its all pooh

dear readers, i have been prompted out of my silence by discovering a half-written post about a most blogworthy sunday morning.

the sunday in question was a lovely sunny day, which was just as well as it was the day herself had arranged to move rather a lot of the magnificent bonzo's magnificent pooh from the field where he used to live to her friend mary's allotment.  (for the benefit of my overseas readers an allotment is a strip of land you can rent to grow vegetables on if you don't have the space in your garden.)  herself no longer has a towbar on her vehicle as uncle gary has taken over custody of the 4 wheel drive and we now travel in style in a blue van called dan.  she also no longer has a trailer as she rather rashly sold it when money was a little tight.

the lack of any means to move the pooh did not deter either herself or her friend mary.  mary has a trailer but no towbar, so there only remained this final part of the puzzle to sort out and the pooh would be on the move.   herself and mary have several friends with towbars and the shortlist was narrowed down to two.  of these, one had problems with the rest of the vehicle which meant towing anything was unwise, so the lucky winner of the pooh-towing contest was the magnificent bonzo's football coach who is called crisp.  crisp has a truck of generous proportions which herself rather tactlessly said had the look of a drug dealer's vehicle when she first saw it.  personally i would have thought someone involved in nefarious activities would be keen to avoid attention but herself is not known for her common sense.

anyway, at the appointed time herself and crisp called at mary's house to collect the trailer.  it was at this point that the first flaw in the plan became apparent.   at some point in the truck's former life someone had obviously shunted into the back of it, bending its rather fine bumper somewhat.   this meant that there was a smaller gap above the towbar than was ideal and the handle of the trailer did not fit into the gap.   herself went into mary's house and came back with a box of spanners and some wd40.   with a bit of wrangling the bumper was persuaded to wait in the garage, the trailer was connected to the truck and they were on their way.  mary has an injured shoulder so was not allowed to be involved in the actual shovelling operation.

when herself and crisp arrived up at the hill, herself thought it would be wise to call in on mrs collie, the magnificent bonzo's former landlady, to let her know what was occurring, lest she thought someone was stealing the pooh.   other than young dave i am not sure who would be interested in stealing pooh but there you are.  mrs collie's house was full of people who had stayed the night having been to dinner the night before.  they were creating a feast for breakfast and the kitchen was a hive of activity.  this did not deter herself from making a pot of coffee and liberating some leftover banoffee pie for herself and crisp.

eventually they could put off the pooh-towing no longer and went out to the muckheap.  some vigorous shovelling and raking later the trailer was full.   it was not until the intrepid pooh-shovellers attempted to tow it back onto the track that it became apparent that the trailer had a puncture. regular readers will know that this is not the first time that such an event has occurred.   there was the occasion of the wood in the wood.  and then there was the occasion of the camping trip.  so the idea of a puncture was not entirely new.

ever the optimist, herself took out her patent tyre-pumping up gadget from her van.  this plugs into the cigarette lighter thingy. herself pulled the van up next to the trailer and got ready to inflate.  the fatal flaw with this operation was that the cigarette lighter thingy in herself's van was inoperative.

"never mind," she said to crisp, "we can plug it into your truck!"   this plan was unsuccessful as well due to the wire not being long enough to reach from the truck cab to the trailer tyre.  the trailer could not be unhitched due to the weight of the pooh.  herself's van was full of scrap wood and her jack was under the floor under the scrap wood so changing the wheel presented something of a challenge.

as the pooh-shovellers were debating what to do next a group of people came by, accompanied by some dogs.  herself, as is her habit, stopped to chat.

"is that little grey dog called merlin?" she asked, pointing to a doppelganger for young dave, who we have met before.

"no, he's pagan," replied the owner.  i'm not sure what relevance the little chap's spiritual beliefs had to anything but there we are.  anyway, eventually herself was persuaded to return her attention to the flat tyre.

"i know," she said, "i'll see if anyone has a car jack and we can jack up the trailer and change the wheel for the spare!"   with that, up she sprang and sprinted into mrs collie's house to pester the poor long-suffering hungover people.   amazingly, a jack was located and with no further ado the trailer was levitated and the wheel changed.

the journey back to mary's allotment was slow but uneventful and the pooh was duly deposited.  there only remained returning the trailer, unhitching it from the truck, re-fitting the bumper to the truck and then having a cuppa and all was well.

somehow i think it might have been simpler to persuade the magnificent bonzo to position his rear end over mary's vegetables from time to time...

pastures new

hello dear readers! i have finally managed to get herself to sit still and type for me. as regular readers will know, she has been thrown a little off kilter by the loss of her dad. whereas most people might want to rest and relax when things like this happen, herself, after a short interlude of calm, got back her taste for activity.

to be fair, some of the activity was thrust upon her. there was the small matter of the chickens, for example. one afternoon at work herself received a text from mrs toby to let her know that the magnificent bonzo had seen some rather tasty looking grass over the track to his field and had decided to go over and sample it. he had failed to take into account the fence in the way and had simply launched himself at it in his usual enthusiastic fashion. he had cleared most of it but the top rail had bitten the dust. herself persuaded miss shell, who gives her a lift home from work, that they might need to leave a little earlier than planned. no sooner had she returned to her own desk than her phone rang. it was my boy.

