oop north

hello dear readers! this is a post from your globetrotting reporter, joker the roving lurcher. as i dictate this we are in birmingham! this is a place of tall buildings and a lot of roads.

some time ago, her maamship invited us all to join her and the prof on a canal boat holiday in scotland. the peeps were very keen on the idea but unfortunately, because of my boy's fear, it was a no no. my boy, as regular readers will know, has not been very far from the house since last year. so the peeps thanked her maamship and the prof for their kindness and reluctantly declined.

as the summer went on my boy got a little more adventurous, at least on foot. he took to coming out to the local park with young dave and i when we went for our run. he even went to visit his mate pj. the peeps began to think they might have a holiday after all. the big problem with the scotland idea was that scotland is about as far as you can go from where we live. the prospect of my boy on a car journey of such magnitude filled them with dread. my boy loves canal boats,and felt most miserable at the idea of missing such a wonderful holiday.

her maamship had an idea. herself rang the doctor and asked about getting a sedative to knock my boy out for the duration of the car journey. the doctor told herself of an excellent car sickness medication that had the added bonus of making the recipient sleepy.

so this morning at some ungodly hour we were awoken by herself, in her usual cheery morning mode. herself is the only member of the family capable of cheerfulness at an early hour. himself was decidedly uncommunicative. my boy was fast asleep but once awoken, sprang into action. the peeps had done about half their packing last night but there was still quite a bit of organising and sorting out of chaos to be done. we finally set off at just after 5am.

after a couple of stops to empty the old tanks we arrived in birmingham, where we are to stay for tonight in her maamship's flat. had it not been for a rather tiresome feline member of the maamship-prof family we could have stayed with them in cheshire. but the flat is rather nice. it has a lift. i have, of course, been aquainted with lifts before. but young dave was enthralled. there was a lady in the roof of the lift. when the doors closed she said "doors closing!" and as we went up she told us which floor we were passing. young dave was listening so hard his ears did that funny thing where they join at the top and look like a cheap toupee. at the top floor we spilled out of the lift and went into the flat. the floors are all covered in pale carpet, which i have to say was not a very good choice on the part of her maamship if she is going to make a habit of having disreputable characters like us to stay.

we have now settled in and have been for a little stroll in a local park which has strange metal trees. now it is time for a little snooze...