Throw away...

lines of mine and friends.

‘Look here me old matey!’

This to a person far used to being addressed as Sir!

(You can take the girl out of Dartford, sadly not Dartford out of the girl!?!)

Roy.

Two from a very dear eccentric friend...

‘As I was saying to my mother... 

the Queen!

‘To cut a long story short!’

then proceeding to cut a short story... l o n g!

Danny.

‘As camp as custard!’

and he was.

And...

‘Just like a fart in a colander looking for a hole to get out!’

Both of Danny’s sayings I use, feeling he lives on in his funny one liners.

Me.

Whenever I am asked by anyone about any numbers required ie 

How many slices of toast?

My reply is the same... 26!

(the fact I only ever have one, one and a half at the weekend is a mere bagatelle!)

My Auntie Marjorie I always called Auntie Margarine... that’s one from Danny.

I always call the fridge, t’oven

(the oven).

‘You’ve got one on the other side!’

as he stubs his toe or hurts his arm!

‘I am surprised he didn’t cock his leg up and show it who was the boss!’ 

I said as we all stood round ‘admiring’ the dead leopard rug!?! The person (mentioned above) was regaling us with how his Jack Russel had growled at first sight of the rug. 

All eyebrows were raised with glances at me of the unspoken words...

‘I can’t believe she said that!’

I shrugged and thought maybe they get my disapproval of this wonderful creature finishing up as  a ruddy rug... I did hope so!

Over the years I have opened my mouth and put my foot in it more times than I care to recall.

Have you any to share?

Clematis Cottage...

regular readers will know the problems I had walking this cast iron grille home, it weighed a frigging ton.  A wag of a friend described it as crowd control for the masses at a Victorian football ground!  Bloody cheek!  Right,  but  hurtful for all that!

When I spied it this was maybe at the back of my mind as to a possible use for it?  Far better than those naff cheapo metal arches that were a feature of this otherwise pretty little garden.  They bit the dust in short order, I’m nothing if not decisive?  Anyway what to put in their place?

The obelisks... obv!

This clematis is loving its new home as is the one adorning Clematis Cottage.  This is Ellie’s go to hidey-hole when she remembers she is a nervous collie, thankfully not often these days.  Now she retires to her bijou cottage to have a break from these tiresome human beings.

The Wrenery where the frenetic gathering of seeds, nuts and mealworms goes on at a pace as the birds have chicks to feed.

This is taken looking down from beside the greenhouse in the garden.  All terribly confusing!

This last photo is from my armchair.  The Wrenery was the thing that sold me on the cottage, an outside space, but not?

The tree fern loves it in there, I have two pots of Wiltshire ripple sweet peas, just about to get cracking, pots of palms and ferns all of whom seem to find it to their liking.  The birds feel safe, although not the pigeon who strolled in as we were having supper last night.  SAS-like I slithered across the floor from the kitchen through the jungle of the Orangery, popping up making a helluva hullabaloo and quite gave it a fright.  It bounced off the glass ceiling then flew off with I am sure a hangover?   I make no excuses... yes I am prejudiced!

A passing hedgehog called last year to hoover up the fallen seeds   so with the exception of flaming pigeons a nature reserve to equal any that the gaming John Aspinall had to offer!

‘Best we get...

up, we haven’t got all day you know!’

I wondered why he fell out of bed laughing?

Just a flavour of the start of our lockdown day.

It’s tipping with rain today:

my plans of sorting out my clothes are now very firmly in the frame, put another way...

no blooming excuse now not to.

Whether that means that it will get done is a moot point. (It’s the end of another ‘busy’ day and the clothes still haven’t been done!)  I do seem to have made an art form of appearing dynamical and doing absolutely nowt!  I have been too busy even to meditate, which let’s face it would be the ideal thing to calm and soothe.

We have just spent an hour this morning talking about the next improvement to our forever home.  We have been living in Ludlow a year now and still lots of dreams and schemes rattle through my head.