"we're just on the way back from college," he told her.

"oh good," said herself, "i'll see you when i've fixed the fence up at the field." so famous are the magnificent bonzo's showjumping ambitions that this needed no explanation.

"there's a bit of a complication," said my boy.

herself waited.

"i've got a cockerel in the boot." it transpired that the cockerel was surplus to requirements at my boy's college due to being unable to father chicks. had my boy not brought him home he would have been for the chop.

"just as long as you understand that we are not setting up cockerel rescue!" said herself, mindful of the fact that she and her colleagues deal with complaints of noise nuisance in the area. as it was obvious that the cockerel could not live in our small but perfectly formed back garden due to his vocal range he was taken up to the field to share with the magnificent bonzo. he was named george and was temporarily housed in a metal feed bin pending more salubrious quarters being constructed. bonzo appeared to be oblivious to his operatic warblings and indeed took something of a brotherly interest in him.

the rest of that week was taken up with finding some company for george and building him a house. the company side of it was sorted out by mrs rose, who has many chickens. she was able to supply the peeps with a lady chicken who was duly named rose. this was particularly apposite as mrs rose has a husband called george. the accommodation was slightly more tricky. herself designed a chicken house which was to be made from a large crate that the snake-charmers donated, clad with the leftover wood from the horse shelter in the field. true to form, herself went at its construction hammer and tongs. unfortunately the hammer part of this very swiftly left herself with a painful and unusable arm. it appeared from research on the internet that herself had acquired golfer's elbow. for someone who has only played golf once (and that on the other side of the world so presumably using the other arm) this had a certain irony.

the lack of a hammer arm meant that himself and my boy were drafted in to finish the chicken house. suffice to say that there was a certain amount of discord. in fact so much discord that george the cockerel seemed positively melodious. eventually it was finished and the chickens moved in. an electric fence was purchased at great expense to stop them being eaten by foxes and then things briefly calmed down.

shortly afterwards bonzo was due to go to uncle gary's hoof camp for some more lessons. he has now progressed to the module on "keeping your rider calm in spite of squirrels leaping out from hedges and scaring her", to be followed by "putting up with inane hoof-curling sweet-talk from middle-aged women". the latter is essential study for all horses. it takes a strong stomach and an iron constitution to put up with some of the gooey nonsense herself and the Hoard of Menopausal Women come out with.

anyway, on the way back to uncle gary's in the lorry the talk turned to the sometimes tricky business of keeping a hoss up on the windy hill, especially in the winter. an arrangement was hatched out whereby herself would work in uncle gary's stables in return for bonzo's keep. there will still be hay and food to buy but there will be a lot less hassle and a lot more company. so bonzo's friend libby is going back to her owner and the chickens were moved yesterday to uncle gary's. the chickens traveled in her maamship's cat basket and the chicken house followed behind on the trailer. i could have sold tickets to the performance of putting the chicken house onto the trailer. and indeed getting it off at the other end. but eventually the chickens were ensconced in chicken heaven under a tree in the field at uncle gary's.

this morning herself and my boy went up to uncle gary's. when they arrived they saw an ambulance. it transpired that the chickens had been causing trouble. when the horses were being led in from the field george and rose had been making chicken noises and scrabbling around in their house. to a horse unfamiliar with chickens the house would have looked very scary and the horses panicked and galloped off. unfortunately a young person who works there got injured in the middle of it all. fortunately she was not badly hurt but she was very shaken and bruised and everyone felt awful, especially herself and my boy. the ambulance people checked her over and said she was ok to go home so her mum came to fetch her.

so the chickens had to be moved from where they were to somewhere out of the way of horses. herself and my boy spent the morning doing the whole chicken house moving thing again, although they have now for it down to something of a fine art with all the practice. the chickens are now in a new place and all that remains is for herself to erect the electric fence and they will be fine.

i have just realised that the 'small matter of the chickens' to which i referred earlier has turned out to be rather less small than at first appeared. so you will have to wait until next time to find out what else has been occurring...

three wheels on my wagon

dear readers, i was going to fill you in on the progress in bonzo's education since his course. during the course he did particularly well at the module on 'how to tread on your human's foot and make it black and blue for a week'. the following day he built on his progress by jumping out of his skin at a passing shed while out on one of his walks, shoving herself face-first into a clump of brambles and nettles and leaving her face looking like she had fallen out with a tiger. but, true to form, life has thrown up yet more blog-fodder at a speed i find impossible to match.

the latest chapter came about because of herself's wish to continue bonzo's education with uncle gary, who is a first class teacher of both horses and their riders. it is rather pricey to pay for bonzo to be transported around the place so herself has been unable to take him to see uncle gary. the idea of purchasing a horsebox to transport him came upon her the other evening. no sooner had she had the idea than she was bidding on more than one horsebox on ebay. this was a rather risky strategy, although one of the horseboxes was only £5 at this point so the risk of having to embark on a programme of quantitative easing was lessened somewhat. in the event the £5 horsebox soon shot out of herself's price bracket, leaving her bidding on one that was within her budget (or more accurately within her overdraft limit).

