Reservoir dogs

Here is the news:

Last weekend

Pretty much perfect, thanks. The Blackwall Plantation site near Ashbourne was a cracking base for our Peak Forest sojourn, coping admirably with the influx of several million people on Friday afternoon. Well, not quite, but the caravans, they kept on a coming, the sense of invasion heightened by the fact that we’d pretty much had the site to ourselves on the Thursday. It was like a white wagon train...

As with many of the Caravan Club sites in wooded settings, the grounds had that neat and tidy but not manicured-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life feel about it, allowing us to relax a bit when it came to dog tiddling. Makes a change from having to frogmarch them out the front gate with a cork up their bums....There was also a fantastic woodland walk with views over the reservoir and the reservoir itself was only a five minute walk from the campsite entrance. The dogs were impeccably behaved all weekend for a change, receiving lots and lots of fuss and generally being an excellent advert for the breed.

The highlight of our stay was, of course, hooking up with Mike and Liz, ex of Snecklifter. They joined us on Saturday afternoon and we went off for a walk round the reservoir with the dogs, followed by tea and Bakewell tart (what else?) back at the van. We were then invited back for supper, which meant decamping from Blackwall and setting up home in a convenient lay-by just up the road from Mike and Liz’s house. We had no plans to move until the morning so an excellent dinner of pork in cider was washed down with a very nice drop of splosh. We’d also been promised a cooked breakfast so that was another incentive to stay – what marvellous hospitality! And it was wonderful to see the Holloways so settled and happy in their life ashore. Yes, they do get the occasional twinge of longing for the canals, but they have a great house in a super location and their lives are full of friends and family and new land-based adventures. We do hope we’ll get to see them again before Christmas.

 

Dog update

With the autumn winds starting to whistle round their bits, I thought it was time to get the dogs’ winter wear sorted out. I’ve been struggling with what exactly to get them as ideally I’d like something to suit all occasions – night-time sleeping, round the house and walking out.  Then A discovered www.forestfleece.co.uk and the fleece jumpers, with crew neck and no leg options, would seem to be just the ticket. So last night was spent measuring, picking the fabrics and ordering – easy, peasy, except that I had an email back querying whether the girth of one of my dogs really was 3 inches! Oops. I think there’s a 1 missing there somewhere...The hounds are going to look fairly ridiculous I feel, particularly Miffy as A insisted on getting her the pink check outfit with a lilac trim. Ranger’s having the red skulls (Ranger Danger) with dark red trim, Monty the green camo with khaki trim, Susie the colour swirl with light blue trim and Arthur the tiger stripe with black trim. Pictures may be forthcoming once we’ve worked out how to put the jumpers on – apparently the boys’ ones comes with a shortened chest piece so they don’t wee on it. That may not be enough with my lot as they do tend to whizz with abandon...

Sponsorship news

As we’ve got five of our own dogs we’ve also decided to have five sponsor dogs – seems only fair. So as well as Heather and Harvey, we’ve now sponsored Barney, Soldier and Freya at GRWE. We’re fast running out of room on the fridge with all the photos, certificates and magnets...

This weekend

Yippee, off to the boat for a week! It’s work admittedly as I have to go to Harrogate and Telford next week but it’ll be nice to be on board for a bit. We may even get round to the great poo tank gauge challenge – challenge in as much as ‘can we bear the stink’? But just think of the end game – no more living in fear of a red light and a protracted buttock clench until a WC or pump out hoves into view...