The next plan is to turn what we call Ellie’s bedroom into a kitchen/snug with a gas fired Rayburn.  The one thing that cries out for a Rayburn is this collapsed fireplace which in its day had an old cast iron range.  

Whether it is still there is hard to work out without taking the boarding at the front off.   The chimney we know has been knobbled, so no open fires there then, and certainly no flue for a stove.

This room as you can see is a suppository, yes, I know it should repository, however I think suppository suits it better because everything gets bunged in here!

The one thing I have decided is that all future plans will be well thought through.  If anything the ghastly/costly bathroom has taught us is to not listen to the experts; have what YOU want not want they recommend unless it suits your particular needs.

A definite time for reflection and no flying by the seat of my big pink bloomers which over the years I have perfected into a LL speciality!

Plastic bottles eat...

your heart out.

This is the way forward for you to  make a mark on the world other than in a turtle’s tummy!

The writing is on the wall for you to make a useful contribution to the world instead of gracing the appendages of gym bunnies, then the waste bin after your single turn in the limelight.

You can now hold your head high when this is what with a little forethought you can morph into.

A soft washable kilim, already Ellie has given it the paws up!

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!  Or on second thoughts best not as then you are buggering up the planet in another way.

A baby boomer...

brush!?!

Wot?  

The lass has finally lost the plot, now we always had a 

tinsy-winsy idea t’old lass was definitely losing it, this confirms it!

Let me introduce you to this paragon of virtue of a pan brush...

Roll of drums...pleeze!  

Simon my man who I have mentioned here, died in 2000 so that sort of gives me a ballpark figure as we bought it together on a trip to Rye in East Sussex.  I am a retired cheffette, so kitchen shops hold me in a thrall... sad, but there you are!  For many years one of my first ports of call was this lovely shop, sadly gone and is it any wonder after selling items that last this long?

Just this morning I said to the husband this brush is over twenty years old... like you do!?!

A few years ago now, I even bought a slinky leopard print replacement, let’s sexily slink up the washing up I thought... like you do!?!  I am nothing if not a forward hussy... err planner, I mean!

The ghastly things that come to mind now are

a.) is the blooming  brush going to outlive me?

b.) will the leopard change its spots and outlive the original 

and 

b.)  the most serious of all...

have I totally lost the plot writing a whole blog post on a  bloody brush?

Don’t bother with answers on a postcard, because we all know!

As we walked out of...

the forest and through the soon to be emerging bracken I was reminded of a time years ago in the Highlands.  The memory came flooding back of the melt down, the heat, the panic.  After struggling down the hillside with a hessian sacks on my shoulders full of peats, my job then was to fill the barrow and push it along the track through the bracken.  The day I remembered vividly was very hot, so was I!  As I brushed past the fronds overhanging the path clouds of midges swarmed up and homed in on me.  I am ashamed to say I had a total and utter meltdown... luckily no one was there to see, or come to that hear me.  I was tired, hot and had had enough, as Andy couldn’t drive it was my job to drive the loads home the eight miles along single track roads, past sheer drops into the sea and on getting home unload the sacks!
A chapter of a bygone era still there bubbling way, gone but not forgotten.  Recounting this tale of woe I then went on to say is  it any wonder folk think I am making these stories up?  Husband’s reply was straight to the point...
‘Most people have led a fairly conventional life, unlike you!’
I suppose he had a point.

It really is...

tough being a dog in this strange lock-down world. 

Mum keeps moving things, although this latest idea of putting my cheapo Aldi bed on top of my other (first of two)

off-the-cold-floor-bed, is I ought to say a master stroke.  And to think he wasn’t convinced I’d like it... how wrong he was! I ought to explain the other

off-the-floor-bed is in my bedroom, it’s called my night bed as opposed to this my day bed.