herself was unable to wait for the outcome of the auction, and in any event the bidding price was reaching the 'buy it now' price, so herself's shopping finger clicked on the 'buy it now' button and the horsebox was ours. there is a little thing called paypal in ebay which allows you to pay for things very quickly indeed, so herself duly paid for the horsebox and then e-mailed the seller to arrange to pick it up.

it was at this point that things began to unravel somewhat. the seller wrote back to say she would only accept cash. herself replied that the ad had said that paypal would be fine. the seller appeared to have put the ad on ebay on her blackberry (not the edible sort, but a little communication gizmo that my more technically able readers will be familiar with) and had not pressed the correct button. anyway, herself was not to be put off and collared her maamship (who was down for the weekend) to come along with her. young dave and i were not allowed to join them, so what transpired took some time to filter through.

it appears that there were further communications from the seller during the journey, but none of these gave the exact address at which the trailer was stored. so herself and her maamship arrived in a little village in remotest surrey, where the local population was obviously extremely rich, without the foggiest idea where they were headed. they drove slowly around, trying not to look too dodgy, peering through hedges to see if they could see any horses (their combined forensic legal minds had concluded that someone with a horsebox to sell most probably had a horse to put in it). by now her maamship had started to giggle. herself kept trying to phone the seller but, what do you know, there was no mobile phone signal in the little village. i suppose the very rich people who live there send their butlers up to the top of the nearest hill to send text messages on their behalf when they need to contact their mates.

anyway, eventually herself and her maamship turned into a drive leading to a very large country mansion which had a sign saying that tradesmen and those visiting the riding stables should use the track to the left. on the basis that the people at the riding stables would know other people with horses in the area this was as good a plan as any. after travelling up a track for some time, turning round when they came to a dead end (by now extremely conscious that they were being monitored on cctv and probably being tracked by gun-toting private security forces) our intrepid explorers stopped to ask a man who was wielding a hose whether he knew where the seller lived. the man, at the mention of the name, looked as though he had a bad smell under his nose and pointed to a gate.

"they own those woods there," he said, before calling his dogs and retreating into his garden with the hose.

herself and her maamship parked by the gate and let themselves in, pausing to say hello to a bunch of dogs who were unconvincingly pretending to guard the place. a harassed looking woman greeted them, with a tale of woe about ebay and paypal and trailers and banks. she said her husband was on his way, at which point said husband arrived in a very large 4 wheel drive.

the conversation at this point concerned the fact that herself had clearly paid the price of the trailer to paypal and the fact that the seller and her husband had not managed to get the money into their bank account was due to their own lack of a password rather than anything herself had done. in spite of this the man asked herself how much cash she had on her, or whether she could let him have a cheque. she pointed out that as she had only just met him and his wife, and as they were in a wood rather than at an address, she was not inclined to part with any more money. when the man took a slightly lofty tone and said that it might be necessary to come back the following day, the fact that he was dealing with a solicitor and a judge somehow got dropped into the conversation in an effort to convince the man that the horsebox would not be stolen (for my american readers i should point out that our solicitors are rather different to yours) much to her maamship's embarassment.

there then followed a long discussion as to why the trailer was for sale which seemed to involve the sellers having bought it two weeks previously, from ebay. the reason the man gave for selling it so quickly was that his horse was too big for it. herself asked how big his horse was, to which the man replied that it was 18 hands high (a hand is a unit of measurement for a horse, and 18 of them makes for a very big horse). now call me a suspicious old lurcher but i would have thought that if you had a very big horse (and we are talking very, very big - the magnificent bonzo is only 16 hands high), you might just think to measure the trailer to make sure your horse would fit inside it. on the way back to the car, the man invited herself and her maamship into the barn to see his very big horse. herself was rather surprised to see that it did not appear to be an 18 hands high horse and indeed was not much bigger than bonzo. it could of course be the case that the floor inside the stable was lower but the man said the horse bit anyone who came near it so herself was unable to tell.

herself decided that at the end of the day what she was buying was the trailer in front of her and the sellers clearly had some sort of 'grip on reality' issue which she was not going to bother her head about. she and her maamship hitched it up, with the help of the slightly delusional man, and drove off. the minute they were out of earshot herself had pieced together a life story for the sellers, based on one or two facts and a lot of supposition. her maamship was slightly less judgmental, as befits someone who spends their whole week judging. she needs to sit on the fence at the weekends.

it would be hoped that this would be the end of the saga, but there is one final twist which i must share with you. it became necessary for herself to pull into a layby on the way home so a phone call could be made to himself to arrange for him to cook the evening meal (her maamship had promised fish pie but was of course unfortunately delayed). while they were there, her maamship took the opportunity to check the trailer. she was giggling even more when she got back into the car.

