lying around. the plan was to visit an exhibition of photos including some by an internet friend of herselfs called loo. or maybe lou. we wandered along to the place where this was to happen. there did not seem to be anyone around so we went on up to the gallery. my lady friend has a little trouble with stairs and the stairs in question were made of wood. we must have sounded like a herd of elephants. the door was locked so herself and mrs deb decided to go for a coffee until it opened. the coffee turned into a little snack but eventually my lady friend and i were put in the car.

as herself and mrs deb headed off to the gallery, herself had a rare moment of common sense and decided to look at the leaflet. lo, the exhibition was open from tuesday to saturday. unfortunately our visit was on a monday. this is just so like herself. she has had the leaflet for weeks but had failed to read the crucial bit about when they might actually be able to get in.

after a swift tour of the sights of battle the ladies decided to take my lady friend and i for a walk on the beach. unfortunately they first had to get out of the car park. to get the barrier to lift you had to put money into a machine. the machine did not like herself's money. it spat out every coin several times. not to be deterred herself delivered a sound clout in a strategic spot on its front whereupon the barrier lifted obligingly. a passing old lady looked admiringly at herself and her magic fist.

eventually we found ourselves in a place called bexhill. we have been there before as the peeps are in the habit of going round a thing called the ickbillion. this was named by my boy and is a large white building where dogs are not allowed. mrs deb and herself went inside for a cup of hot chocolate. it seems that mrs deb is very similar to herself in her ability to provide blog-fodder at the drop of a hat. the ladies were sitting chatting over their hot chocolate. mrs deb was so engrossed that she failed to notice that she was carefully pouring her hot chocolate all over the table. herself did a bit of mopping up before whipping out the camera, all the while hooting with laughter.

then my lady friend and i were collected from the car and we wandered down to the beach. unfortunately bexhill had got wind of the visit and signs were strategically placed along the seafront, informing us that dogs were not allowed on the beach. it seems this included inflatable dogs.


so we watched while mrs deb had a wander on the stones. then the time came to navigate our way back to where mrs deb was staying. herself instructed mrs deb in the use of the map thing on the phone. it turned out not to be much help as you have to watch it carefully and the ladies were too busy chatting about interesting things like handcuffs. however, eventually we arrived at our destination. mrs deb was dropped off with more hugs.

then it was time to go and fetch my boy. herself told him all about her day and about how much she had liked mrs deb. my boy told her about his day at school. the conversation turned to the time when he had let slip in a spelling test that he had been watching a programme on telly where a person had a nine inch nail bashed through their head (this was in the middle of a spelling test where the children had to think of words which rhymed with snail). herself reminded him yet again that some subjects of conversation were not appropriate for school and that the teachers would think he had neglectful parents and might report them to the authorities.

"well they know i come from a good family so they can just piss off!" said my boy, demonstrating just how well brought up he is.

"are we a good family?" asked herself.

"yes, we're a pretty dysfunctional family, but in a good way." said my boy, emphatically. i suppose this is some sort of a compliment.

when we got home my boy looked at the pictures.

"she does have a lovely face!" he said of mrs deb, "what's her voice like?"

"a sort of soft canadian accent," said herself.

"does she say 'sockerrrrr' for football?"

"funnily enough, we didn't talk about football once," said herself, "we had much more important things to talk about, like blogs and life and stuff."