I heard dad chuntering on about all the stuff being moved, they think I don’t understand, that is a huge mistake!  Mum is a hard woman, she often gets us doing things we don’t want to.  We look at each other and agree not in so many word obv...what have we done to deserve this?  With me she brooks no bending of the rules, to give you a for instance just now I barked. I thought I heard the postman, who incidentally I like not merely for the fact he has given me treats to win me over.  He also doesn’t know I have sussed him out!  I am an intelligent collie, I just wish they wouldn’t keep forgetting!  Barking here is a complete no-no and usually I don’t mind as I much prefer a little light yodelling crossed with a low-fat wolves howl.  For some strange reason they smile as even though I say it myself it is a very melodic sound, not at all common like yapping!  Anyway, I digress I barked and as dad went to investigate I went to follow, however she had other ideas and called me back into the garden.  I sort of went halfway back a few times, which I thought was at the very least paying lip service to her wishes.  She wasn’t having any of it making me sit beside her with the immortal words...

‘I’m top dog around here!’

What could I say?  Well obviously nothing because it case you have forgotten I’m only a dog!

I climbed into my...

Austin Seven and drove away!

You have heard of the straw that broke the camel’s back, I am sure?

This wasn’t so much a straw as a socking great piece of railway sleeper!  A story for another day... maybe?

My memory was jogged about the farming chapter of my life by Elaine (see Tales from Parsonage Cottage on my sidebar)

Hares.

In our fields we had lots of hares which I delighted in watching especially the boxing matches.

The joy for them and for me was one of life’s simple pleasures. 

We had a huge top field alongside the back lane.  One morning walking the plot with the farmer, we saw in the distance just in from the hedge what looked like a man with a goat on a lead.  Leaving the farmer husband way behind I strode forward indignation in every step.

‘I say, there is no public footpath through here!’ 

my dulcet tones reverberated across the Vale of York!  At the sound of my voice and probably the sight of me hoving to at speed, made him turn on his heels and run clambering through the gap in the hedge dragging the goat (on closer inspection a greyhound) with him.

What we found out after that was our field had been used for hare coursing, all the while with us completely unsuspecting!

The police were informed and we kept a very keen eye on the top field, which being well away from the house wasn’t easy along with all the other chores of a dairy farm.

With a face like...

a smacked arse himself has been helping me today.

The reason for the most reasonable of men to be crabby is... I have taken a Pickford’s pill and have the strong desire to move.  Only furniture, mind!

Now if there’s one thing in my experience men don’t tend to like it’s a rearrangement of their world.

Now it is a well known fact I am not known for my skills as queen of clean.  I sit and try not to notice the vesuvian layers of dust  as they slowly grow ever higher. My idleness grows in direct proportion.  I notice the right hand curtains are just a few cms longer than the left, just a matter of hopping up and moving the hooks a tad.  Do I do it? 

Oh dear No!  The dog hair blows through like tumbleweed down the  high street of Deadwood after the gold rush has gone. 

Well until today!  I climbed out of bed with purpose.  What shall I do for badness today?  I know, a little light rearrangement of furniture sounds like a cunning plan!  Now himself knows only too well that this involves him far more than me!  I am the chief he is the Indian.  I am the ideas, he is a bloke who likes a quiet ordered life without change or disruption... come to think of it what feller doesn’t?  So off we go, his scowl could polish pots far better than Brillo.  With every fibre I try not to notice,  maintaining a bright upbeat... 

we can do this sort of persona.

We sit in the Orangery which looks so much bigger waiting for our newly order kilim made from... wait for it... recycled bottles.  He still has a air of glum and I am glowing with gleam of having been given a good seeing 

 to by Mr Muscle.  I am happy!  Give it a day or two and he will be saying how much better the room looks.  

All this talk of...

flour (or lack of) has reminded me  of our weekend in Bruges.

We decided to hire bicycles and cycle to Holland, like you do?

We were with the wicked stepdaughter and her man, so a lot of fun was had, not least at my expense!