"call me pernickety," she said, "but there are only 3 wheels touching the ground. the fourth wheel is spinning in the air!" this did indeed seem to be the case. it was only when they got back to bonzo's field, and parked the trailer by the muckheap, that it was possible to see that the fourth wheel was a different size to the other 3. i feel a visit to a scrapyard in search of new wheels is likely to be the subject of my next blog post...

back to skool

dear readers, bonzo is going on a hoss course! herself came across a lady who teaches courses on 'what makes hosses tick' on the internet and decided to find out more. she was most impressed by the course outline and booked bonzo on straight away. today was the first day, when only the humans went along. herself came back full of how good it was and how nice the people were. one lady sounded particularly nice. she said that she really liked hairy lurchers so herself hooked out her phone and showed the lady pictures of young dave and i. it seems we were just the right amount of hairiness, and of course young dave looked very cute, as he does in a photo (in the flesh there is obviously the olfactory angle to deal with which is not to everyone's taste).

later on there was an exercise where the group had to get into pairs. one of them had to pretend to be a horse while the other one led them along. the one being the horse had to shut their eyes so they could experience how it was to move to someone else's signals. the lurcher-loving lady was herself's partner for this. it seems this lady had been blind for some years but had been given an operation which had restored some of the sight in one eye so she as at some advantage when it came to negotiating round a field without being able to see. after herself had been led round with her eyes shut, she said to the lurcher-loving lady how apposite it was to have the partially sighted leading the blind. luckily the lady had supernatural powers and understood this was intended to be witty or herself could have been dumped into the horse trough.

days 2 and 3 of the course have the hosses along. herself was a little worried about what sort of impression bonzo might make. he is very muddy at the moment as the field has been so wet. when the course lady rang to see about numbers, herself mentioned that bonzo looked rather like a yeti at the moment and she would have to tidy him up a bit. it seems this will not be a problem as they allow yetis as well as hosses.

the plan is for mrs rose, a friend of uncle gary's, and now of herself, to collect bonzo in her hoss trailer and deliver him to the course. he will stay overnight and then come back, with impeccable manners, on sunday evening. or at least that is the plan. i suspect it may take more than the one course...

no snow

dear readers, at last the magnificent bonzo is coming home!  regular readers will recall that after herself fell off him in december, bonzo was sent to uncle gary's hoof camp for some lessons in coping with an incompetent rider.  this included modules on standing still while said rider clambers aboard, keeping all four feet relatively near the ground, only galloping when told to, and saddle management, with special emphasis on its positioning on top of the body and not underneath.  

just before christmas uncle gary declared that bonzo had passed with flying colours.  he took herself out for a ride.  herself was a little apprehensive.  her apprehension turned to panic when bonzo started to get a little irritated with a small dog who was running in and out of his feet and barking incessantly.  bonzo prefers his dogs large and hairy, like his good self.  fortunately young dave and i are able to oblige in the largeness and hairiness department.

"gary, i'm really scared!" squeaked herself.

"just breathe," said uncle gary.  uncle gary is not herself's uncle, by the way.  he is bonzo's uncle, although i fail to see the resemblance.  i think it may be one of those courtesy titles.

herself breathed.

"i'm still scared!"  i suppose at least she was scared but breathing.

"if you calm yourself down, bonzo will respond," said uncle gary, "make your voice lower."

herself understands the importance of a low voice.  going into court and squeaking tends to give the game away to the other side that you are on the back foot.  over the years herself has learned to sound deeper voiced and more confident that she feels.

"good boy, bonzo," she said, sounding like a sumo wrestler.  or perhaps a bishop.  the rest of the outing passed without incident.  

a second attempt a couple of days later was much more successful and uncle gary said bonzo was ready to return home to his field.  however, the night before the big day it snowed and carried on snowing for some time.  everywhere was bathed in white.  the stables were snowed in.  the field was snowed in.  bonzo wasn't going anywhere.  it has to be said that bonzo had no objection whatsoever to this.  uncle gary's place is the horse equivalent of a health farm, with a warm barn, friendly people to scratch bonzo's big head, nice horses to chat to and lots of grub.  bonzo was very happy to spend christmas in the warm rather than in his drafty field.

eventually the snow thawed and plans were made for the journey.  but the day before bonzo was due to come home it snowed again.  this time it snowed even more.  mrs collie was snowed in up the hill where bonzo's field is (or more properly where mrs collie's field which bonzo lives in is) and had to be rescued by herself.  i was beginning to think that bonzo had come to an arrangement with the weather people.  it is decidedly suspicious that each time he was due to come home a blizzard arrived.

time passed and last week both the stables and the field were accessible.  herself began to make the final arrangements at the field to make it comfortable and safe for the big fellow and his new little friend.  there was one last bit of fencing to do, which fortunately a proper fencing man is doing today (the prospect of a fence erected by herself does not bear thinking about).

there is a ton a gravelly stuff to spread where the mud is but first herself needed to lay her hands on some hardcore to build up the area by the gate. yesterday she went on the internet and found some.  she rang the man and arranged to come and collect a trailer load.  the only downside was that the man was an hour's drive away, but at least the hardcore was free.  herself peeled herself off the computer and took young dave and i out for our walk.  as we approached the house the new neighbour the other side of the next-doors (this is not the owner of the little dog but the other way) came out.  he and his dad are doing major building work before his wife and baby move in.  the building work involves knocking down walls.

"you wouldn't have any hardcore, would you?" asked herself.  i didn't know where to put myself.  herself is a totter of many years experience.  she finds it hard to go past a skip without peering in to see if there is anything useful in it.  the advent of recycling as a worthy lifestyle has made this less of an embarrassment than it must have been in the past but by all accounts herself was at this lark long before recycling was invented.  but this poor man had hardly got the wall down and there she is scrounging it.

anyway to cut a very long story short (a saying, dear readers, no stories were injured) herself popped young dave and me into the house and wheeled her trusty trailer along to where the building was happening.  the arrangement is that the builders will fill the trailer with hardcore and herself will take it up to the field.  on the way down she will bring a load of the unmanageable and prickly old fence which she is slowly taking to the dump.   it made the fencing job cheaper if herself got rid of the old fence but she is regretting this particular money-saving ploy.   getting several hundred yards of rusty wire netting into a small trailer is something of a task.  it involves herself standing in a very precarious manner on top of the coils of wire in order to squash them into shape.  i may start selling tickets.

anyway, i am being told that i must draw this musing to a close as we are off to the field with the first load of hardcore.   i just hope that hoss appreciates all the effort...

wood is good

lately we have seen quite a bit of action. on friday, herself went up to where uncle martin works and collected a trailer-full of wood. uncle martin is a saint. uncle martin works at a place where they make wooden things and they have a lot of off-cuts of untreated wood. as well as giving one of his kidneys to keep himself going uncle martin has also kept our whole family warm over this winter with wood.

i have a theory about superkidny. as he came from a man who loves wood, he has been missing the tang of resin. but try as he might, superkidny could not kindle the love of wood in himself. himself's love of football stifles wood-love. so, by a crafty process of sending out wood-loving rays through himself's ample belly, superkidny has managed to infiltrate my boy. all of a sudden my boy has become interested in carpentry. in fact it is more than an interest. it is an obsession. my boy is not one to do things by halves.

the trailer full of wood has interesting shapes. uncle martin has been making wooden dragons. the offcuts are therefore unusual. my boy had the idea of making some things with it. he has had a mate round who helped. here are some pictures of the finished products.







so frenetic is the rate of production that even herself cannot keep up with recording the masterpieces. since these photographs were taken further wonderful artifacts have appeared. there was a mace (now sadly de-constructed as it had been made from the line pole which was needed to dry washing), a candle holder of very solid proportions and a bird feeder which would happily accommodate a couple of eagles without their feathers getting ruffled.

the only drawback with all this is that we are again running out of wood to burn. it is a good thing it has turned mild...

drama queen

dear readers, today's post very nearly did not get written. herself came downstairs yesterday to find young dave running round with her glasses in his mouth. in spite of being asked nicely he was reluctant to relinquish them, but eventually herself regained control. the glasses are none the worse for wear apart from falling off her nose more than they used to.

monday was a day of high drama. mondays are one of the days we walk kinky the dalmation. monday dawned wet. the first task of the day was for the peeps to drop off herself's car at the towbar place. himself has a car which was lent to him by some nice people called motability and now he has super kidny the car has to go back. so the peeps had to buy another car. the new car does not have a towbar. and because of the trailer we need a towbar so herself arranged for one to be fitted.

all went well until herself tried to start the car. "ner, ner, ner, clunk" said the car. and that was it. the peeps tried some things called jump leads, although i could not see much jumping from my vantage point in the window. more drooping than jumping, if the truth be told. then herself tried connecting the car to the battery charger (which involved asking mrs rokit to put the extension lead through their window as herself cannot work out how to remove the battery). while the car was absorbing electricity the towbar man rang. it seemed that unless arthur the audi was there sharpish they would have to come back next week. as you cannot hurry a battery charger arrangements were made for next monday.

eventually herself had pushed enough leccy into the battery to start the car so she took it off to the battery folks to get a new battery. himself was then dropped off at work. this was when things started to unwind. herself decided to take me and young dave and kinky to the beach, in an effort to avoid extreme sports in the mud. but the beach was a bad idea. almost the minute we go there young dave found something dead. it was not only dead but had been highly spiced. no-one could work out what it was but it smelt rough, even to my tutored nose. the next thing that happened was that kinky took fright and ran off into the road. it may have been the rain that elicited this response as it was horizontal and sharp at this point. anyway, herself caught me and put me in the car before trying to catch the younger folks. young dave would not come back until he had finished every morsel of the dead thing. so herself set off after kinky, who was making a bid for home. kinky eventually headed into a church, and young dave was curious enough to jump over the wall, whereupon he was apprehended by herself.