Along the canal path we passed a working windmill, a detour was called to give the oldies a chance to get their wind back?  We clambered up the different levels viewing the quern stones doing their stuff.  As I crested the top floor my eyes locked onto the size 14 feet, with each ascending step... legs clad in rough hewn linen trews came into view.  Next his accruement area, his hands the size of sides of dutch ham, his chest clad in a smock of what looked like the material of the sails.  All of this topped off with a mop of blond hair and a beard.

My heart started doing the most amazing of flips, I went weak at the knees. The unkind amongst you might think well looking at the size of her backside on that bike I’m not surprised!?!

I knew different: I knew right down to the souls of my boots my libido was alive and well!

Nothing to do with the 326 steep steps we had crampon-assisted puffed up... well only a 

tweeny-weeny bit!

The others were quickly sated of the miller and his tale.  Me, well it won’t surprise you to learn I was fascinated by each word of broken english that issued out of his lips?  Eventually I peeled myself out of his orbit and glanced out of the window to see the three of them cycling off further into Holland. Like the News of the World reporter I made my excuses and left.  

With stout legs pumping I managed to catch them up.  It doesn’t take much imagination to realise the ribbing I got?

‘All I really, really want is...

a bath I can lay in reading my book and topping up the hot as the water cools!’

‘That won’t be a problem, there will also be a shelf at the end for a glass of wine if the occasion demands!’

I visibly brightened.

Not to put too fine a point on it I am a bit of a short arse, super model elevations I don’t have?

As long as the ‘nice young man’ had a handle on my requirements I was happy to let the bathroom people do their stuff!  They are doing this 24/7 I trust their judgement.  That was my fatal error!

After lots of mistakes, i.e. the shower screen wasn’t large enough to stop one drip of water from cascading onto the lovely cork floor. A major leak where one of the partners had completely failed to solder a joint on the shower, discovered after the whole bath area was tiled! I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt as to their competence!?!

After all the ‘minor’ hiccups were corrected I decided the time at come for the inaugural soak in the tub.  In I clambered... err... where could I put my book, the bath was such a tight fit in the space the edges were minimal.  I laid back only to find the bath was far too long for me to lay in and still have my head above the plimsoll line.  Added to which the control for the water was half way up the frigging wall so that meant I had to clamber up out of the bath, not easy without ample room to heave yourself up by bracing your arms on the sides.  My request for a short bath had completely gone by the way.
I now have a wonderful looking bathroom which is totally and utterly useless.
The bath is used as a rather large and very expensive shower tray.
Why didn’t we complain and get it sorted?  A question I ask myself frequently when all I really wanted was a good old fashioned soak in a tub!  On the occasions when I am feeling poorly and or decadent I do love a bath.
As it is far too much hassle sadly it never happens.
Looking on the bright side I am saving water!

Ever so slowly the...

wheels are coming off!

Without really noticing it I have stopped waving the magic mascara wand over the old eyelashes.  I throw on any old combo of clothes always clean though.  In the past I have thought about the coming day’s ensemble and what the day has to offer and where my bird of paradise preening presence will fall out of the sky like an bird of prey locking on to an unsuspecting innocent!

You have to laugh at this old trout who until recently thought she was the epitome of well not exactly good taste.  An acquired taste sort of taste!?!

Now I am on the cusp of not even moisturising my neck for heaven’s sake.

One piece of advice I was given by a man who was told by his aunt your neck gives away your age quicker than all the rest put together!  The man bit the dust long ago, his aunt’s advice stays forever with me!

I suppose as I have a very distinct yen to be a bag lady this is a the first of many steps along the way to my goal.  Next will be not washing, no tiresome plucking of stray hairs on my chin.
Have you let standards slip, or am I the only one?
***
The obelisks arrived yesterday and before anyone thinks I shouldn’t have ordered them at this time, they were ordered long before this ghastly pandemic took hold.  The email arrived to say they were made and could Dave bring them on Friday.  He lives in Wiltshire, when I queried about him coming all this way he said he always delivered the obelisks himself.  He said he would naturally keep the regulation 2 metre distance.  My feeding gene was severely tested as I knew I couldn’t feed the man.  My usual MO is to bake and make tasty food for all comers.  He is a one man outfit who works in his workshop beside his home so his business carries on.  
The first one is in situ, the second one will be done when this 
tipping rain stops!