"jesus christ!" said herself. then, realising she was in the grounds of the church, she said to young dave, "i shouldn't have said that. it was disrespectful, given where we are." young dave is not a spiritual being so this was lost on him.

herself turned her attention to kinky, who had set off at a pace. after some time herself realised that kinky was looking round periodically to check she had a human in tow. if this had been me or young dave herself would have left us to get back to the car, but as kinky is the dog of friends there is a certain amount of responsibility involved. anyway, herself came back to the car and we drove around for some time before finding kinky and eventually apprehending her, with the aid of a kindly man who was passing.

after kinky had been delivered safely home we crawled back into the house, stunned by the weather. but there was to be no rest for the virtuous. a visitor was due, for whom extensive preparations had been made the day before. the visitor was from socialist services and was coming to help sort out my boy's fear. in anticipation of her visit the blood from my tail had been cleaned off the walls and the general air of decay had been replaced by the smell of air freshener.

as herself settled down on the sofa to compose herself before the arrival of the visitor, young dave began to retch. and before he could be encouraged into the garden he had regurgitated the whole of the rotting carcass, all over our bed. and i have to say it was one of the least fragrant offerings i have encountered. herself and my boy squealed. my boy was dispatched to fetch air freshener, while herself, with her face buried in her jumper, scooped up the vile offering into bags. no sooner had the worst of it been pitched outside than the socialist worker lady knocked on the door.

she was a nice lady, and polite about young dave's advances, but it was clear that herself was not relaxed. no doubt the thought of young dave's fondness for his nether regions was preying on her mind. at last the visit was over and the lady left, promising to write a letter to the people who deal with fear.

meanwhile i am camping out in the chair. nothing would possess me to sleep among that miasma...

how does your garden grow?

today provided ample blog-fodder, dear readers. in order to explain events today i will have to rewind a little. i hope those more distractable among you are able to keep up.

you may remember before himself's operation there was frantic activity involving mick and martin the builders. among other things they constructed a raised bed. this was for the knit-your-own-vegetables project, which is part of the money-saving drive. anyway, the raised bed has been sitting there waiting for herself to fill it with soil. she came home from work the week before himself's operation grinning like a cheshire cat (wash my mouth out!)

"i've met a man in the street and he is going to bring us some soil!" she said. it transpired that this was not quite as insane as it sounds. the man in question lives round the corner and has a lurcher so he can't be all bad. herself decided on him supplying the soil, not because of the lurcher, but because he has a truck which says that he is a landscape gardener. he came and had a look and a price was agreed for the work.

however, before the soil arrived, disaster struck in the form of a water bill. it seems we now have to pay for water in accordance with how much we use. regular readers will be aware that my boy likes to take his time in the shower. in addition there is a lot of hosing up after young dave. and the peeps are always washing clothes. so the water bill was huge. it ate up all the money herself had earmarked for the soil, so she had to tell the man she met in the street that it was not going to happen.

fast forward to the last time we saw the snake-charmers. they have a large garden which they have great plans for. they also have a large pile of topsoil which they don't want. herself, ever the resourceful one, said she would take it off their hands.

today was the appointed day for the collection of the soil. young dave and i were put in the back of the car. my boy was put in the front. he is off school with mysterious queasiness and dizzyness and general out-of-sorts-ness. the trailer was hitched up to the back. i had assumed that we were off on one of herself's wood-gathering expeditions but no sooner had we moved off than we pulled up outside the snake-charmers' house. the wheelbarrow was taken off the trailer, the trailer was unhitched and pulled off the pavement onto the drive and herself disappeared from view.

she soon returned, pushing very hard on the wheelbarrow, which had thoughtlessly acquired a flat tyre. in the barrow was a huge pile of soil. herself shovelled the soil into the trailer, while young dave and i watched in growing disbelief. it was quite obvious that the walk was not going to be for a little while. the operation was repeated at ever-increasing intervals, as herself got more and more tired. eventually she ground to a halt and my boy was collected to help hitch the trailer back up. they tugged away at the bit that attaches to the car but it would not budge off the ground.

herself went in and fetched mr snake-charmer. he doubled-up with laughter at the sight of the stricken trailer. then the three of them tried to lift it but it still would not budge.

"why us?" wailed herself, "i only want to grow a few vegetables!"

the trailer was left where it was to await a time when mrs snake-charmer would also be available. my boy also pointed out that removing the wheelbarrow from the top of the pile of soil might be helpful.

those vegetables had just better appreciate all this effort...

bombs away!

this post is a little out of sync, dear readers. in my excitement to tell you about the cupboard i failed to tell you about the trip to the dump. i will have to keep this fairly short as herself is suffering a bit with her car-pull tunnel wrists. nothing to do with laying paving slabs of course. she has finally given up attempting to beat the wrists and is trying to get the wrist-mending op done before himself's transplant. this is because she can't drive for any length of time without her hands going numb and the op will happen in london, a 2 hour drive away.

anyway, back to the matter in hand, as it were. on saturday morning, the diy god needed wood to line the cupboard. as the diy superstore is next door to the dump, herself decided to kill 2 birds with one stone(relax dear readers, its a saying) and loaded up the trailer with a pile of things that have been ejected from the garden. the gypsy, the diy god and herself negotiated the narrow streets fairly successfully and arrived at the dump. at the gate was a policeman. the dump was closed. you could tell because the gates were shut.