Words fail me...

How did we get into this pickle of 

the rich/‘famous’ thinking they are such superior beings that they have the answer to the world’s ills?

Who exactly do they think they are in their gilded cage thinking folk’s dreary lives (in their exalted opinion!) need cheering up by their vacuous excesses!

I do hope you can read it?

A piece in today’s Times 2.

As if we haven’t had enough of that particular branch of the family bleating?

Not to put too...

fine a point on it...

I have always cut to the chase and said it like it is... preferably with knobs on.  Not ordinary common or garden knobs but big ‘have some of that!’ hairy ones!

Like Boudicca, along the way, men, women and mere babes have been subject to my advice as the law according to LL (Lettice Leaf) has been pronounced from on high.  Or rather from my chariot as it rides rough shod over all sensibilities.

A much loved cousin who always whatever time of day you visited looked for all the world like she had stepped out of a current copy of Vogue, alright Vogue of the early fifties... but still!

She would saunter to the door having peeled herself up from scrubbing the kitchen floor looking a million dollars.  Her home was immaculate, her body was slim and svelte like with creams and portions applied vigorously.  There was a chink in her armour: for all of the above she had a vice... smoking!  Me, looking for all the world like a bag lady crossed with a tramp felt, I hate to say superior as I strolled in... not to put too fine a point on it... a flaming scruff, saying

‘Chris, you are top show, you care so much about your appearance but have no care for what is going on inside!’

What gave me the right?

Another given the ‘benefit’ of my advice was a Highlander who I thought the world of, he when I lived there was away with the fairies with the demon drink.  He would come to visit with a bottle of whisky and drink it until it was gone, along with ours.  Then he would demand more, I would get my hands on his shoulders, stand him up, turn him round, open the door and gently boot him out.  On one occasion when he demanded more I gestured to the bottle of meths on the window sill and said...

‘Here have this!’  He wasn’t too far gone to not feel mortified at my suggestion!

We are now firm friends.  Many years later and since I left the Highlands, he no longer smokes or drinks alcohol and is the first to say, he wouldn’t be alive now if he had carried on the way he was.

Nothing to do with me and he smiles at our reminisces of past arguments!

A lovely, lovely man.  

My cousin sadly I have lost touch with, so who knows where she is at? 

As I sit in the garden thinking back over a life well lived, 

warts n all it is interesting to know how I’ve flaming got away with being such a

blooming battle axe?

As we all face our mortality in these most taxing of times it is interesting to look back and wonder?
Where we went wrong, where we went right, where we could have ‘put a sock in it!’ especially pertinent to yours truly!  And more importantly how we will/must behave in the strange new world waiting for us as we emerge from the darkness into the light.
Let us never forget!

If you’ve ever kept...

hens you will know they sometimes lay an egg had hasn’t formed a shell.  The egg is just covered in   a soft membrane.

That’s exactly how I felt yesterday when I ventured out for the first time for weeks.  I felt strangely exposed and vulnerable?

My reason for getting in the car and going to our local pet superstore is that like a clot I had ordered on-line the wrong dog kibble.  I phoned to see whether they had Ellie’s usual brand, and as they had, I decided now was the time for me to venture out.  The girl that got the bag out of the car, sneezed three times, I really resented feeling a tad anxious, not at all like my usual carefree self!  The store was operating a strict rotation of customers.  All good until I asked the same girl if she could help me get to the flavour at the bottom of the pile of bags.

She came up keeping the regulation 2 m distance and said

‘This is the same brand you have just brought back!’

Well my flabber had never been more gasted!

‘What an idiot!’

Good job it was her otherwise I would have trundled home with the exact same one!

This self isolation is having an odd effect?  It was quite obvious I had left my brain back at home!