"sorry, but the dump is closed," said the policeman, stating the obvious, as only policemen can (apologies to sgt goose, who i know will understand), "someone appears to have inadvertantly thrown away a hand grenade."

"how careless!" said herself, laughing, all the while thanking life for throwing up constant blog-fodder, "why you would have a hand grenade in the first place is puzzling, but how you could throw away your hand grenade by mistake is even more puzzling."

"you couldn't make it up," said the policeman, who obviously draws inspiration for his lines from inspector gadget's blog.

later that day the peeps were out in the town when two bomb disposal vehicles roared by, nee-naws blaring. it seems the policeman had indeed not been making it up...

mother nature

herself is rather overwhelmed today. more accurately she is rather overwhelmed by plants. the day started well. herself drove my boy to meet his taxi, then took my lady friend and i for a lovely romp in the woods. from there things began to unravel. this morning was herself's gardening job, so we pootled along to our friends' house. these are the friends who have been babysitting our fish in a water butt while a pond was constructed at the new house. they have also been babysitting a variety of plants from the old house which are destined for the new garden, and the peeps' trailer. so this morning, before attacking a rather prickly shrub with a saw, herself hitched up the trailer and loaded as many of the plants as she could cram into it.

she turned her attention to the pruning and swiftly created an area that looked like the amazonian rain forest after the lumberjacks had been. my lady friend and i amused ourselves by turning circles at high speed on the rather nice lawn. while my lady friend has longer legs and is much faster on the straight, i am pretty good at a wheelspin, so i tend to outsmart her. after a while herself looked up at the sky. it had got very dark. suddenly rain poured down. my lady friend and i were swiftly bundled into the car and we headed off home, followed very closely by the trailer.

our new house is in a narrow street where you can only park on one side. there were no spaces. herself parked up at the end of the road on the yellow lines and unhitched the trailer. by now the rain was a deluge. she staggered down to our house and unsuccessfully tried to roll the trailer up the kerb. when it is empty the trailer is quite easy to manage. when it is full it is not. herself tried a couple more times. a queue of traffic built up. however, due to the deluge no-one offered to help. my lady friend and i watched helplessly from the back of the car. a truck containing two burly men turned round and went off to find another route. just then a kind neighbour came over and helped herself to pull the trailer up to safety.

a cup of tea and a change of clothes cheered herself up and she went off to work for the afternoon. she does not normally work on a thursday but she had to make up some time from earlier in the week. when she came home, it was to find more chaos. herself has a plastic greenhouse where she plants seeds. last weekend she spent a happy hour or so planting seeds for things to eat later in the year. but mother nature had snatched up the greenhouse and flung it on the floor. earth was everywhere. herself was miffed. but being a positive sort of person she got the dustpan and brush, swept up the earth and put it back into the trays. the greenhouse is now tied to the drainpipe so next time we have a high wind she will have to fix that as well as the greenhouse. and the seeds are all muddled up with each other, so lettuces will be shoulder to shoulder with spinach. at least all the plants in there are edible ones...

bouncing back

one of the advantages of having a blog, dear readers, is that even in the middle of the most difficult circumstances one can comfort oneself with the thought that when it is all over it will make good blog fodder. such was the case this week.

as my readers from the uk will know, it has been wet. there has been rain of biblical proportions. this has coincided with the 'clearing the drive' project. one pile on the drive was a large trampoline. when the captain and mrs captain left for sunnier climes, they gave the peeps their trampoline. my boy loves to jump, as can be seen from this photo. the plan was to erect the trampoline in the front garden. however, not long after the trampoline arrived, herself was signed off work. plans were hatched in an effort to avoid ruin. the plan most relevant to the trampoline was the 'build a house in the front garden and sell it to pay off the mortgage' plan. clearly there would not be room for a house and a trampoline in the front garden, large though it is. so the trampoline stayed on the drive, getting very wet.

herself would have sold the trampoline, but she could not see that anyone would want a very wet trampoline, even though it is waterproof, so she found a lady who has some bouncy children who wanted it. the lady has a very small car so herself offered to transport the trampoline in the trailer.

so thursday found my lady friend and i in the back of the car, watching the circus. young rokit is not allowed in the back as he cannot be trusted to behave, so he was in the passenger seat. as he did not have much of a view he contented himself with eating himself's sunglasses and removing the clip from the fire extinguisher, no doubt in the hope that the car would be filled with foam and give us all a laugh.

the rain on thursday was horizontal. herself and the trampoline lady battled the elements and eventually loaded the trailer with all the poles and canvas and nets. the trampoline was duly delivered to the lady's house.

now all that remains is for the dismantled shed to be collected by a mate of herself's who has bought it from the peeps, the last load of junk to be taken to the tip, and mr rokit to spread the rest of the gravel. then the peeps will be able to give a passable impression of people you might actually want to buy a house from...

a lick and a polish

well readers, it seems that selling a house does not just involve putting a sign up outside and waiting for someone to turn up with their cheque book. oh no. your have to make your house look smart. in our case this has involved herself turning into a tornado. yesterday she cleaned all the windows, cleaned the house, secreted the vast amount of camping gear in various corners, cleared a pile of junk on the drive and started spreading the ton of gravel that had been delivered by a large truck the day before.