I needed some vegetables so seeing the queue was just a few people I donned my gloves and waited.  Once again the little supermarket at the garage next door was being very strict with one in, one out.

I got what I wanted and drove back through a deserted Ludlow feeling relieved and happy to be home.

Strange times we are all living through.

Happy Easter!  

Be well and most of all be safe!

xXx

Look, I might offend...

some folk here, but it has been a family joke for years...

hold tight...

hostess trolleys!

It started when my son and his wife and children went over to her parents for Sunday lunch.  The hostess trolley would ceremoniously be rolled out groaning with twenty six different veg(slight exaggeration) the joint, roasties and Yorkshire pud’s.

The fact that there was barely enough space in the dining room for them let alone the flaming trolley was completely overlooked. My son who had the honour of sitting next to it, had to wait until last as he  served the rest of the family.

All the contents were at least hot-ish, if not a tad over cooked by then!

Unbeknown to them, unkindly we got a lot of mileage out of this apparatus of yesteryear.  So much so that when they divorced it seemed only natural to enquire as to who had custody of the flaming trolley?

All of this came into my mind when I emailed my son to say we were self isolating and I had to chain the husband’s leg to the drinks cabinet to prevent him from going out to shop!

Drinks cabinet?

Hostess trolley?

You see the link?

I then went on to say after this lock down is lifted I plan on reverting back to my ‘invite the world and his wife to dine’ persona that I once had! For this very reason the first thing on my shopping list will be... yes, you’ve guessed it... a

hostess trolley.

They will read my missive and come to the conclusion she’s been off her trolley for years so I suppose now is the right time to get a new one!?!

‘Mirror, mirror...

on the wall which foot has the ugliest corn of them all?’

I have been set on a mission by my lovely 95 year old ‘Mum’ Audrey.

The other day, she said in passing that she had broken her mirror which she needed to see the bottom of her feet!

‘Oh dear that means seven years bad luck, that will make you 102 before your luck turns!’ I said.

She laughed as she with all her health worries isn’t going to let the common old Covid get her!

I need a new magnifying mirror to see the bottom of my feet (she’s diabetic) and to see the blisters  that keep bursting in the paper- thin skin of her legs.

Now I’m nothing if not dynamical when it comes to getting on the case of real need for a very vulnerable person.  I found what I thought would be ideal and got it sent pronto.  All good as she was amazed at the speed of its arrival.  Next day, I got a rocket!  Where is the invoice? I plaintively replied this is our Easter present, as we haven’t been able to get out and get you one.  She wasn’t having any of it!  Added to which it wasn’t at all suitable?  I then located just the identical one from John Lewis I had, and duly got that ordered.  I then sent the copy of what was coming together with the order confirmation showing the price.

I sat back thinking she can’t find fault with this as it is just what she was looking for!?!  Two emails came in quick succession to say stop the order.  She would wait 

until the hardware shop reopened and she could choose her own!  You really have to admire her style for thinking she would be still alive when the blooming hardware shop sprung into life again!

I did try to cancel the order but time had gone between me placing the order and trying to cancel it.

She was going to faceTime me last night, I had my mirror to hand to show her exactly what was due to arrive.  Audrey emailed to say as she had been far too busy yesterday she was tired and didn’t have the energy to talk.   

Then I got a video about laughing yoga, which she found highly amusing and so did I.

My love but most of all my admiration for her knows no bounds... 

What a woman!

I still haven’t told her the mirror is on its way and another rocket will be fired off at me... Am I bothered?

Not a bit!

Taken a few years ago now... 

‘Houston we have a...

problem!’

On the Boris approved walk of the day, all was going fine until we got to the dreaded lactic ladder and Ellie once again shot off.

As me keeping out of sight seemed to work the first time it 
happened, we decided to give it another go, only this time both hide.

Ellie it would appear is far more intelligent than both of us Mensa grand masters... that last bit is a stonking great fib!