by the evening she was exhausted and her hands wouldn't work. she has a thing called car pull tunnel. this is something you catch from towing cars with your bare hands. it means that she has to sleep with her hands in splints. himself kept saying "i can do some of it, let me help." herself refused point blank. he helped her dig up some plants a few days ago and went a very worrying shade of grey.

help was at hand in the form of mr rokit. he and rokit arranged to come along today and spread the rest of the gravel. in preparation for this herself got up early and spent a happy hour or two clearing the huge pile of junk off the drive. herself is in the habit of piling things up with a view to taking them to the dump and then getting distracted. so the pile grows. there was a very large heap of rotten wood which was no good for burning, a brazier with the bottom burnt out, some horribly slimey melted cardboard harbouring various wildlife, and all sorts of other joys. herself finally got the trailer loaded.

himself said he would come to the dump. this would have meant also taking my boy. at the moment, with all the stuff that has been going on, they are more troll-like than usual. herself therefore snuck out of the house on her own and headed for the dump. when she got there she remembered why another person was useful. she does not have very good trailer-reversing skills. not to be defeated, she collared a dump man to help wheel it into a space. she attracted some funny looks from fellow dumpists. in anticipation of getting covered in grime and slime she had not had a shower and therefore looked like medusa. added to this, the sort of person who does serious dumping of the type involved today is invariably a man. shifting rotten wood and slimy cardboard is not a ladylike occupation.

eventually, after a lot of huffing and puffing the job was done. but as she threw in the last fence post, her glove fell into the huge skip. in fact not her glove, but a glove belonging to our friends on the corner. these gloves have been in her car since she took a bunch of stuff to the dump for them. luckily, in fact extremely luckily, a dump man was standing next to her holding a fishing rod. maybe the dump people employ a special fishing gnome to make the place look nice. the dump man swiftly recovered the glove for herself, who thanked him profusely and told him it was the first good thing that had happened to her all day.

things improved further with the arrival of rokit and mr rokit. rokit had to be restrained from giving me the usual cuddle as he might have caught my shoulder pipe. but it was good to see the little chap. and mr rokit made short work of the gravel, putting the feeble efforts of herself rather in the shade. so the peeps settled down to a plate of chilli feeling much cheerier, leaving young rokit and i to chew each other's ears under the table...

a guardian angel

well, dear readers, today was an adventure to top all our others. i should have known that things were not going to be straightforward when i heard herself on the phone a while ago arranging this outing. but little did i know...

in our living-room is a contraption. for a long time i thought it was a tv. it has a screen just like a tv and little knobs underneath which i thought were for changing the channels. it did seem a bit odd that they all had the same programme on - some sort of inferno drama. but it became clear that the contraption had an entirely different purpose. it is a woodburning stove. which of course requires wood, in the form of logs. for a couple of years these have been purchased at great expense from a man up the road. however, what with the economy drive, herself decided to go to a place that was much cheaper, even though you have to collect them.

we set off, towing the trailer, in the general direction of the wood. after a fair bit of meandering around the countryside we met the lady whose logs we were buying at the pre-arranged place. she set off in her landrover down a lane, which became a track, which became a bog, until we pulled up in the wood. i was allowed to get out of the car as long as i wore my muzzle (as regular readers will be aware there have been one or two unfortunate incidents involving deer in the past). the log lady had a rather stout dog called charlie (who is pictured above). while friendly, charlie was a little too forward, so perhaps it was just as well i had the muzzle on or i might have been a victim of my hormones and given him a nip. i fear this would have been a mistake. charlie looks like a bloke who can handle himself. (indeed he has a special handle on his harness for heaving him into the truck).

anyway, herself loaded up the trailer with the logs and off we went. the log lady went ahead of us to open the gate. about half way along the track back to the road herself pulled up. it seems the dastardly trailer had again got a flat tyre. herself tried to ring the log lady to let her know we were no longer in convoy but there was no signal on her phone. luckily the log lady realised we were in bother and she and charlie came back. after an unsuccessful effort to jack the trailer up with a car jack, the log lady came up with a plan. she had a delivery to make nearby so she would lift the trailer, logs and all, onto the truck with the delivery and would then take us to a tyre place.



so back to the wood we went. herself and the log lady filled up a very large bag on the truck with logs. after a break for a cuppa and what looked like a rather delicious flapjack (no, dear readers, herself rather selfishly chose not to share it with me) we set off again. the delivery was dropped off and then we went to the tyre place, which luckily has seen this sort of thing before. the trailer was lifted off the truck (which luckily had its own crane for this purpose). here you can see the log lady operating the crane.



a very helpful young man sorted out the tyre and for good measure put a tube in both tyres to avoid this sort of tomfoolery again. when herself later recounted this to himself he reminded her of their honeymoon.

after profuse expressions of gratitude from herself the log lady headed off to chop up more logs and we headed home. herself had planned to hop into a hot bath but first she needs to move the logs into the new log store under the steps. before she can do that she needs to pump up the tyre on the wheelbarrow...