We hid where we thought she couldn’t see us, a cunning plan some might think  trouble was after fifteen frustrating minutes we emerged to find her in a totally different vantage point where see could plainly see us.

Ellie - 1

Us - 0

We had decided we would walk back along the bread walk.  We both saw her immediately and pretended we hadn’t... like you do!?!

Eventually she came down from on high to join us.  I went to clip her on the lead, she half decided not to play ball, then thought best I go along with what they want? We then turned for home, both of us feeling fairly fed up with her and I ought to say... ourselves!

The thing is all this keeping as far away from folk as we can has fed her fear, and now she seems frightened of every approaching person taking avoiding action.  Added to which in the mix she has discovered that she has control!  The walk in the woods is always now busy with lots of people following the prescribed one hour exercise.  Today we are going to go to the forest and see how this goes?  The forest walk is a five minute drive from here and you see  nobody to speak of, probably even less now.  We are between a rock and a hard place.  Any suggestions about how to discourage Ellie getting the upper paw would be gratefully received?

‘Throw it against the...

wall and see if it sticks!’

This heading on Joanne’s blog... ‘Cup on the Bus’ of a few days ago reminded me of a post for my blog.

Those were more or less the words I used...

‘Roll it up in a ball throw it on the wall and it WILL stick!’

My words reverberated across the air waves of our local radio station... ‘Radio York’.

Through the glass as I was finishing my weekly food round up I saw the producer indicating that  I should join him.  Naively I thought the slot had gone down well!  How flaming wrong can you be?  As I walked into the adjoining studio he laid into me.

‘It isn’t your job that is on the line here... it’s mine!  There are folk that cruise the airwaves laying in wait for libellous statements and that is what you have just made!’

My mouth opened and closed a few times, for once lost for words!?!

Feebly I said ‘Well it’s true!’  I was referring to sliced white bread which I had called gunge, made by a well known manufacturer!

The rest of the piece had been fine, alright my avant garde take on food however...

The funny thing was I was never asked to do that particular slot again?  A few days later I met his wife who was full of praise of my contribution saying how refreshing it was to hear someone speaking their mind!  Hopefully she said the same to her old man?

At Radio York I also did a weekly cooking slot on the radio... more tales of that some other time.

‘Cooking on the radio?  That confirms it... the woman is crackers!

A walk on the...

wild side in the woods.  Our hour’s exercise is now the same one every day.  Over Dinham Bridge and up the lactic ladder into the woods, back along the bread walk by the River Teme and home.  Well that is the tried and tested route until Friday, when Ellie had other ideas!  I was staying in as we were expecting a delivery from the butchers.  At the end of the bread walk, Ellie decided she wasn’t quite ready for home and shot up the lactic ladder for another circuit... ‘Look here I’m a young collie and need certainly more than a one hour trundle around the woods!’

Himself stood at the bottom and waited using the whistle a couple of times.  She stood at the top not having any of it! 

Eventually he told her to sit and wait and she did, he then when up to her put her on the lead and home they came.

With my matronly bosom heaving in indignation at the sheer effrontery of the hound.

Unspoken words echoed through my battleaxe brain... ‘Well she certainly wouldn’t have tried it on with me!’

Yesterday off we went, same route,  and yes you can probably see where this is going...

She did the exact same thing!

We sat on a seat, not permitted, but hey!?!  I whistled a couple of times, no joy I could see her high up on the cliff type edge of the woods.  I turned my back to her and waited.  I turned just too soon, as she was halfway down the steps, as soon as she saw me look, back up she went!

Little bugger!

Next I sat on the ground, back towards her... no joy.  All the while Ted sat on the seat, this went on for fifteen flaming minutes!

I then had the bright idea to walk right under the cliff, completely out of sight.  Within seconds, she came haring down, straight past Ted on the bench, swerving as she saw me stood back from him.  She rushed up to me looking relieved, I quietly said ‘Good girl!’ and home we came!

In one way I am glad she is finding her feet, in another I am sad that she isn’t getting enough exercise!

Butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth type of dawg!